Why is fringe a separate number instead of part of the wage?

Because that is how the agreement writes it. Health, pension, and training funds are paid in cents or dollars per hour worked, on top of base, whether or not the employee ever files a claim. It behaves like wage cost, not overhead, so it scales with every hour you add to the schedule. Bury it inside the wage and you lose the thread the first time frequency changes. The tool keeps it on its own line and adds it after payroll taxes.

Should I price at entry or top?

Price the people who will actually be in the building. Scales run on a progression, so entry is a new hire and top is someone who has served the time. If you are taking over an occupied account, especially in a city with a worker retention ordinance, assume you inherit the incumbent crew at their seniority instead of a fresh entry-level roster. Supervisor sits above the cleaner rate and belongs in the mix on anything with a working lead.

The mode changed on its own. What happened?

No CBA sample exists for that locality, so the tool fell back to the closest floor it has. The toggle still wins. Put it back on CBA Union if you know the building is covered and price from the agreement in your hand rather than from our fallback.

How does it get from a wage to a bill rate?

Wage level times shift premium gives the effective wage. Payroll burden (FICA, SUTA, workers comp) and any extra benefits percentage go on top, then fringe per hour, and that total is loaded cost. Overhead applies to loaded cost. The bill rate divides that by one minus your target margin, so the quoted rate carries labor, burden, overhead, and profit instead of leaving margin as whatever happens to survive.

My workers comp rate is nothing like the default.

Then override it in Advanced. Janitorial class codes and experience mods swing hard by state and carrier, and on a labor-heavy account comp moves loaded cost more than most estimators expect. Use the number off your declarations page. Same logic on extra benefits: leave it low when fringe already funds health and pension, or you will price a benefit twice and lose on paper.

Can I put this number straight on the proposal?

No. These are samples for walkthrough math and for sanity-checking the incumbent price. Before you submit, pull the current agreement for that building, the wage determination attached to the solicitation, or the city living-wage ordinance, whichever governs. Then move the verified rate into Job Costing or Bid Generator and build the real bid.

Union Contract Lookup

Bidding under scale is a lost award waiting to happen.

Inputs

Scale lookup

State

Mode

Locality

Wage level

Shift premium

Extra benefits (%)

Keep low when fringe $/hr already covers H&W / pension.

Workers’ comp override (%)

Blank = state seed WC %. Override with your mod class rate.

Overhead (%)

Target profit margin (%)

Start from what the building's agreement actually pays, then build up from there. Pick a state and locality and you get sample entry, top, and supervisor wages plus fringe in dollars per hour. The tool loads payroll burden, overhead, and your margin on top and returns a target bill rate. Where no union sample exists it drops to an SCA wage determination sample or a market and living-wage floor. Everything here is a sample for estimating, so pull the live agreement before you price.

Instruction

Pick the state, then the locality. Only places with sample coverage appear in the list, and an empty locality leaves Lookup disabled rather than exporting a blank sheet.
Check the Mode. It lands on CBA Union where a sample exists and falls back to SCA Federal or Market / Living Wage where one doesn't. Override it when the job says otherwise, like a federal clinic sitting in a heavily organized metro.
Set the wage level and any shift premium. Entry is a new hire on the bottom rung, top is someone through the full progression, supervisor sits above the cleaner rate. Premium runs 1.0×, 1.5×, or 2.0× if the scope pushes into premium hours.
Open Advanced. Keep Extra benefits near zero when fringe already funds health and pension, or you pay for the same benefit twice. Drop in your own workers’ comp rate if you know your mod. Set overhead and the margin you need to clear.
Read Wage floor, Fringe, Loaded cost, and Target bill rate together. Loaded cost is your walk-away point. Export the PDF for the walkthrough file, then confirm the current agreement before the number reaches a proposal.

Worked example

You're pricing a Class A tower in Center City Philadelphia, five nights a week, and the property manager has already told you the building is covered. Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Mode CBA Union, wage level Top because this account needs tenured cleaners who can badge in without a babysitter. Extra benefits 2%, overhead 12%, target margin 35%.

The sample top wage and its fringe both land in loaded cost, and the bill rate comes back noticeably above what a market rate for the same metro would have given you. That gap is the whole point. Two weeks later you bid a VA clinic outside Miami. No union sample covers it, so the tool switches to SCA Federal and prices off the wage determination sample plus Health & Welfare. Different floor, same discipline, and neither one is the Florida minimum you'd have defaulted to.

What each mode is for

CBA Union: Commercial buildings covered by a collective bargaining agreement. You get sample entry, top, and supervisor rates plus approximate fringe per hour. Use it when the RFP, the property manager, or the incumbent's crew tells you the building is organized. In the big metros that usually means an SEIU 32BJ, Local 1, or SEIU-USWW scale.
SCA Federal: Federal buildings and much of the public work sitting under the Service Contract Act. You get a sample wage floor plus the Health & Welfare rate. The binding number is the wage determination attached to that solicitation for that county, so read it on SAM.gov. This gives you something defensible to estimate with in the meantime.
Market / Living Wage: Everywhere else. Non-union metros, right-to-work states, small commercial. You get BLS-style percentiles, the state minimum, and a local living wage where an ordinance applies. This is a hiring floor more than a legal one. Bid under it and you win the building, then spend six months unable to staff it.

Questions operators ask

Why is fringe a separate number instead of part of the wage?: Because that's how the agreement writes it. Health, pension, and training funds are paid in cents or dollars per hour worked, on top of base, whether or not the employee ever files a claim. It behaves like wage cost, not overhead, so it scales with every hour you add to the schedule. Bury it inside the wage and you lose the thread the first time frequency changes. The tool keeps it on its own line and adds it after payroll taxes.
Should I price at entry or top?: Price the people who will actually be in the building. Scales run on a progression, so entry is a new hire and top is someone who has served the time. If you're taking over an occupied account, especially in a city with a worker retention ordinance, assume you inherit the incumbent's crew at their seniority instead of a fresh entry-level roster. Supervisor sits above the cleaner rate and belongs in the mix on anything with a working lead.
The mode changed on its own. What happened?: No CBA sample exists for that locality, so the tool fell back to the closest floor it has. The toggle still wins. Put it back on CBA Union if you know the building is covered and price from the agreement in your hand rather than from our fallback.
How does it get from a wage to a bill rate?: Wage level times shift premium gives the effective wage. Payroll burden (FICA, SUTA, workers’ comp) and any extra benefits percentage go on top, then fringe per hour, and that total is loaded cost. Overhead applies to loaded cost. The bill rate divides that by one minus your target margin, so the quoted rate carries labor, burden, overhead, and profit instead of leaving margin as whatever happens to survive.
My workers’ comp rate is nothing like the default.: Then override it in Advanced. Janitorial class codes and experience mods swing hard by state and carrier, and on a labor-heavy account comp moves loaded cost more than most estimators expect. Use the number off your declarations page. Same logic on extra benefits: leave it low when fringe already funds health and pension, or you'll price a benefit twice and lose on paper.
Can I put this number straight on the proposal?: No. These are samples for walkthrough math and for sanity-checking the incumbent's price. Before you submit, pull the current agreement for that building, the wage determination attached to the solicitation, or the city's living-wage ordinance, whichever governs. Then move the verified rate into Job Costing or Bid Generator and build the real bid.