For professional detailers or detailing business owners, setting your car detailing prices is one of the biggest challenges. Are your car detailing prices reflective of the averages within your city, state, or even across the country? If you want to make more money as a detailing business, you need to charge your customers the right price. If your detailing services are priced too low, you’re leaving money on the table. But if your prices are too high, you might lose customers to your competition.
Once you find the right price, you might need to know more about how to convince your customers to pay a higher price. Many detailers use an estimating app to help them create consistent pricing and justify their prices to customers.
Skim through the research below compiled by Mobile Tech RX. You can compare the prices you’ve set for your business against the averages across the country and even your state and city.
New to this site? Mobile Tech RX provides tools and resources to help detailing and auto recon professionals start and grow their businesses. Learn more about Mobile Tech RX and why thousands of business owners have tried our #1 app for detailing.
National Average Price for Car Detailing
The average detailing price around the country is $160.16. The range of average prices for car detailing in the US is $114.59 on the low end and $213.67 on the high end.
Average Car Detailing Prices per State
The state with the highest average price for detailing is Oregon with an average price of $258. The range in this state is $186.67 on the low end and $296 on the high end.
The state with the lowest average price for detailing is Hawaii, with an average price of $90.50. Hawaii’s range of detailing prices starts at $55.50 on the low end and $270 on the high end.
Prices in the Top 10 and Lowest 10 Cities
In this map, we can see which cities are on the extreme high and low end for detailing price averages around the country. We would expect cities like Memphis and Indianapolis to have low car detailing prices. These cities have relatively low costs of living. It’s surprising to see Los Angeles and San Francisco in the Lowest 10 given their high costs of living. When we look at the Top 10 cities, it’s also surprising to see Wichita close to the top.
Detailing business owners should be able to use this data to compare their prices within their city and state. This data will help business owners be competitive in their area. Further, groups of detailers within a city or a state should consider their prices against national averages.
Range of Car Detailing Prices in US Cities
To get a full picture of the pricing in these top 10 and bottom 10 cities, we can look at the entire range of their prices. Some cities, like San Antonio, Sacramento and Los Angeles have a very large range of normal pricing for detailing. Other cities, like Indianapolis and Oklahoma City have fairly consistent prices across the city.
Comparing Detailing Prices per State with Cost of Living Adjustments
This data is probably the best way to see the differences in detail pricing per state accounting for their relative costs of living. Here we calculated an adjusted price for each state based on the national average and each state’s relative cost of living multiplier. Then we compared each state’s actual price with its price adjusted from the national average.
States to the right of the national average charge more than we would expect based on their cost of living. States to the left of the national average charges less than expected based on their cost of living.
If you live in a state to the left of the national average, it might make sense to charge higher detail prices. This can help you catch up with the national average and adjustments for cost of living.
Conclusion
The best way to use this report is to consider all of the data together. This will give you the most realistic picture of car detailing prices around the country. It’s not enough to just look at the average prices in a given city or state. When you also consider the range of those prices, how cities compare to their respective states, and the cost of living in a particular area, then you have a good sense of what prices are really typical.
Important Takeaway: The cost of living and range of car detailing prices need to be considered alongside the average prices for each city and state.
Detailing Business Startup Tip: Compare the prices you charge at your detailing business with the national, state, and city averages. This could be a good resource for you to justify raising prices to make more money.
Raise Your Prices with Mobile Tech RX
There’s a business app just for detailers that will help you start earning the money you deserve. This is the first and the only detailing app in the world with the technology to help you make up to 30% more revenue per job. You can do this through our “Perfect Estimating” technology which helps you price out a car based on different variables. Sign up for a free trial and try it out yourself- no credit card needed to sign up.
Download & Share the Car Detailing Prices Infographic
You can download the full infographic here. Please include attribution to Mobile Tech RX when using this infographic.
Methodology
To produce this report, we used data from Yelp to find the low, average, and high price for auto detailing in cities around the country. We compiled the data by city and state where car detailing prices where available. (15 of the 50 states didn’t have enough accurate data on auto detailing pricing to use them in this report.)
To make sure we fairly compared detailing prices between states, we used a cost of living factor. Our cost of living factor for each state was provided by the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center. This factor helped us look at auto detailing prices in relation to the cost of other products and services for each state. We also compared these adjusted prices from the national average to find high and low outliers.