Auto repair & detailing
Car Wash Profit Calculator
See what a wash site keeps once water, chemical, power, labour and the equipment maintenance are all counted.
Result
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
- Vehicles per hour during peak, which is where most of the revenue happens.
- Equipment maintenance and downtime, which is a genuine recurring cost.
- Tier mix, since profit sits disproportionately in the upper tiers.
Where this one goes wrong
Leaving equipment maintenance out. Brushes, nozzles, pumps and dryers wear continuously, and a profit figure that ignores them looks healthy right up until a capital repair.
Questions
About this calculator
What drives profit at a wash site?
Throughput at peak and the share of customers taking an upper tier. Both matter more than the headline price, because the fixed costs are the same whichever wash is bought.
How should equipment maintenance be budgeted?
As a per-vehicle cost rather than an annual surprise. Wear is proportional to vehicles through, so attributing it that way keeps the profit figure honest.
Does weather ruin the model?
It makes it lumpy. Wash demand is strongly weather dependent, so profitability has to be assessed across a season rather than a fortnight.
The formula
gross profit = revenue - direct costs
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How to use this calculator
- Revenue ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $75,000.
- Direct labour ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $16,000.
- Materials and equipment ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $11,000.
- Other direct costs ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $2,200.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to gross profit, 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 |
|---|---|
| Revenue | $75,000 |
| Direct labour | $16,000 |
| Materials and equipment | $11,000 |
| Other direct costs | $2,200 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Gross profit main result | $45,800 |
| Gross margin | 61.1% |
| Total direct cost | $29,200 |
| Profit per working day | $2,082 |
That is $45,800 at a 61.1% margin, about $2,082 for every working day. Overhead still has to come out of it.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only revenue, this is what happens to gross profit. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Revenue ($) | Gross profit |
|---|---|
| $37,500 | $8,300 |
| $56,250 | $27,050 |
| $75,000 example above | $45,800 |
| $112,500 | $83,300 |
| $150,000 | $120,800 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Revenue ($)
- A money amount, starting at $75,000.
- Direct labour ($)
- A money amount, starting at $16,000.
- Materials and equipment ($)
- A money amount, starting at $11,000.
- Other direct costs ($)
- A money amount, starting at $2,200.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Gross profit | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Gross margin | A percentage. |
| Total direct cost | A money figure. |
| Profit per working day | A money figure. |
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.