An RFP that says “clean our 20,000 square foot office, please quote” gets you five numbers you cannot compare. One bidder assumed nightly, one assumed three nights. One included consumables, one did not. You pick the lowest, and six months later you are wondering why the baseboards never get touched.

The fix is to do the measuring yourself and hand every bidder the same facts. Copy the outline below into a document, fill in your building, and send the same file to everyone.

Section 1. Building and contact information

Legal entity issuing the RFP and the billing address
Building address, floors and suite numbers in scope
One contact for questions, with an email address and a question cutoff date
Whether vendors must register through a building compliance portal
Issue date, site visit date, bid due date, award date, intended start date

Give a real timeline. Four weeks from issue to award is comfortable. Under two weeks gets you bids from whoever had a spare afternoon.

Section 2. Square footage, broken down

This section decides whether your bids are comparable. Give cleanable square footage, the area a crew actually cleans. Rentable square footage from your lease includes a common area factor and will overstate the job.

Area type	Square feet	Floor covering
Open office		Carpet tile
Private offices		Carpet tile
Conference rooms		Carpet, glass walls
Corridors		VCT
Lobby and reception		Polished concrete, entry matting
Break room and kitchen		VCT or LVT
Restrooms		Ceramic tile with grout
Stairwells		Sealed concrete
Storage, IT, mechanical		Sealed concrete
Warehouse or dock office		Sealed concrete
Total cleanable

Floor type belongs in the same table because it changes the labor per foot. VCT and grouted tile need machine work that carpet does not. Be explicit about exclusions: server rooms, locked labs, tenant spaces you do not control. Attach a marked-up floor plan, which removes half the questions bidders would otherwise ask.

Section 3. Restroom fixture counts

Fixtures drive labor more than any other item in a building, and almost nobody puts them in an RFP.

Restroom	Toilets	Urinals	Sinks	Daily users
Level 1 men
Level 1 women
Level 1 all gender
Level 2 men
Level 2 women
Dock or warehouse
Total

Note dispenser types while you are in there. If your soap, towel and tissue dispensers belong to your current vendor, say so, because a replacement cost should be in the bid rather than discovered later.

Section 4. Occupancy and access

Headcount per floor, and typical days in the office if you run a hybrid schedule
Building hours and the window when cleaning may take place
Access method: keys, fobs, badge, alarm code, and who issues them
Freight elevator and dock availability, and any booking requirement
Crew parking, and what it costs
Escort or screening requirements from building management
Any area with a restricted access protocol

Section 5. Scope of work with frequencies

Give a task list with a frequency against every line. Adjectives like “thorough” are unenforceable. Use daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually, and define daily as per scheduled service visit so nobody argues later.

State the number of service nights you want, or ask for pricing at two options, for example three nights and five nights. Both figures in the same bid are worth the extra page.

Cover at minimum: trash and recycling, restrooms, break room, entry glass and matting, vacuuming, dusting at desk height, high dusting, hard floor dust mopping and damp mopping, glass partitions, conference room turns, stairwells and elevator cabs.

Ask each bidder to return the task list with any frequency they intend to change marked up. That instruction exposes the bid that quietly cut hours.

Section 6. Consumables and equipment

Say who buys what:

Trash liners, sizes and counts per month
Hand soap, hand sanitizer, toilet tissue, paper towel, seat covers, feminine hygiene supplies
Air fresheners and urinal screens, if you want them
Entry matting: owned by you, rented, or provided by the contractor
Equipment stored on site, and whether a janitor closet with a floor sink is available
Whether the contractor supplies a vacuum with a HEPA filter

Ask for consumables quoted on a separate line from labor, even when you want them bundled. It shows you what usage each bidder assumed.

Section 7. Chemicals, safety and environmental requirements

A current safety data sheet in the building for every chemical used on site, which is what OSHA’s hazard communication standard at 29 CFR 1910.1200 requires where hazardous chemicals are present
Disinfectants that are EPA registered and used at label dilution and label contact time
Whether you require third party certified products, for example Green Seal or EPA Safer Choice
Written building-specific standard operating procedures, a core requirement of the Green Seal GS-42 standard for cleaning services
Whether the contractor works to a management standard such as ISSA’s Cleaning Industry Management Standard

Section 8. Insurance, compliance and staffing

Ask for these as bid attachments rather than post-award promises:

Certificate of insurance showing general liability and workers compensation at the limits your lease requires, with your entity and building management as certificate holders
Confirmation of the legal entity name, which you can check against the state business register
Written screening policy for staff assigned to your building
Supervisor name, contact number and stated response time for reported issues
Planned crew size and planned hours per visit, which is the number that exposes an underbid
Training program outline, including chemical handling and, for healthcare space, the OSHA bloodborne pathogens standard

Section 9. Site visit

Make it mandatory. A bid from a contractor who never walked the building will be revised after award. Set one date, hold the walk with all bidders, and answer questions in writing to everyone afterwards. A single addendum email keeps every bidder on the same facts.

Section 10. Pricing format and evaluation criteria

Tell bidders exactly how to present a price so the bids line up:

Flat monthly price for the recurring scope, at each frequency option you requested
Consumables as a separate monthly line
Hourly rate for additional work and for day porter coverage
Project work priced per square foot: strip and wax, carpet extraction, high dusting, window cleaning
Term, notice period and any price escalation clause

Then publish how you will score. Buyers who do this get better bids, because serious contractors can see where effort pays.

Criterion	Weight
Price against the defined scope	35
Completeness of scope response and planned hours	20
Supervision model, QA process and inspection frequency	15
Staffing, training and screening	10
References from comparable buildings	10
Insurance, compliance and documentation	5
Transition plan and start date confidence	5

Hold a slot open for the bid that sits well below the rest. Ask that contractor for their planned hours per visit and check whether the arithmetic supports the price. It usually does not, and you have saved yourself a year.

Sending it out

An RFP built this way takes a morning to assemble and pays for itself on the first comparison. We will walk your building and hand back the square footage, floor types and fixture counts to drop into it, whether or not you invite us to bid. That is how we scope office cleaning for buildings from the Mile Square out to the suites off Michigan Road in Zionsville.

How to Write a Cleaning RFP, With a Template You Can Copy