I just started my Janitorial service company in Southern California. I need to know how to go about pricing the job. How do I go about it. The job is taking care of the cleaning of some commercial building etc.. Anyone has an Idea how this works so I don't under charge or over charge?

When first starting a company it can be very difficult to figure out what to charge. Here is what I would recommend.

1. Call a competitor (assuming you have one that does very similar work) and ask what they charge. Use this as a rate to consider. You probably want to be lower so set your price lower.

2. Keep track of what it actually costs you to do the job. Wages, overhead, insurance, transportation, materials, etc. all need to be factored in. Figure out if you made or lost money and adjust your price accordingly.

3. Keeping track of profits/losses is always a good practice as it gives a record for you to go back on when you get into a pinch in the future.

I hope this helps. If you want to know more about how I would do it let me know and I can help you develop spreadsheets and other things to track expenses vs. revenue.

Aaron

There are many threads on this site that discuss this in depth. Put "janitorial," "cleaning," "service, etc into the "search button on the top of this page."

Also, join the following site; "the janitorial Store.com" for a small price much information is available to people starting new cleaning businesses...

If the job is on-going and you are contracted, I would do every thing possible to charge the correct price as you will be held to that price... on going for that job.

The right price will get you the job and a fair profit, the wrong price will get you nothing (no contract) or you will have the contract and possible loose money... neither obviously is good.

Stringer