Special Needs Transportation
Every Special Needs Transportation contract awarded by the federal government in the last 24 months. Pulled live from USASpending.gov public records. 231 awards in this pool.
Pricing distribution · last 24 months
Sample n = 231Aim between $589K and $2.3M for a defensible bid. Median is the safest single-point estimate. Source: USASpending.gov, refreshed daily.
How to use this
These are real federal janitorial awards from USASpending. Treat them as market intelligence, not a rate card.
- Comparability varies. Each award reflects a different city, facility size, scope, and SCA wage rate. Use the range to sanity-check your own cost build-up, not to copy a number.
- Older awards are in older dollars. Many federal janitorial contracts run 1 base year + 4 options. A 2022 award priced before recent wage and supply increases isn't where today's bid should land — adjust up.
- Many janitorial bids are LPTA. Once you're technically acceptable, lowest reasonable price wins. Knowing where the market sits keeps you competitive without underpricing labor (the fastest way to lose money or trigger SCA exposure).
Build your number the long way (direct labor + SCA wage + fringe + indirect + profit) and then check it against the range above.
Top 10 comparable awards
Source: USASpending.gov public records. Refreshed daily. Percentile bands computed via Postgres percentile_cont. Full methodology →
Upcoming recompetes · expires 12-18 months out
Contracts in this NAICS whose period of performance ends in the next 12-18 months. Sole-source / AbilityOne awards filtered out (they typically renew non-competitively).
These are real contracts approaching recompete. The analyzer + slice paste form above lets you bid accurately against each one — anchored on the same comp pool and the SCA wage floor.
→ Join the founder cohort to track all 485991 recompetes & get weekly email alerts
Got a contract you're bidding on?
Paste the SAM.gov link and get a full pricing analysis + 5 draft proposal sections — grounded in what real winning contractors actually submitted. Free during the founder trial for 25 federal janitorial contractors. 2-minute application; same-day access if you're a fit.
NAICS 485991 (Special Needs Transportation) pricing FAQ
What does special needs transportation pay on federal contracts?
Based on 231 federal contracts awarded in the last 24 months, the median special needs transportation value nationally is $1.2M. The P25–P75 band runs from $589K to $2.3M. Source: USASpending.gov public records.
What's a competitive bid for NAICS 485991?
Most small special needs transportation bid at or below P25 ($589K). Winning bids cluster between the median ($1.2M) and P75 ($2.3M). Bidding below P10 ($175K) signals you're leaving money on the table; above P90 ($3.8M) is uncompetitive without a strong technical differentiator or past-performance moat.
Where does FedRange get its NAICS 485991 pricing data?
Every dollar figure comes from USASpending.gov, the official US Treasury public-records database of federal contract awards. We compute the P10–P90 percentile distribution via Postgres percentile_cont over the last 24 months of awards with a positive dollar value. No estimates, no proprietary data — just public-record math you can verify against USASpending yourself. Full methodology →
Is the NAICS 485991 pricing slice free?
Yes. The pricing slice page is free with no signup, no card, and no email required. FedRange's full bid analyzer + proposal drafter is also free for the founding cohort of 25 federal contractors — book a 20-minute walkthrough with the founder to get access. The full product adds your actual SAM.gov opportunity, the SCA wage floor, and 5 drafted proposal sections in your voice.
What is NAICS 485991?
NAICS 485991 is the North American Industry Classification System code for Special Needs Transportation. The federal government uses it to categorize contracts in SAM.gov and USASpending. To bid in this category, your firm's primary NAICS on SAM.gov registration must match (or you can bid in a secondary NAICS if you qualify under the small business size standard).
Plain English glossary
Federal contracting has its own vocabulary. Here's what each term on this page actually means.
- NAICS
- North American Industry Classification System. A 6-digit code the government uses to categorize what a contract is buying. NAICS 561720 means "janitorial services." Your SAM.gov registration lists which NAICS codes you're registered to bid in.
- PSC (Product Service Code)
- A separate 4-character code that classifies the specific service being bought. For janitorial, common PSCs are S201 (Custodial-Janitorial Services) and S299 (Other Housekeeping Services). Two contracts with the same NAICS can have different PSCs depending on what's in scope.
- Percentile band (P10–P90)
- A way of describing the spread of contract values. P50 (median) is the middle: half the contracts paid less than this, half paid more. P25 is the bottom quarter; P75 is the top quarter; P10 and P90 are the extreme low and high. Bidding between P25 and P75 keeps you in the "defensible bid" range — not so low the agency questions your ability to perform, not so high you lose on price.
- Set-aside
- A federal rule that says only certain types of businesses can bid on this contract. Common ones: Small Business, 8(a) (small-disadvantaged-business), WOSB (woman-owned), SDVOSB (service-disabled-veteran-owned), HUBZone. You can only bid if you're certified in the matching category.
- Sole source
- A contract awarded without competition because only one company is eligible. We strip these out of the percentile bands above — sole-source contracts wouldn't be open to you anyway, so they don't reflect what you'd be competing against.
- AbilityOne / JWOD
- A federal program (formally Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act) that gives certain non-profits a sole-source preference for federal cleaning, mailroom, and similar service contracts. If a facility is on the AbilityOne Procurement List, it's effectively un-biddable for a commercial small prime. Check before you spend time on a proposal.
- SCA wage determination
- The Service Contract Act requires that federal service contracts pay at least a minimum hourly wage set by the Department of Labor — different by county and by job classification. For janitors, the SCA code is 11150 — Janitor, and the wage floor varies from ~$15/hr in low-cost counties to ~$24/hr in major metros. You cannot legally staff a federal janitorial contract below this.
- Recompete
- A federal contract has a period of performance — typically 1-5 years, sometimes with option-year extensions. When it ends, the agency "recompetes" the work, opening a new bid. Watching contracts 12-18 months from their expiry date gives you a head start on capture planning before the new solicitation drops.
- USASpending.gov / SAM.gov
- Two public government sites. SAM.gov is where new contracts are posted as solicitations (open for bidding). USASpending.gov records what was actually awarded — who won, how much, when. FedRange uses USASpending for the pricing comparables on this page and SAM.gov for live opportunity metadata in the analyzer.
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