Your first dozen detail jobs will teach you exactly one thing about pricing: you charged too little.
Not a little too little. A lot. Most new detailers working weekends discover after a few months that their effective rate — after supplies, fuel, and drive time — is somewhere around $22–$30 an hour. That is not a side business. That is a hobby with extra steps.
The fix is not complicated. But it does require doing some math you have probably been putting off.
What Your Jobs Actually Cost You
Before you price anything, you need to know your cost floor — what it costs to complete a job before you pay yourself a cent.
Materials on a real full detail run $15–$35 per job once you count actual consumption: soap, iron decontamination spray, clay, microfiber cloths, interior cleaner, tire dressing, quick detailer for final wipedown. Most detailers hand-wave this as "just supplies." That is how they end up subsidizing their customers.
If you are mobile, add fuel and drive time. A 20-minute round trip can run $8–$15 in gas and vehicle wear — before you count drive time as labor. An hour of driving to complete a $120 job is an hour you are not earning.
Equipment depreciates too. Your DA polisher, wet/dry vac, pressure washer, and steam cleaner will eventually need replacing. Budget $5–$10 per job toward that cost.
Add it up: a solo mobile detailer's real cost floor — materials plus overhead, not counting their own time — typically runs $40–$60 per job. Every dollar you charge below that comes out of your pocket.
Find Your Effective Hourly Rate
The question that matters is not "what am I charging per job." It is "what am I actually making per hour of my time."
Here is how to find out: subtract your job costs from what you charged, then divide by total hours — including setup, cleanup, and drive time.
Example: $150 for a full detail, $25 in materials, 4.5 hours door to door. That is $125 divided by 4.5 hours = $27.78 per hour. Less than a quick-lube tech makes with upsell bonuses, and you bought your own equipment.
A working solo detailer should be netting $65–$100 per hour. That is the range where the time investment makes sense over picking up a regular job. If you are not there, you know what needs to change.
What the Market Actually Supports
Here are real price ranges from working detailers in mid-size US markets — not the "up to $500!" spread you see in generic guides:
Exterior wash and protection (wash, dry, trim dressing, wax or sealant): $65–$130 for a sedan; $90–$170 for a full-size SUV or truck.
Interior detail (vacuum, steam or shampoo, wipedown, glass, conditioning): $100–$175 for a sedan in reasonable shape. Add $50–$80 for heavy contamination — dog hair, coffee stains, the kind of back seat that could be carbon-dated.
Full detail, inside and out: $200–$350 sedan; $275–$425 mid-size SUV; $350–$500 large truck, full-size van, or luxury vehicle. Detailers in Phoenix, Charlotte, Denver, and Columbus charge these numbers for competent work, not specialty work.
Paint decontamination and clay bar: $80–$150 as an add-on. Most customers do not ask for it. Most cars need it. That is a conversation worth having on every job.
Paint correction (single-stage swirl removal): $300–$600. Multi-stage correction on a car someone genuinely cares about: $800–$2,000 depending on condition and time.
Ceramic coating: $800–$2,500 depending on product and coverage. More on this below.
If your prices are more than 20% below these ranges in your market, you are not competing on quality — you are competing on price. That race ends badly for the person running it.
For a sense of what detailers near you are charging, browse SideWRK detailing listings in your area.
Package Pricing Instead of À La Carte
Offering everything individually feels flexible. In practice, it makes every customer conversation a negotiation and puts a ceiling on your ticket size.
Three-tier package pricing works better:
A maintenance package — exterior wash, windows, quick interior refresh — is for customers who keep their car clean and come back regularly. Fast job, solid hourly rate, good for building repeat business.
A standard full detail is your bread and butter. Price it at a level where you would be comfortable doing it twice a week without resentment. If you feel tempted to rush because the rate feels too low, the rate is too low.
A premium package adds paint correction or ceramic coating prep. Higher price, longer job, much better margin. Not every customer takes it — but the ones who do change what your Saturday looks like financially.
Most people pick the middle option. Make sure the middle option is profitable.
Adjust for Vehicle Size and Condition
Charging a flat rate regardless of vehicle is leaving real money behind. An interior detail on a Honda Civic takes about 2.5 hours. The same job on a Chevy Suburban takes four or more — same service category, 60% more time.
Set three size tiers: compact or sedan, mid-size SUV or crossover, full-size truck or large van. Each tier needs at least a $50–$75 step-up. Full-size commercial vans or large luxury SUVs with third-row seating should carry $100 or more over the mid-size rate.
Condition matters as much as size. A heavily soiled vehicle — pet hair embedded in carpet, dried spills, an interior that could tell its own story — is a different job. Build a heavy contamination add-on into your pricing menu, state it when you quote, and collect it. Customers who understand what they are handing you will not push back.
The Highest-Margin Service in Detailing
Ceramic coating has margins that nothing else on your menu touches. Product cost for a consumer-grade single-year coating runs $50–$150. The service retails at $600–$900 in most markets. Professional-grade multi-year coatings run $1,500–$2,500. The gross margin — before your labor — lands at 70–80%. Nothing else in detailing is close.
You do not lead with it cold. The right moment is after paint correction, when the customer can see the difference. "I can protect what we just did — this coating keeps it looking this way for two or three years without waxing. For your car I would charge $900, and I can do it today while everything is set up." That conversation closes more often than you would expect, particularly on newer vehicles or cars the owner is attached to.
Paint protection film, headlight restoration, and odor elimination are smaller tickets worth adding once your core service list is established. Each one answers a specific problem customers bring to you.
Raising Prices on Existing Customers
If you have been undercharging, you are not stuck there. Regular customers who refer friends are worth keeping — but they can handle an adjustment.
Give 30 days' notice. Explain it briefly: rates are going up across the board on a specific date. Make the new number specific — "a full detail on your car will be $275 starting August 1" — not vague. A $30–$50 increase rarely loses a good regular. It reliably loses the bargain-hunters who were going to leave the moment someone went $5 cheaper anyway.
New customers always pay your current rate. The moment you cut a deal for someone who pushed back, you have taught them — and anyone they tell — that your prices are a starting point.
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Spend one week tracking every job: hours worked including drive time, materials spent, amount charged. Calculate your effective hourly rate. If it is under $60, you know what to fix — and now you know how.
Auto detailing is one of the better trade side businesses to run. Low overhead, strong demand from owners who care about their vehicles, real upside when you add high-margin services. The business side does not have to be complicated. It just has to start with the right math.
Ready to build a detailing customer base that pays what your work is worth? Start free on SideWRK →
