How much should i charge for a car wash?

If i was in your shoes, for a normal sized car id charge $20 for a wash, $40 for a wash & wax, dress the tires everytime. Interior vaccuum and wiping the interior starts at $15. Trucks, wash $30, wash and wax $60. Additional charge determined upon condition.

Slap up a sign with your pricing and services. Appearance means everything! Your customers are going to pull up at one of the nearby stores and see you and your setup and decide if they want to, take a chance. I suggest your signage is large enough for them to see the pricing without having to come to you. When things are slow, make sure your nice looking washed and waxed vehicle is parked out front and you appear to be finishing it up.
 
As for demographics, I will mostly be in a somewhat lower income area most of the time but move to different ares if i need to
 
Romym said:
I honestly don't even know. They hardly spoke English but what I saw them do was a simple 2BM that left streaks sometimes and they scrubbed your cars paint with some sort of deck scrubbing brush and vacuumed the interior.
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Ouch!
 
LazyGhost said:
If i was in your shoes, for a normal sized car id charge $20 for a wash, $40 for a wash & wax, dress the tires everytime. Interior vaccuum and wiping the interior starts at $15. Trucks, wash $30, wash and wax $60. Additional charge determined upon condition.

Slap up a sign with your pricing and services. Appearance means everything! Your customers are going to pull up at one of the nearby stores and see you and your setup and decide if they want to, take a chance. I suggest your signage is large enough for them to see the pricing without having to come to you. When things are slow, make sure your nice looking washed and waxed vehicle is parked out front and you appear to be finishing it up.
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That's a good idea too. People are always standing there watching people wash cars and probably don't want to interrupt them about prices so a sign would be a good idea. I was also thinking about putting a decal or wrap that represents my car wash.
 
Live and learn I guess. For $20 I would not fire up a pressure washer, 2 bucket wash, wax, clean/dress tires & windows, wipe down interior, vacume and wash floor mats. To do all this right a low income market would not pay for what it's worth.

$20 for just an exterior wash is too low much less all the other stuff. Not to mention your going to get trashed cars making the work even harder.

You can always adjust your services and pricing.
 
rmagnus said:
Live and learn I guess. For $20 I would not fire up a pressure washer, 2 bucket wash, wax, clean/dress tires & windows, wipe down interior, vacume and wash floor mats. To do all this right a low income market would not pay for what it's worth.

$20 for just an exterior wash is too low much less all the other stuff. Not to mention your going to get trashed cars making the work even harder.

You can always adjust your services and pricing.
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I will adjust my pricing. If you think $20 is too low, then how much do you think is a good price? I'm trying to give good service for a reasonable amount of money.Feed back please
 
i offer a monthly package weekly wash, dress exterior trim, clean all glass and interior vacuum, and a once a month wax for 140. anything over 10 miles i will add cost for mileage on my vehicle and gas. i also allow the customers to adjust the package say they only want the car vacuumed onec a month ill minus 15 bucks from the monthly package. also having the package it makes a more steady income and you will gain more steady customers who i will give discounts on a for multi car packages aswell as when they want a full detail.
 
To me it sounds like you are little too cheap, i am thinking of $35-$40 for that kind of work. HOWEVER, due to your age, not many people will trust you and will think that $40 is too much for a young person such as yourself.

And i am talking from experience.
 
I know this doesn't answer the question but our free market system says that the fair price is what you will do it for and what people will pay. Starting out, you need to gain experience and reputation. Without doing actual calculation, I would guess you will have a minimum of $5 in costs. Can you live with $15 for that amount of work. I have washed and/or detailed a lot of cars and developed a pretty streamlined technique and it would take me between 1.5 and 2 hours for what you described. I guess what I am saying is I believe you may be a little low but you have to consider your market. If you could get $25, it might be a little easier to do. Good luck.
 
GenesisCoupe said:
To me it sounds like you are little too cheap, i am thinking of $35-$40 for that kind of work. HOWEVER, due to your age, not many people will trust you and will think that $40 is too much for a young person such as yourself.

And i am talking from experience.
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Thats what I am thinking too. I might do the 20/30/40 system that was mentioned. Maybe $20 for exterior and wheels. $30 for exterior, wheels, interior (vacuum, dash, seats etc.)$40 for exterior, wheels, interior, liquid wax, spray detailer

Robert8194 said:
I know this doesn't answer the question but our free market system says that the fair price is what you will do it for and what people will pay. Starting out, you need to gain experience and reputation. Without doing actual calculation, I would guess you will have a minimum of $5 in costs. Can you live with $15 for that amount of work. I have washed and/or detailed a lot of cars and developed a pretty streamlined technique and it would take me between 1.5 and 2 hours for what you described. I guess what I am saying is I believe you may be a little low but you have to consider your market. If you could get $25, it might be a little easier to do. Good luck.
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yeah I want to charge more but it is hard with the other competition in the area that charge a $20 bill for a car wash but put swirls in the paint and scrub your paint with a brush and dish soap. I want to give a quality car wash to win my customers hearts over but try to match the competitions price. And I forgot to mention that I will not be doing this alone. I will have a friend that is staying with me over the summer that will be accompanying me and should cut down the amount of time needed to wash vehicles.
 
Romym said:
Thats what I am thinking too. I might do the 20/30/40 system that was mentioned. Maybe $20 for exterior and wheels. $30 for exterior, wheels, interior (vacuum, dash, seats etc.)$40 for exterior, wheels, interior, liquid wax, spray detailer



yeah I want to charge more but it is hard with the other competition in the area that charge a $20 bill for a car wash but put swirls in the paint and scrub your paint with a brush and dish soap. I want to give a quality car wash to win my customers hearts over but try to match the competitions price. And I forgot to mention that I will not be doing this alone. I will have a friend that is staying with me over the summer that will be accompanying me and should cut down the amount of time needed to wash vehicles.
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You can make up with volume. If you can get enough cars at $20, you can make a little money and get valuable experience. After you develop a client base, maybe you can up sell other services and expand your offerings. Wish the best to you and your friend. I know some of the responses are from professional detailers that cannot afford to work for that hourly rate. Currently, I don't detail for money. It is my hobby and my stress relief so my perspective is a little different. I say you go for it and have fun, make a little money and who knows where it will lead.
 
Just stay cheap, two bucket wash, but dont spend a lot of time on it. Folks thatll pay twenty bucks for a wash aint expecting or wanting you to do a super detail. Clean that sucker and move on. Id say refine your services to a 30 minute or less turnaround. Cut corners is what i am saying. Put on your signage that you can do professiobal detailing and you will be more than happy to give a quote and explain those services.

Folks are more worried about their time, than about you taking forever to get them on the road by doing a better job than the competitors down the street. Thats a good thing for you. Less time = more money. Just get em clean.
 
IMO i would get into this kind of stuff. The people you're going to deal with are people who probably dont give two sh!ts about swirls and whatnot. I wouldnt do any of the stuff you mentioned for less than 40-50 dollars. You gotta separate yourself from others. Dont be just like the rest where the quicker you do your job the better. Focus on doing you job well and precisely. Yea you may not have as many people going for it, but at least you are doing a hell of a better job than anyone else in your area. If you build your clientele around quality work, rather than speed, it will end up better for you in the long run.
 
Robert8194 said:
I know this doesn't answer the question but our free market system says that the fair price is what you will do it for and what people will pay. Starting out, you need to gain experience and reputation. Without doing actual calculation, I would guess you will have a minimum of $5 in costs. Can you live with $15 for that amount of work. I have washed and/or detailed a lot of cars and developed a pretty streamlined technique and it would take me between 1.5 and 2 hours for what you described. I guess what I am saying is I believe you may be a little low but you have to consider your market. If you could get $25, it might be a little easier to do. Good luck.
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Good post! I also have started out small. Back in 2007 for $40 dollars i did full interior, wheels, tires, exterior wash, wax, headlights, air freshner. People loved it!

Now, a similar package costs about $120-140.
 
Romym said:
Thats actually a good idea. and what do you mean by "detail spray wipe down?" Do you mean spray the interior with interior cleaner or leather cleaner if needed? Or do you mean wax the exterior or something?
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Liquid detail spray is made by many Mfg`s, it`s used after the wash on the paint it spruces up the paint and is good at adding a bit cleaning to the stubborn contaminants. It has some polymers in it., to re-enforce the wax, it`s a simple mist on and wipe off.
 
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