Why Commercial Tenders Look Different to Residential Quotes
Almost every successful commercial cleaning operator started with residential or end-of-lease work. Then a friend mentioned an office contract was being re-tendered. The first instinct is to treat it like a residential quote: per-hour or per-square-metre, send a number, hope for the best.
This loses 9 times out of 10. Commercial tenders aren't bid by price alone — they're bid by structure, evidence, and fit to the procurement process. The cheapest quote rarely wins. The right-structured quote wins.
This post walks through the full process for a typical AU commercial cleaning tender — office, retail, hospitality, or facility services — and where operators actually win or lose.
Phase 1: The Intake
Commercial cleaning tenders typically come from one of four sources:
- Facility manager (FM) reaching out directly because they want a new cleaner
- Procurement team running a formal RFT (Request For Tender) process
- Strata manager rebidding a common-area contract (covered separately in our strata AGM post)
- Government — local council, state department, federal — usually formal RFT via eTendering portals (VendorPanel, TenderLink, AusTender)
The first thing to identify is which type you're dealing with. The work to win differs significantly: