How Many Weeks Are There in a Month?

This is a softball post but it has to be covered. There are a lot of posts out there who are calculating their bids all wrong, and it's costing them THOUSANDS in some cases. I've seen this on small bids and large alike. They are making a simple math error that can lead to ruin. What's this simple error that so many are making? They're calculating the weeks in the month all wrong.

Pop quiz, Cleaning Pro. How Many Weeks Are There in an Average Month?

A) 4 weeks

B) 5 weeks

C) None of the Above

The correct answer is C. There are 4.33 weeks in an average month. 

There are 52 weeks in a year, right? There are 12 months in a year, correct? 52 divided by 12 equals 4.33 weeks. 

If you are using 4 weeks you are losing money, and a lot of it.

Let's say you have a bid cleaning a small school (like a Montessori) at 5 hours per day at 5X, and let's say your average rate per hour is $38 in this example. By using 4.33 weeks, you are charging 4.33 weeks x 12 months x 5 hours per day x 5 days per week x $38, or $49,362/yr or $4,113.50/mo

Now let's redo the math. Let's say it's on a basis of 4 weeks vs. 4.33. That's 4 weeks x 12 months x 5 hours per day x 5 days per week at $38, and that equals $45,600/year or $3,800/mo. 

You're losing $3,762/year!

Facepalm moment if you are using 4 weeks in lieu of 4.33. You're basically working nearly 1 month for free every year!!

Don't fret. At least you caught it now. But I know some of you reading this have done this in the past. I did when I started in this business. I was learning as I went along and in my first couple of bids I made this very same mistake. It happens. 

If you do have some active contracts with a 4-week basis, work on replacing them ASAP and then approach them for increases over time to get caught up, or move on from them entirely. 

Check out the pricing blog post for how we price. We prefer to calculate on an annualized basis and that certainly eliminates that potential for error.