The goal of any business should be to make money. However, it’s impossible to run a business without knowing what your profit should be. In the case of a janitorial service, you want to make sure that you’re paying your employees a fair wage. If not, you could end up paying staff more than the job is worth and still lose money.
The percentage of profit you want to make on a contract is entirely up to you. If you’re just looking for a cleaner to do the job in return for a flat rate, you don’t need to include a profit margin. But if you want to make money, you’ll need to include a percentage of the total cost of the job. A profit of between 10 and 20% is a reasonable profit to aim for.
Your profit should not be a fixed percentage of the total cost of the job. Instead, it should be enough to cover the cost of labor and supplies and return a small profit. For example, if it costs you $500 to clean a space, charging $500 plus 10% for profit would make sense.
The profitability of a janitorial service should be discussed before you begin working with a provider. Your profit should be somewhere between 20% and 30% of the total bill, but this number will vary depending on the size and complexity of your property. You may not want to go with the highest-paying contractor just because it’s the lowest bid you received.
You can set the profit percentage any way you want, but the most important thing to think about is your total investment. If you’re only going to lose money on a cleaning job if it fails, it doesn’t make sense to set your profit percentage very high. Having a lower profit percentage allows you to take more chances. If you want to run a small business, you want to be willing to take risks to make sure it’s profitable.
The amount of profit that you want to make from the cleaning should be discussed before you decide to hire a professional cleaner. If you want to keep the profit under 50% of the total cost of the service, it’s a good idea to include an out-of-pocket expenses clause in your cleaning contract. This will show the cleaners that you expect them to be upfront about any additional costs that will be involved.
The profit percentage is dependent on your line of work and the size of the job. Typically, the more experienced and skilled you are, the lower your profit should be. Also, the more high-value items you clean, the lower your profit should be. Let’s say you’re a plumber and you sell labor and parts, then you might only charge for labor. Now, if you’re a plumber who also cleans toilets, then you might want to sell labor and parts, and take 20% off the cost of the toilet cleaning.
The amount you should pay a commercial cleaning company shouldn’t exceed 25% of your total gross profit. If you don’t know what your profit is, you don’t know how much to budget for your regular cleaning. It’s a good idea to find a cleaning company that offers flat rate pricing to help you budget.
While the potential for making money is high, it’s important to set the expectations upfront. Set a specific percentage that you’re comfortable with before you choose to work with a new customer. By letting the customer know your minimum expectations up front, you’re less likely to get stuck in a situation where you have to renegotiate terms.