Somebody posts in a pressure washing group asking what to charge for a two thousand square foot driveway. Forty people answer with forty numbers. Half of them are guessing and the other half are quoting a market three states away.
None of those numbers are your number, because none of those people are paying for your truck.
The three ways people price, and what is wrong with two of them
Per square foot. Easy to quote, easy to compare, and it hides everything that actually costs you money. Two driveways of identical size can differ by two hours depending on oil stains, slope, access to water and whether you have to move six cars. A flat square-foot rate makes you money on the easy ones and loses it on the hard ones, and the hard ones are the ones people call about.
What the other guy charges. This is not pricing, it is following. His costs are not yours. His truck might be paid off. He might be about to go out of business and take your price expectations with him.
From your cost, up. This is the only one that survives a bad month. Work out what the job costs you in time and material, add the margin you decided the business needs, and that is the price. Then check it against your market rather than starting there.
What people forget to count
Setup and teardown. Getting the rig off the trailer, running hose, moving furniture, covering plants, and putting it all back. On a residential job that is often forty-five minutes that nobody quoted.
Drive time. It is not billable and the customer will not pay for it directly, which is exactly why it has to be covered by the jobs that are.
Chemical, honestly. Not what a drum costs. What this job costs including what you mixed and did not use.
Going back. Some percentage of jobs need a return trip. If your price does not carry it, the return trip comes out of your own pocket.
Build the price for one job
Take a job you are quoting this week and put it in. It builds the number from your time, your materials and the margin you decided on, instead of from what you think the customer will accept.
Start from your industry
Editable starting examples for your industry. They change the starting numbers, not the math, and they are not industry statistics.
Your numbers
Wage plus taxes, insurance and workers comp. Usually 1.3x the wage.
What that means
If this job goes sideways by 20% you still break even. That is the point of pricing profit in.
Never show a customer a cost breakdown. Show scope, warranty and the price.
What this assumed
- Overhead and profit are applied to the full job cost, not to labor alone.
- Waste is applied to materials only.
Runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
This is an estimate
This tool returns an estimate based on the numbers you entered. Your real result depends on your own costs, rates and conditions. Check it against your own records before you make a decision with it.
How to run it, step by step
- 1Estimate the hours honestly. Setup, wash, post-treat, rinse, teardown and cleanup. Add the time to get water and to move the rig around the property. Round up. Every pressure washing quote that lost money was short on this line.
- 2Put in your loaded hourly cost. Not what you want to earn per hour. What an hour of your business costs to run once the truck, the rig, insurance, fuel and your own pay are counted. If you have not worked that out, do the hourly rate math first.
- 3Add materials at what you actually pay. Sodium hypochlorite, surfactant, degreaser, rust remover, and the water if you haul it. Use your real cost per job, not per drum, and include what you waste.
- 4Set the margin you decided on, not the one you hope for. Margin is the number that pays for the truck breaking down, the day it rains, and the job you have to go back to. Pick it before you know the customer, so it does not quietly get negotiated away.
How to read what it gives you
- The price it gives you is your floor for this specific job. Quote above it. Quoting below it means the job is a donation with equipment wear attached.
- Divide the price by the square footage and you have your effective per-square-foot rate. That is the number to sanity-check against your market, and it is far more useful than starting with a per-square-foot number you copied.
- Run a soft wash and a concrete job through it separately. They have different time and chemical profiles, and pricing them off one blended rate is how house washes end up subsidising driveways.
The tool is free, it does not expire, and you can put it on your own website if you want it there. Nothing on this page is locked.
Not ready to talk? Browse the rest of the free tools
What to do with the number
If your price is under the floor, you are not cheap, you are subsidising. Raise new quotes starting tomorrow. Existing recurring accounts get notice in writing with a date.
If your price is above the floor but you are losing bids, that is not necessarily a price problem. It is often a response time problem. Homeowners call three companies and hire the first one that answers and shows up to look. If you are calling back at eight at night after a full day of work, you are losing jobs you priced correctly.
If the floor is far above your market, look at your billable hours before you look at your rate. Most pressure washing operations that come out too expensive have a routing problem, not a pricing problem.
The commercial difference
Commercial work changes the math and mostly in your favor. Bigger jobs mean setup is a smaller share of the day. Recurring contracts mean the drive is planned instead of scattered. And commercial buyers are far less price-sensitive than homeowners as long as you invoice cleanly and show up on schedule.
If your calculator says your price is fine and your calendar still has holes, that is usually the direction to go.
One more thing
Write your terms down before you need them. Access, water, what happens if the surface is worse than the photos, when payment is due. Six clear sentences on the estimate prevents almost every argument this trade produces, and there is a free generator for that language on this site.
Questions people actually ask
Should I price per square foot or per job?
Quote per job. Work it out per hour. Customers want one number and comparing square-foot rates across companies is meaningless because nobody measures the same way. Build the price from your time and cost, then present it as one figure.
What do I do about the guy charging half my price?
Usually he has not counted his equipment replacement, his insurance or his own time, and he will find out in about eighteen months. Compete on being reachable, showing up when you said, and leaving the property clean. That beats price for most homeowners and all commercial accounts.
How do I handle a job that turns out worse than the photos?
Put a line in your estimate that says the price assumes normal soiling and that heavier work is quoted on site before it starts. Then actually call before you start rather than surprising them on the invoice. The estimate terms generator on this site will write that language for you.
Should I charge for water?
If you haul it or buy it, it is a material cost and it belongs in the job. If you use the customer's spigot, say so in the quote so there is no argument later about their water bill.