How to Price Mobile Detailing Services

What actually affects a detailing price

Every mobile detailing quote comes down to four things: how big and how dirty the vehicle is, how long the job will realistically take, how far you have to drive to get there, and what supplies and overhead the job burns through. Get those four right and the price mostly writes itself.

Vehicle size and condition

A two-door sedan and a three-row SUV don't take the same amount of product or time, and neither do a car that's lightly dusty versus one with months of ground-in mud, pet hair, or spilled food. Most detailers use two or three size tiers (small car / SUV or truck / van) and a condition multiplier or add-on fee for heavy soiling rather than trying to price every vehicle individually.

Labor time

Time is the cost that's easiest to underestimate. Track how long your last dozen jobs actually took — start to finish, including setup and cleanup — and price against that real number, not the time you hope it takes on a good day.

Travel distance

Mobile means you're bringing water, power, and supplies to the customer, which is exactly what makes travel a real cost, not a courtesy. Decide on a free-travel radius and either build a modest fee into jobs outside it or decline them — driving 40 minutes for a job that's barely profitable after gas isn't a good trade.

Supplies and overhead

Soap, wax, microfiber towels, vacuum bags, water and generator fuel if you use one — these add up per job even before you count your time. A rough per-job supply cost (even a flat estimate like $8–15) kept out of your labor rate makes it much easier to see whether a package is actually profitable.

Illustrative package pricing examples

These are examples only, meant to show how the pieces fit together — not universal market rates. Your own prices should come from your actual time, drive distance, and local costs.

Common add-ons: pet hair removal, headlight restoration, ceramic coating, engine bay cleaning, odor treatment. Price these separately rather than folding them into a base package, so a customer who doesn't need them isn't paying for them.

A simple pricing formula

Once you know your numbers, a straightforward formula keeps every quote consistent:

Price = (labor time × your hourly target) + supply cost + travel fee (if applicable)

Set your hourly target first — what you actually need to earn per hour to make the business worth running, not just what covers gas and soap. Everything else in the formula should be built around protecting that number, not shrinking it.

Common underpricing mistakes

• Quoting from memory instead of your rate card, which drifts lower over time without you noticing.
• Not accounting for setup and pack-up time on each job — it's real time, even if it's not "detailing".
• Absorbing travel cost on far jobs to avoid an awkward conversation about a fee.
• Copying a competitor's advertised price without knowing their labor time, area, or overhead.
• Never adjusting prices as supply costs or demand for your time increase.

Why a consistent rate card makes quoting easier

Once your packages and add-ons are written down with real prices attached, quoting a new request stops being a negotiation you have with yourself every time. A written rate card also makes it much faster to answer a customer's message accurately — which matters, since Krewly's mobile detailing setup matches incoming requests to exactly this kind of rate card and drafts the reply for you to approve.