Mobile Detailing Pricing Calculator
Price detailing work from your real costs — hands-on labor, rig & van overhead, chemicals and consumables — with your profit margin built in, not diluted away. Every price comes with a full breakdown so you can see exactly where it comes from.
Your Business Setup
Set these once — they reflect your business, not the job.
Price a Job
Enter the job — the price updates as you type.
Instant Rate Card — Common Mobile Detailing Jobs
Twelve common jobs priced with your business settings above. Change your rate or margin and the whole menu reprices instantly. Hours and product costs are typical starting points for average-condition vehicles — adjust them to your market, your packages, and the condition in front of you.
| Job | Typical hours | Typical chems/consumables | Your flat rate |
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We really appreciate feedback from working pros like yourself to get these numbers accurate — to help our fellow trades and businesses succeed, now and for the next generations to come.
Worked Examples: Three Real Detailing Jobs
Using the default business settings above ($25/hr loaded detailer rate, $18/hr overhead, 50% chemicals & consumables markup, 20% target margin, 3% card fee, 2% redo reserve):
1. Full detail, sedan — 3.5 hands-on hours, $18 in products
Labor $87.50 + overhead $63 + products charged at $27 (your $18 cost with markup) = $177.50 base → flat rate $239, netting a true 20%-plus margin. That's squarely inside the $200–$300 the strong mobile shops charge — and now you know it's engineered from your costs, not copied off someone's Instagram bio. The $99 guy down the street is either skipping steps, skipping insurance, or skipping the math.
2. Two-step paint correction — 7 lead hours + 2 second-detailer hours, $40 in pads and compound
Labor $210 + overhead $162 + consumables charged at $60 = $432 base → flat rate $579, netting about $138 in true profit at a 24% margin after fees and reserve. Correction is skilled, machine-hour work that burns through pads and compound — and it's the job where a mistake becomes your wet-sanding time. It should never be priced like a big wash.
3. Ceramic coating (3–5 year), coating stage only — 4 hours, $160 in coating and applicators
Labor $100 + overhead $72 + coating charged at $240 = $412 base → flat rate $559 on top of the prep/correction work it sits on, netting about $199 at a 36% margin. The product markup here isn't greed — it funds the warranty you're putting your name on. A customer can buy a coating bottle online; they're paying you for prep, application, and standing behind it.
What Does Mobile Detailing Overhead Actually Cost?
Overhead is every cost of being in business that isn't a specific vehicle: van or truck-and-trailer payment and fuel, water tank and pump, generator, pressure washer, extractor, polishers and pad inventory, general liability insurance (and garagekeepers coverage if you move customer vehicles), phone, booking software, and marketing. For a serious one-rig operation, a typical year lands in the range of $18,000–$32,000 before anyone earns a wage.
The number that matters is overhead per billable hour — and in mobile work, billable hours are the hours your hands are on a vehicle, not the hours behind the windshield. A solo detailer running two to three jobs a day may drive one to two unbillable hours between them. Divide annual overhead by those hands-on hours: roughly $25,000 ÷ 1,400 billable hours ≈ $18 per billable hour — the default this calculator starts with. Detailers who divide by drive-inclusive hours underprice every job on the schedule.
Common Mobile Detailing Pricing Mistakes
Recommended Profit Margins for Mobile Detailing
These are working benchmarks, not laws. Maintenance work runs thinner margins but compounds through repeat customers and route density; correction and coating work carries more because it's skilled, warrantied, and product-heavy. What matters is that the margin is a decision you made, visible in your price — not whatever was left after the drive home.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should I charge for a full mobile detail?
Build it from your numbers: loaded labor for hands-on-vehicle hours, plus rig overhead per billable hour (van, water, generator, insurance, equipment wear — spread across hands-on hours only), plus chemicals with markup, divided by one minus your target margin. With typical solo-operator numbers that lands a sedan full detail in the $200–$300 range and an SUV or truck meaningfully above it — condition and size move the hours, and the hours move the price.
Should I charge more for SUVs and trucks than sedans?
Yes, always. A full-size SUV or crew-cab truck carries 30–60% more surface area and interior volume than a sedan, which is real added labor time — often an hour or more per job. Detailers who quote one flat price for all vehicles are silently donating that hour on every large vehicle. Price by size class: sedan, mid-size SUV, full-size SUV/truck, and oversized (vans, lifted trucks).
What profit margin should a mobile detailing business target?
Common working targets: 15–25% true net margin on wash and maintenance work, and 25–40% on paint correction and ceramic coating, after all costs, card fees, and a redo reserve. Chemicals and consumables are typically marked up 50–100% over cost on top of that. Coating jobs carry the higher margin because they're skilled, warrantied work where a mistake means wet-sanding your own profit away.
What's the difference between markup and margin?
Markup is added on top of cost; margin is the share of the final price that's profit. A 20% markup on $100 gives $120 — but only a 16.7% margin. To earn a true 20% margin you divide by 0.80, giving $125. Confusing the two is the most common reason detailers underprice.
Should I charge a travel fee for far-away jobs?
Yes, past your normal service radius. Being mobile is your selling point, but drive time is unbillable time — an hour of round-trip driving on a $150 job quietly cuts your effective hourly rate in half. Set a free radius that matches your market, then add a flat travel fee per distance band beyond it, and pass it through at cost so your job margin stays intact.
Is this calculator really free?
Yes. No account, no email, no ads. The calculator runs in your browser and the numbers you enter are never sent to us. We use basic traffic analytics, described in our privacy policy.