Mobile Detailing Pricing Calculator
Build the quote from the actual job: package, vehicle size, condition, hands-on time, setup, drive time, supplies, vehicle cost, overhead, card fees and redo reserve. Then stress-test the two things that wreck detail margins most often — condition and time.
1
Vehicle & package
Estimate the hands-on workload.
2
Time & direct cost
Everything the van and technician consume.
3
Supplies & margin
Price the invisible costs before they price you.
Cost stack
—Condition stress test
Same customer priceTime-overrun stress test
What if the job runs long?Good / Better / Best
Simple package ladder from your real floorSaved quotes
Compare vehicle, condition and margin instead of guessing from the last job.
Quote the condition you can defend. Photos help, but sand, pet hair, embedded stains, odor, oxidation and prior coatings can change labor sharply. Use the quote as a planning range until the vehicle condition and requested result are clear.
The expensive mistake is pricing only the time touching paint
A mobile job starts before the first wash mitt touches the vehicle. Driving, parking, unloading, water or power setup, cleanup and teardown consume the same working day. If the quote only pays for polishing and vacuuming, the invisible half-hour around the job slowly becomes unpaid labor.
Vehicle size and condition are separate multipliers
A large, well-maintained SUV and a small sedan full of dog hair are not equivalent. The calculator keeps size and condition separate so a bigger vehicle does not automatically imply a disaster, and a smaller vehicle does not get a clean-car price when the interior is the real job.
Margin is solved backwards, not added on top
If a job costs 100 and you add 30%, the price becomes 130 — but the margin is only about 23%. To actually keep 30% of the selling price before tax, the calculator divides the cost by one minus the target margin and percentage-based fees. That distinction is small on paper and enormous across a full month.
Quote → customer → repeat job
Open ShineNest →Run the detailing business in ShineNest
This calculator protects one quote. ShineNest carries the customer and job history forward so the next quote starts from evidence, not memory.