Auto repair & detailing
Auto Detailing Markup Calculator
Apply a markup to detailing cost and see the margin it actually produces once product and labour are both 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.
Get a Free Business AuditWhat moves the number
- Product cost per vehicle, which is the part most often left out of the cost being marked up.
- Labour hours at burdened cost rather than at the wage.
- Whether the markup covers the vehicles that take far longer than average.
Where this one goes wrong
Marking up product cost only. Product is a small share of a detail; labour is most of it, and a markup applied only to materials recovers almost nothing.
Questions
About this calculator
What should the markup be applied to?
The full cost of delivering the service: burdened labour, product, bay time and a share of overhead. Applying it to product alone is the most common error and produces prices that cannot cover the work.
Is markup the right tool for a service business?
Margin is usually the better frame for service work, because the dominant cost is time rather than goods. Set the margin you want and convert to a markup if you price up from cost.
How do exceptionally dirty vehicles fit in?
As a surcharge agreed before work starts, not absorbed into an average. Averaging them means clean vehicles subsidise dirty ones and your best customers pay for your worst.
The formula
price = cost x (1 + markup%); margin = profit / price
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How to use this calculator
- Your cost ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $280.
- Markup on cost (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 45%.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to price, 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 |
|---|---|
| Your cost | $280 |
| Markup on cost | 45% |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Price main result | $406 |
| Gross profit | $126 |
| Margin that gives you | 31.0% |
A 45% markup on $280 prices the job at $406, which is 31.0% margin, not 45%.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only your cost, this is what happens to price. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Your cost ($) | Price |
|---|---|
| $140 | $203 |
| $210 | $304.50 |
| $280 example above | $406 |
| $420 | $609 |
| $560 | $812 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Your cost ($)
- A money amount, starting at $280.
- Markup on cost (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 500, starting at 45%.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Price | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Gross profit | A money figure. |
| Margin that gives you | 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.