Pricing a quote

Nobody should have to trust a number they cannot rebuild. This is how a BlastoClean total is worked out, in the order it happens.

The math lives under Advanced on the Send step of the quote builder. The line above it already says the price in plain words. Most people can skip Advanced.

The calculation

1. Task minutes. Every ticked task on every room contributes its time.
2. Size and condition. Each room's minutes are multiplied by its size multiplier and its condition multiplier. A large room at ×1.25 in extreme condition at ×1.50 takes 1.875 times the base time.
3. Labor. Total minutes × your hourly rate — the one from Settings, or a rate set on this quote alone.
4. Rooms priced individually. A room with a fixed price contributes that amount instead of its labor. Its time still counts toward the visit's length, because somebody still has to be there for it.
5. Fees, then discount, then tax.

Every one of those figures is shown in the running total panel, broken down by room, while you work — and it is recalculated on the server every time. The browser never does the arithmetic, which is why the phone app and the web app can never produce different numbers for the same quote.

One thing deliberately never enters that arithmetic: crew size. Set how many people you plan to send and the quote shows the time on site — the labor divided across the crew, which is also what booking the job puts on the schedule and what the customer's copy promises. The price is built from labor minutes alone: three cleaners for two hours bill the same six hours one cleaner would.

Manual adjustments

Two escape hatches exist for the jobs that do not fit the model, and both leave a visible mark rather than quietly changing a number:

• A manual time on a room. Know the master bathroom takes 45 minutes whatever the tasks add up to? Set it. The quote shows plainly that the figure was set by hand.
• A fixed price on a room. As above, but for the amount rather than the time.

A price for each schedule

Repeat work is cheaper per visit than a one-off. The way this trade sells it is a menu: $250 once, or $212 a visit if you come every week. A quote priced per visit can offer that. Up to four choices: just once, every week, every two weeks, once a month. Each has its own price per visit.

On the Send step, open Advanced and turn on Show a price for each schedule, under Price by how often. Set the discount each schedule earns, as a percent or an amount off the quote as built. The one-time choice is the quote as built unless you give it an adjustment of its own. Every price runs through the same math as everything else, tax included, and updates as you work. Set the discounts you usually offer once, in Settings → Pricing, and new quotes can start with the choices already on.

The customer picks one when they say yes. That choice becomes the price. The quote's total is reworked to it. The saving shows as its own line ("Weekly rate"). The first visit is booked from the schedule they picked. See Online acceptance and signatures.

Those choices and a hand-set total cannot be combined. The choices are calculated prices. A hand-set total would argue with them.

Overriding the total

An owner or a manager can set the final price of a quote by hand. What is stored is not just the new number. The calculated total, the price you set, the reason, and who set it are kept together. Six weeks later, when somebody asks why this house was $500 and the matching one next door was $615, the answer is on the quote.

Whether someone may do this at all is a matter of their role — see Team, roles and permissions.

Revisions

Editing a quote the customer has already accepted creates a revision. The version they agreed to is never lost and never quietly replaced, which matters the first time there is a disagreement about what was included.

A range before your own rates

If you do not have a task list yet, the free cleaning quote calculator sketches a low-to-high range from bedrooms, bathrooms, square feet, how often, and the type of clean. It stays in the browser and needs no account. The assumptions are written on that page. That range is not a BlastoClean quote. A quote in the app uses your rooms, your tasks, and your hourly rate, and the server does the math.

An office or a building is a different sketch. The free commercial cleaning bid calculator turns square feet, visits per week or per month, and what you pay per hour into a monthly bid. The numbers it starts with are examples. It is one speed for the whole building, not a quote from your task list.

Profit on one job

Before you have a month of visits in the app, the free cleaning business profit calculator turns the price you charge, what you pay the crew, supplies, and the drive into profit per job and per month. It stays in the browser and needs no account. The numbers it starts with are examples. That sketch is not the Profit by place report, which needs completed visits with time recorded.

Card fees and tips

A percentage fee for paying online by card, and tips, are both configurable and both off by default. They are covered in Tips, fees and refunds — including the rule that a card fee is disclosed to the customer on the quote and again at checkout, rather than appearing on a statement as a surprise.