Pricing and quoting for detailers: bands, good better best, and deposits
How to price details and coatings, present three tiers so the middle sells, take deposits that end no-shows, and quote from photos without underbidding.
Two detailers in the same town can do identical work and one bills $70,000 a year while the other bills $180,000. The difference is almost never the polish. It is that one has a price structure and the other quotes off the top of his head, guesses low because he is nervous, and then eats the extra three hours when the dog hair turns out to be everywhere.
Pricing is a marketing decision. It sets who calls you, what they expect, and whether the job is worth taking.
Price by condition, not just by size
Vehicle size is the obvious variable and the least important one. What actually drives your labor hours is condition. A clean commuter sedan takes two hours. A three-child minivan with ground-in Goldfish takes six.
Build your sheet with a base by size and explicit condition adders:
- Base full interior: sedan $199, midsize SUV $249, large SUV or truck $289
- Heavy pet hair: plus $60 to $120
- Biohazard, vomit or spill cleanup: plus $100 to $200
- Smoke odor treatment with ozone: plus $150
- Excessive sand or construction debris: plus $75
Say this out loud on the phone, not after the job. "Base interior on a Tahoe is $289. If there is heavy dog hair it runs $60 to $120 more, I will confirm when I see it." Customers accept this without argument. What they do not accept is a number changing after the work is done.
Good, better, best
Three tiers, always. Given three options most people take the middle one, and the top option makes the middle look reasonable. Two options makes people choose the cheaper. One option makes them shop you.
For a fixed shop:
- Refresh, $149. Exterior wash, wheels, tires, interior vacuum and wipe-down. Two hours.
- Full detail, $329. Everything above plus interior shampoo, leather clean and condition, clay bar, spray sealant, engine bay wipe. Five hours. Most popular.
- Protection package, $749. Full detail plus single-stage paint correction and a one-year ceramic coating with a six-month maintenance wash included. Two days.
Label the middle one "most popular" and mean it. Expect roughly 55 to 65% to take the middle, 15 to 25% to take the top, and the rest to take the entry tier.
The top tier does a job even when nobody buys it. A $749 option makes $329 feel moderate. Without it, $329 is your most expensive service and gets treated as expensive.
Pricing the high-ticket work
Coatings and correction are where the margin lives, and they need a different conversation than a wash. Nobody buys a $1,600 coating off a price list. They buy it after an inspection.
Structure it as a paid or free paint inspection: you look at the paint under a light, show the customer the swirls on their own car, and then quote correction plus coating as one number. The inspection is the sale. Quoting a coating over the phone without it means competing on price against a shop that will one-step it and call it done.
Realistic bands in most US markets:
- One-step correction plus one-year coating: $650 to $950
- Two-step correction plus five-year coating: $1,200 to $2,200
- Paint protection film, partial front: $1,200 to $2,000
- Annual coating maintenance and decontamination: $150 to $250
State the warranty terms plainly and put them on the site, because the buyer will compare warranties. That page content also feeds AI answers, as covered in the AI search guide.
Deposits, and the end of no-shows
A no-show costs you a full slot you cannot resell at four hours' notice. At a $210 average that is $210 gone, plus the tech standing there.
Take a $50 deposit at booking, applied to the ticket. Not a fee, not non-refundable in a way that starts arguments; just money down that holds the slot. Shops that add deposits typically move no-shows from around one in five to under one in twenty, and the customers who refuse to leave $50 are reliably the ones who were going to cancel.
For coatings, take 25% down. You are blocking two days of shop time.
Make the deposit part of online booking so it happens without a conversation. Setup is covered in the website guide.
Quoting from photos without getting burned
Most quote requests now arrive as texts with pictures. Ask for four specific shots before quoting: driver seat and floor, back seat and floor, trunk or cargo area, and one full exterior side in daylight.
Then quote a band, never a single number: "Based on those, $289 to $349. I will confirm the exact number when I see it in person, before I start." Nobody objects to a band. Everybody objects to a surprise.
If the photos show something you have not priced before, say so and give a range wide enough to survive. Detailers lose money on politeness far more often than on greed.
Memberships and recurring revenue
If you have a fixed location or a tight mobile route, recurring plans smooth out the seasonality that wrecks this business.
- Wash membership at a fixed site: $29 to $49 a month for unlimited basic washes. Break-even sits around 2.5 visits a month, so price it on your actual observed usage rather than a hopeful guess.
- Maintenance detail plan for mobile: $99 to $159 a month for one visit, billed automatically.
- Coating maintenance plan: $45 a month for quarterly decontamination washes, sold at the time of the coating when the customer is already committed.
Fifty members at $129 is $6,450 a month that arrives whether or not it rains, which changes how you sleep in February. Seasonal planning is in the seasonality guide.
Raising prices
Raise 8 to 12% once a year. Do it on new quotes only, tell existing regulars a month ahead, and expect to lose a small number of customers who were never profitable. If you have not raised prices in two years, you have already taken a cut against your own supply costs.
The signal that you are underpriced is simple: if almost nobody flinches at your quote, your number is too low.
Frequently asked
Should I publish prices on my site? Publish bands. Customers filter on price whether you help them or not, and a stated floor removes the calls that were never going to book. The FAQ covers this in more detail.
A customer says another shop quoted half. What do I say? "That is a real price for a different service. They are quoting a wash and a wax; I am quoting a correction and a coating that holds for years. Happy to show you the difference on your own paint." Then stop talking.
Do I charge for the inspection? Charging $50 and crediting it to the job filters serious buyers and costs you nothing. Free works too if your calendar has room.
If you want the pricing sheet, the booking flow and the deposit system built out, it is part of the free 14-day trial. Text or call (385) 832-6175.