How to Price Pressure Washing Jobs

Price the complete visit: loading, travel, setup, cleaning, rinsing and packing away. Measure the work, estimate person-hours, add direct costs and overhead, then check the gross margin before sending the quote.

Use the Quote Calculator to assemble the customer price and the Job Profitability Calculator to check what remains after your entered costs. For quick reference, see pressure washing prices per square foot and the minimum charge guide.

Start with the job

A competitor’s square-foot rate tells you little about their costs or scope. They may have a nearby route, faster equipment, a minimum charge or separate stain-treatment fees. Copying the rate can leave you charging the same amount for more work.

Walk the job where practical. Record the surfaces, condition, water supply, access and customer expectations. State what your quote includes and which stains or repairs it excludes. Compare local prices only after comparing the scope; use any benchmark as a reference point to investigate, not a price you must match.

Decide what you are measuring

• Square footage suits measured flatwork with reasonably similar condition and access.
• Linear footage can suit fence runs or edging, provided you record height, sides and detail work.
• A flat-rate item works for a defined set of steps, a small patio or a detached structure.
• A production-based estimate starts with expected person-hours and job costs. You can still present a fixed project price to the customer.
• A hybrid quote combines measured cleaning with separately priced stain treatment, access or other defined work.

Keep units consistent. A rate per square metre cannot be applied to square feet. For buildings, record wall height and the faces being cleaned; floor area alone leaves too much out.

Estimate the time from arrival to departure

Break the visit into setup, pretreatment, dwell time, cleaning, rinsing, any permitted post-treatment and teardown. Add travel and loading time to your costing. Dwell time may overlap with another task, but only count that saving when the crew can do both safely.

Two people on site for three hours consume six person-hours. Record time by stage on completed jobs so the next estimate uses your own production history. Keep driveway production separate from detailed steps, edges and awkward hose runs.

Cost the job and fund the overhead

Direct costs include labour, chemicals, fuel, travel, water where you pay for it, materials and equipment consumables. Include your own labour even when you do all the work. Use a labour cost that accounts for the employment costs you actually incur. Avoid counting vehicle fuel twice if your travel allowance already includes it.

Insurance, administration, marketing, storage and equipment ownership continue between jobs. Budget those overhead costs separately or allocate a share to each job. Equipment wear also needs funding: do not charge both a full equipment allowance and the same replacement cost again.

For a target gross margin, divide direct cost by one minus the margin as a decimal. A $300 direct cost at an illustrative 40% margin needs $500 in revenue: $300 ÷ 0.60. The $200 gross profit still has to fund overhead and other business obligations. If you include allocated overhead in the calculator’s other expenses, its result is after that allocation; do not deduct it a second time.

Set a minimum service charge

A small pad still requires a trip, hoses, setup and cleanup. Build the minimum from that visit cost and the contribution you need from the booking. Apply it to the base service before adding separately scoped work. Explain the minimum when a customer asks why a tiny area costs more per square foot.

A small add-on at a job you are already doing may need less allowance for mobilization. Check the extra time and materials before offering a bundle discount.

The Pressure Washing Minimum Charge Guide shows a cost-based formula and worked example without presenting a universal market minimum.

Price difficulty and risk before committing

Heavy organic growth, oil or rust, fragile surfaces and poor access can add time or change the method. Landscaping protection and water management need labour and materials. A second visit means another mobilization. Commercial work may require traffic control, restricted hours or waiting for an area to clear.

Write those allowances into the estimate. For steep roofs or unsafe access, establish whether the job can be done within your competence, equipment limits and coverage before pricing it. An extra charge does not make unsafe work acceptable.

Check gross profit before sending the quote

Enter the pre-tax selling price and all direct job costs in the Job Profitability Calculator. Margin divides profit by revenue; markup divides profit by cost. A $300-cost job sold for $500 has a 40% gross margin and a 66.67% markup.

Check a slower-job case as well. If an extra hour removes the profit you expected, revisit the time allowance or scope. Compare the resulting price with local demand and comparable offers. If customers will not pay enough for the defined work, change the scope, improve the cost estimate or decline the job.

Use square-foot pricing where it fits

Area pricing works best when your completed-job records show similar production on similar surfaces. A wide, accessible driveway and the same area split across steps and narrow paths require different time. Derive your rate from a costed job, then use it to speed up comparable estimates.

Use the square-foot pricing guide to match services to measurement units, calculate an effective unit rate and keep the minimum charge separate.

For surface details, use the driveway and concrete pricing guide, house washing pricing guide or roof soft-wash pricing guide.

For more involved scopes, use the commercial pricing guide, paver cleaning, sanding and sealing guide, deck and fence pricing guide, or gutter cleaning pricing guide.

Pricing mistakes that eat the allowance

• Timing only the cleaning pass and forgetting setup, rinsing and packing away.
• Guessing chemical cost without allowing for the condition and actual product use.
• Quoting from a photo that hides difficult access or drainage.
• Confusing a markup percentage with the same margin percentage.
• Waiving the minimum or giving a discount before checking the remaining profit.
• Including stain treatment without defining the scope or the limits of the expected result.

Worked estimate: driveway with a stain allowance

Illustrative USD budget only. These rates, costs and margins are assumptions for this example, not market recommendations. Tax is shown separately from job revenue; confirm the treatment that applies to your work.

The measured area is 1,200 sq ft. This example uses $0.25 per sq ft, producing $300. The business’s assumed $250 minimum does not affect that base. A separately agreed stain-treatment allowance adds $60. There is no discount, so the subtotal is $360. At an illustrative 5% tax on the full subtotal, tax is $18 and the customer total is $378.

The operator budgets four person-hours, including travel and the complete visit, at $30 per hour ($120). Chemicals and materials cost $25, fuel and travel $20, and equipment consumables $15. Direct cost totals $180. On $360 pre-tax revenue, gross profit is $180 and gross margin is 50%. A separate $45 overhead allocation leaves $135 before other obligations. One extra labour hour reduces gross profit to $150, or 41.67%.

Reproduce the quote with area 1,200, rate 0.25, minimum 250, add-ons 60, discount 0 and tax 5. Check profitability using customer price 360, labour hours 4, hourly cost 30, materials 25, fuel/travel 20 and equipment 15.

Tools for the estimate

Build the quote with the Quote Calculator, then check it in the Job Profitability Calculator. The Surface Cleaner Sizing Calculator can help you assess equipment fit; its range is a planning heuristic, not a production-time guarantee. Use the SH Dilution Calculator for nominal batch arithmetic only after selecting a label-compliant treatment for the surface.

Follow product labels, SDS and equipment instructions, including required PPE. A nominal SH calculation is not an application recommendation. Never mix SH with acids, ammonia or incompatible chemicals. Work only within safe equipment and access limits.