Auto repair & detailing
Auto Detailing Margin Calculator
Work out the gross margin a detail returned once the hours it really took and the product it consumed are counted.
Result
Markup is measured against your cost, margin against the price you charge. A 50% markup is a 33.3% margin, not a 50% one. Pricing off the wrong one is the most common way a job that looked profitable turns out not to have been. Gross profit is what is left after the cost of doing the job. Overhead comes out of that: the building, the office wages, the vans, insurance, software and advertising. A healthy gross margin still loses money if overhead is larger.
Get a Free Business AuditWhat moves the number
- Actual hours against quoted hours, which for detailing diverge more than most trades.
- Product consumed, which varies hugely between a maintenance wash and a decontamination.
- Rework, where a customer is unhappy with a result and the vehicle comes back.
Where this one goes wrong
Judging margin across an average. Detailing margins vary enormously by vehicle condition, and the average conceals that the worst quarter of vehicles may be losing money.
Questions
About this calculator
Why do detailing margins vary so much?
Because the same nominal service takes very different amounts of time depending on condition, and most price lists have no way to express condition. The variance is in the hours, not in the pricing.
How should product cost be tracked?
Per vehicle, at least for a sample. Dilution ratios make product cost calculable, and most detailers find it is either much smaller or much larger than they assumed.
What does rework cost?
The hours plus the bay plus the relationship. Tracking it against the original job is the only way to see whether a particular service or a particular price point is producing it.
The formula
margin = (price - cost) / price; markup = (price - cost) / cost
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How to use this calculator
- Price charged ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $520.
- Direct cost ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $280.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to gross margin, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Price charged | $520 |
| Direct cost | $280 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Gross margin main result | 46.2% |
| Gross profit | $240 |
| Same thing as a markup | 85.7% |
That job earns $240 of gross profit, a 46.2% margin. The same job described as a markup is 85.7%.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only price charged, this is what happens to gross margin. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Price charged ($) | Gross margin |
|---|---|
| $260 | -7.7% |
| $390 | 28.2% |
| $520 example above | 46.2% |
| $780 | 64.1% |
| $1,040 | 73.1% |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Price charged ($)
- A money amount, starting at $520.
- Direct cost ($)
- A money amount, starting at $280.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Gross margin | The headline result. A percentage. |
| Gross profit | A money figure. |
| Same thing as a markup | A percentage. |
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.