What you are actually buying
Contract guarding is bought by the hour and delivered by people, which makes it unlike almost every other facilities category. The service quality depends on whether a specific person shows up to a specific post, trained, on time, at three in the morning.
That is why the bill rate is the least useful number in the bid. What matters is what sits inside it, and whether the post can be staffed at that rate in your labor market.
Bill rate, pay rate and the gap between them
The pay rate is what the officer earns. The bill rate is what you pay: pay plus payroll burden, insurance, uniforms, equipment, supervision, overhead and margin.
Two bidders can quote an identical bill rate and pay their officers very differently. The one paying less has to make up the margin somewhere, and it shows up as turnover. You pay for that in retraining, unfamiliar officers, missed procedures and management attention.
Ask every bidder for the pay rate behind the bill rate, and for turnover by account in your market. A provider unwilling to answer either question has answered both.
Coverage design is where the cost is
Guarding cost is hours multiplied by rate, and hours are the larger lever by far. Post schedules accumulate over years. A position added after an incident in 2019, a lobby staffed around the clock in a building that now empties at six, an overnight patrol that duplicates a monitored alarm.
Before going to market, re-examine every post against current risk, current occupancy and current building use. Technology can replace some static coverage: access control, monitored video, remote patrol and visitor management all reduce hours without reducing security, where they genuinely fit.
Redesigning coverage typically finds more than renegotiating the rate, and it does not depend on a supplier agreeing to anything.
Post orders separate good bids from optimistic ones
Post orders define what an officer does at each position: duties, patrol routes, response procedures, reporting, escalation and what is explicitly out of scope. Where they are vague or absent, bidders price an assumption, and the assumption is always the cheaper one.
Detailed post orders in the RFP do two things. They make the bids comparable, and they surface the providers who have genuinely thought about your site rather than repriced their standard offering.
What to put in the RFP
- Post orders per position, with the coverage schedule and shift patterns
- Licensing, training and clearance requirements, including any state-specific standards
- Supervision ratio and how supervisors are deployed, not just that they exist
- Turnover and fill-rate commitments, with reporting and consequences
- Uniform, equipment and technology standards
- Incident reporting and escalation, including response times
- Insurance and indemnity limits as your requirements
- A pricing sheet separating straight time, overtime, holiday, supervisor and temporary coverage
What good looks like afterward
Fill rate and turnover reported monthly, incident data reviewed rather than filed, post orders revisited annually against actual risk, and a contract with service credits that are claimed when they are earned.
Guarding sits inside the broader facilities services category. For the sourcing event itself, see RFP management; for the evaluation, the free RFP scorecard covers how to weight a decision where price should not dominate.
- Post orders per position
- Licensing, training and clearance requirements
- Supervision ratio
- Turnover and fill-rate commitments
- Uniform, equipment and technology standards
- Incident reporting and escalation
- Insurance and indemnity limits
- A pricing sheet
Issued in your structure, not the vendor's, so every bidder prices the same scope and the bids can be compared line for line.
How we help
- Spend Analysis: Spend analysis establishes where your organization stands and where value is trapped.
- Procurement Transformation: Transformation decides where procurement should go and what deserves resources first.
- Strategic Sourcing: Strategic sourcing turns strategy into implemented results.
- Value Tracking: Value tracking protects and extends value after implementation.
- Procurement Training: Training builds your team's capability so results last after the engagement ends.
- Fractional CPO: A fractional CPO gives you senior procurement leadership without a full-time hire: someone who owns the function, sets the commercial agenda and builds the team that eventually replaces them.
- Procurement Assessment: A structured diagnostic of how procurement actually operates across six dimensions, evidenced rather than asserted.
- Category Management: Category strategies that survive contact with the business.
- Supplier Negotiation: Negotiation outcomes are decided in the preparation.
- Cost Reduction: Cost reduction judged on what reaches the P&L.
- RFP Management: We run the whole sourcing event: scope, bidder list, document, evaluation and award.
Frequently asked questions
What should a security guard services RFP include?
Post orders for every position, the coverage schedule with hours and shift patterns, required licensing, training and clearance levels, supervision ratio, uniform and equipment standards, technology expectations, escalation and incident reporting, insurance and indemnity limits, and a pricing sheet that separates straight-time bill rate, overtime, holiday, supervisor and temporary coverage rates.
How do you evaluate security guard companies?
On whether they can staff the post reliably, not on the bill rate. Ask for turnover by account in your market, current unfilled shift percentage, average tenure at comparable sites, the supervision model, and how open shifts are covered. A cheap contract that runs at 30% turnover costs more in incidents and management time than the rate saved.
What is the difference between bill rate and pay rate?
The pay rate is what the officer receives. The bill rate is what you pay, and it includes payroll burden, insurance, uniform, equipment, supervision, overhead and margin. Two providers quoting the same bill rate can pay very different wages, and the one paying less will have more turnover. The pay-to-bill ratio is the most informative number in a guarding bid.
Should we use contract guards or in-house officers?
In-house typically costs more per hour and delivers lower turnover, better site knowledge and more control. Contract guarding is more flexible, transfers employment risk and scales. Many organizations do both, with in-house supervision over a contract workforce. The comparison should be on total cost including management time, not hourly rate.
How do we reduce guarding cost without reducing security?
Usually by redesigning coverage rather than cutting the rate. Post schedules accumulate over years and rarely get re-examined against current risk, hours or building use. Technology can replace some static posts, using access control, video monitoring and remote patrol. Both reduce hours, which is where the cost actually is.
What insurance and liability limits should we require?
Set your own standards rather than accepting the vendor's certificate. General liability, professional or errors and omissions covering security acts, workers compensation, auto where patrol vehicles are used, and an umbrella sized to your exposure. Write them into the contract as requirements and verify the certificates annually rather than at award only.