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A $175 detail bills at $50/hr — after the van, the polisher, and labor you keep $14.71/hr. The gap is the whole business.
Detailing looks like a high-rate trade — $175 for 3.5 hours is $50 an hour — until the costs show up: chemicals, the polisher and steamer amortized over their lives, the van payment and insurance divided across workdays, and labor. Priced honestly, that $175 job costs $123.51 and pays $14.71 an hour of true margin. This calculator prices any package with every cost line in, so tiers, size modifiers, and mobile minimums get set by math instead of guesswork — and you can see exactly what an upsell or a tighter route does to the real hourly.
Detailers use it before printing the menu: a $175 detail bills $50/hr but keeps $14.71/hr after the van, gear, and labor — the gap is the whole business.
Because detailing carries hidden fixed costs that scale with nothing: the van and insurance run about $21 per workday whether you do one job or four, and a $6,500 equipment setup (polisher, steamer, extractor, compressor) costs $5–6 per job over its three-year life before a drop of chemical is poured. On a $175 job those fixed lines plus chemicals and labor consume $123.51 — 71% of the ticket. The levers that close the gap, in order: jobs per day (fixed costs divide across more tickets — the single biggest lever), package tiers that add time-efficient services (an engine bay is 20 minutes for $45), and route discipline for mobile work. The detailers who fail are rarely bad at detailing — they price off the $50/hr illusion and discover the $14.71 reality at tax time.
Three tiers, priced off time: Basic/maintenance at 1.5–2 hours ($75–100), Full at 3–4 hours ($150–225), and Premium/Show at 6+ hours ($300+) — customers compare packages, not hours, and the tier jump is mostly margin because setup cost is shared. Two non-negotiable modifiers: vehicle SIZE (SUV/truck +$30–50 — the square footage of paint and glass is simply bigger) and CONDITION (pet hair +$25–40, heavy soil/staining +$40–75) — skip these and the worst jobs pay the least per hour. Mobile work adds a minimum: a service-call floor ($75+) or a two-service minimum, because 25 minutes of driving for a $60 wash loses money before the first panel. Condition-quote honesty matters too: photograph the car at booking, quote the range, and let the modifier be the customer’s choice rather than your surprise.
The ones where minutes beat materials: headlight restoration ($75–125 for under an hour and $10 of supplies — perceived value is transformation), ceramic spray toppers ($50–150 for minutes of labor on an already-clean car), engine bay ($45 for 20 minutes), odor treatment ($75–150 with an ozone unit doing the work unattended), and pet hair (priced as a modifier, not a favor). The pattern: add-ons sell at the point of maximum desire — when the customer sees the clean car — so build the upsell into the delivery walkthrough, not the booking call. Track minutes-per-panel on your first 50 jobs: your own time log calibrates package prices better than any competitor’s website, and it tells you which add-ons are worth printing on the menu.