How to compare commercial cleaning bids in Denver

You sent three Denver cleaning companies the same walk-through. You got back three bids: $1,400/mo, $2,600/mo, and $4,100/mo. Same building. Same scope. Nothing obviously different on the cover page. Which one is real?

The answer is almost never 'the middle one.' The answer is whichever bid pencils out on labor math, carries the insurance you need, names accountability when something goes wrong, and puts scope in writing. This post is the line-by-line framework we use when facility managers ask us to sanity-check a competitor's bid.

Why bids vary wildly on identical buildings

Three cleaners walk the same 8,000 sqft Denver office. Three different numbers come back. The spread isn't random — it's the product of three different scope assumptions the cleaners made but didn't spell out.

• Frequency interpretation — one cleaner quoted 2x/week, one quoted 3x/week, one quoted nightly, because the RFP said 'recurring' without specifying
• Restroom detail — one bid includes grout detail monthly, another includes it quarterly, a third not at all
• Consumables — one includes toilet paper, soap, and liners in the monthly; another passes them through at cost; a third excludes them entirely
• Crew model — W-2 vs 1099 changes the labor math by 30–40% right out of the gate
• Insurance and bond — a cleaner carrying a $25K bond and $2M GL has different cost structure than a cleaner with $0 and $1M

Without a written apples-to-apples scope sheet, you're comparing three different products. The $1,400 quote and the $4,100 quote might both be technically fair — for different scopes. Your job as the buyer is to force the scope to be identical before comparing price.

The 5-column comparison sheet

Build this in a spreadsheet. Every bidder gets a column. Every line here is a row. What you're looking for is consistency across columns — not the lowest number in the price row.

Column 1: Frequency

Nightly, 3x/week, 2x/week, 1x/week. Specific days if the schedule isn't flexible (Mon/Wed/Fri is standard for 3x). If any bid is ambiguous — 'as needed' or 'regular' — reject and ask again. Red flag: any bid that won't commit to a specific frequency in writing.

Column 2: Scope detail

What happens in each area on each visit. Restrooms, breakroom, open office, conference rooms, lobby, touch points, trash, floors. Plus what's weekly vs monthly vs quarterly. A legitimate bid has 20–40 scope line items on a standard office. A lazy bid has 5. Red flag: one-paragraph scope, or 'all standard janitorial.'

Column 3: Labor cost transparency

Ask each bidder: how many crew-hours per month are you pricing? What's your fully loaded hourly rate? In Denver 2026, fully loaded W-2 labor is about $25.40/hr (base + FICA + workers comp + unemployment + supplies allocation). You can reverse-engineer whether a bid is real by dividing the monthly price by an estimated 40–55% labor ratio and seeing if the implied hours match the scope. Red flag: any cleaner who refuses to walk you through their labor math, or who implies they're running crews at $15/hr (that's 1099 territory).

Column 4: Insurance and bond

COI showing $1M/$2M General Liability with your business name listed as Additional Insured. $25K janitorial bond. Workers' comp under Colorado class code 9014. Ask for all three as PDFs before you sign. A legitimate cleaner sends them inside 24 hours. Red flag: stalling, partial documentation, or a cleaner saying 'we'll get that to you after the contract is signed.'

Column 5: Callback and accountability SLA

When cleaning slips, who do you call and how fast do you hear back? The Denver gold standard is 2-hour callback during business hours (7 AM–7 PM Mon–Sat) with 24-hour resolution and photo proof. Red flag: 'we'll address it on the next shift' (48-hour miss is already too long) or 'contact our dispatch' (no owner accountability).

Worked example: three bids on the same 8,000 sqft office

Here's what those three bids actually look like when you lay them out on the 5-column sheet. Same building, 3x/week schedule, 2 restrooms, 1 breakroom, 6,500 sqft open office with carpet.

Bid A — $1,400/mo

• Frequency: ambiguous — 'recurring janitorial'
• Scope: 6-line scope, no restroom detail, no high-dust, no quarterly items
• Labor: ~40 hrs/mo implied at ~$15/hr effective rate — strongly suggests 1099 labor
• Insurance: $500K GL, no bond mentioned, no workers' comp documentation offered
• Callback: 'contact office during business hours'

This is a lowball. It buys you a crew that rotates every 90 days, silent scope cuts starting in month 2, and no recourse when the restrooms start to slip.

Bid B — $2,600/mo

• Frequency: 3x/week Mon/Wed/Fri after 6 PM, specified in writing
• Scope: 28-line scope with per-visit/weekly/monthly/quarterly breakdown
• Labor: ~40 hrs/mo at $25/hr fully loaded W-2 — math checks out
• Insurance: $1M/$2M GL with AI endorsement, $25K bond, Pinnacol workers' comp class 9014
• Callback: 2-hour business-hours callback, 24-hour resolution with photo proof

This is a legitimate bid from an operator who's going to still be around in year two. Middle of the Denver range for this scope.

Bid C — $4,100/mo

• Frequency: nightly (5x/week) — note the scope difference right there
• Scope: 30-line scope, similar detail to Bid B
• Labor: implied 65 hrs/mo at $25/hr — fair math on a nightly schedule
• Insurance: $2M/$4M GL, $50K bond — more than you need
• Callback: same SLA as Bid B, dispatch-managed rather than owner-managed

This bid is 58% higher than Bid B because it's quoting a 67% higher frequency (5x vs 3x). The math is consistent. Whether it's the right choice depends on whether you actually need nightly — for an 8,000 sqft office with 15 employees, 3x/week is usually plenty.

Force the comparison: write the scope first

The fastest way to get comparable bids is to write the scope yourself. One page. Four sections: facility breakdown (sqft by area), frequency (specific days and hours), per-visit scope list, and periodic scope (weekly/monthly/quarterly). Send the same document to every bidder. The quotes that come back will be comparable. The bidders who refuse to quote off a written scope will filter themselves out.

We've written scope templates for the three most common Denver commercial categories (office, warehouse, medical). If you want one, ask during your walk-through and we'll send it — usable against our bid or any other.

Related reading and next steps

For the labor-math backdrop behind these bids, see our breakdown of what commercial cleaning actually costs in Denver at /insights/commercial-cleaning-cost-denver. For the 10-item vendor checklist — the questions you should ask every bidder before signing anything — see /insights/choosing-denver-cleaning-company. And when you're ready for a real bid on your building with scope in writing inside 48 hours, head to /#quote.