Auto repair & detailing
Mobile Detailing Pricing Calculator
Price mobile detailing from the working hours a day genuinely contains once travel and setup are removed.
Result
Overhead and margin are taken as shares of the selling price, which is why the cost is divided rather than multiplied. Adding 15% to cost does not produce a 15% margin. 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
- Travel time between jobs, which is paid and unbillable and caps the day.
- Setup and pack down at every stop, which a fixed site pays once.
- Water and power availability on site, since carrying your own limits how many vehicles a tank covers.
Where this one goes wrong
Pricing per vehicle as though the day held as many jobs as the working hours suggest. Three jobs spread across a city can fill a day that would have held five in one location, and the price has to reflect the day rather than the vehicle.
Questions
About this calculator
Should mobile detailing charge a travel fee?
Either a call-out fee or a minimum job value, but travel should not be absorbed silently. It is the single largest difference between mobile and fixed-site economics.
How do I fit more jobs into a day?
Cluster by area rather than by booking order, and set a minimum job value that makes an isolated booking worth the drive. Routing beats speed for a mobile operation.
What if the site has no water or power?
Decide the policy before booking and state it. Arriving to find no supply means either an unplanned tank job or a wasted trip, and both are avoidable with one question.
The formula
price = direct cost / (1 - overhead% - margin%)
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How to use this calculator
- Labour cost ($). Burdened: wages plus tax, insurance and the vehicle, not the hourly wage.
- Materials cost ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $180.
- Other direct costs ($). Permits, disposal, equipment hire, subcontractors.
- Overhead rate (%). Overhead as a share of revenue. Work it out from last year's accounts.
- Target net margin (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 15%.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to price to quote, 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 |
|---|---|
| Labour cost | $240 |
| Materials cost | $180 |
| Other direct costs | $0 |
| Overhead rate | 22% |
| Target net margin | 15% |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Price to quote main result | $666.67 |
| Direct cost | $420 |
| Overhead recovered | $146.67 |
| Net profit | $100.00 |
| Gross margin | 37.0% |
| Markup on direct cost | 58.7% |
Quote $666.67 to cover $420 of direct cost, recover $146.67 of overhead and leave $100.00 of net profit. That is a 58.7% markup on cost.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only labour cost, this is what happens to price to quote. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Labour cost ($) | Price to quote |
|---|---|
| $120 | $476.19 |
| $180 | $571.43 |
| $240 example above | $666.67 |
| $360 | $857.14 |
| $480 | $1,048 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Labour cost ($)
- Burdened: wages plus tax, insurance and the vehicle, not the hourly wage.
- Materials cost ($)
- A money amount, starting at $180.
- Other direct costs ($)
- Permits, disposal, equipment hire, subcontractors.
- Overhead rate (%)
- Overhead as a share of revenue. Work it out from last year's accounts.
- Target net margin (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 80, starting at 15%.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Price to quote | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Direct cost | A money figure. |
| Overhead recovered | A money figure. |
| Net profit | A money figure. |
| Gross margin | A percentage. |
| Markup on direct cost | 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.