How to Estimate Auto Detailing Jobs: Size, Package, Condition

Short answer: To estimate auto detailing jobs, price three variables together: size class, package level, and condition. Size class sets exterior hours, seat count and cargo space set interior hours, and condition is what wrecks the quote. Pet hair, smoke, mold, or beach sand can double the interior time on the same vehicle, so those go on the estimate as conditional lines with a stated trigger. Never quote paint correction without a taped test spot wiped down and photographed.

An interior quote is a guess about hours, and the hours are decided by things you cannot see in the driveway photo the customer sent. The car that took four hours last month and eleven hours this month was the same year, model, and package. The difference was a golden retriever.

What do I look at before I open a door?

Paint, under one light, on a surface that has been cleaned enough to judge.

Nobody can read paint through a week of road film. Rinse it or at minimum wipe a panel, then put a single point light on it — a swirl finder, a work light in a dark bay, or the sun at a low angle. What you are sorting for:

• Swirls and haze. Circular marring that polish removes. This is what the customer means by “the paint looks dull.”
• Random deep scratches. Run a fingernail across one. If the nail catches, polishing will not remove it, and saying so before you quote separates you from the shop that promises everything.
• Water spot etching. If it does not wipe off, it is etched into the clear and belongs in the correction line, not the wash line.
• Clear coat failure. Flaking, cloudy, peeling patches. Polishing accelerates it. That vehicle gets a wash and an explanation, not a correction quote.
• Overspray and rail dust. Slide a plastic bag over your hand and feel the hood. Rough means a decon step exists whether you quoted it or not.
• Repainted panels. A depth gauge reading that jumps on one fender says that panel has been redone. Multi-step work on thin or resprayed clear is how detailers buy paint jobs.

Also log the trim, the badges, chrome pitting, wheel coatings, curb rash, glass chips, wiper scratches, and whether the windows are tinted, because tint changes what you can safely do to interior glass.

What does the interior tell me with the doors shut?

Sit in it. Close the doors. Wait a minute and breathe.

Smell drives more of the price than sight does. Smoke means an odor process — enzyme or ozone treatment, cabin filter, headliner attention — and it means a written no-guarantee line, because some cars never fully release it. Mildew means water is getting in, and the leak has to be found before you take the job or the smell comes back with your name on it.

Then look, in this order: seat count and third row, carpet under the mats, seat rails, pet hair on the cargo liner, sand in the seat tracks, stains on the headliner, cracked leather that will not come back, sagging headliner fabric that must not be steamed, child seats, and aftermarket wiring under the dash. Photograph everything you find before the keys change hands.

How do I set size classes that mean something?

Size class should predict hours, not flatter the customer.

Class	Examples	What drives the hours
Compact	Coupes, small sedans	Least glass and panel area, quick interior
Sedan	Mid and full-size sedans	Baseline for both sides
Crossover	Small SUVs	Taller panels, a step stool, cargo area
Large SUV, minivan	Three-row vehicles	Seven or eight seats, seat tracks, third-row reach — the interior killer
Pickup	Crew cab half-ton	Big flat panels, bed, running boards, mud
Oversize	Lifted trucks, duallies, cargo vans	Ladder work and a surface area jump

The lesson buried in that table: exterior hours track surface area, interior hours track seats and cargo volume. A three-row minivan is longer inside than a crew cab pickup that is longer outside. Shops that use one class list for both sides of the car underbid every van they touch.

Which conditions have to be conditional lines?

Every one that can double the hours. Put them on the estimate before the drop-off, with a trigger the customer can read.

Condition	What it does	How to write it
Pet hair	Adds hours of pumice, brush, and repeat extraction	First hour included, then per half hour
Smoke odor	Enzyme or ozone, cabin filter, repeat passes	Flat surcharge, no guarantee of full removal
Mold or mildew	Biohazard handling, and the leak comes first	Own rate, or declined until repaired
Sand and salt	Extra vacuum passes, seat removal sometimes	Per-vehicle surcharge
Spills and biohazard	PPE, disposal, extraction cycles	Own rate, quoted after inspection
Heavy tar, sap, overspray	A decon stage before any polishing	Separate decon line

The wording matters more than the amount. “If heavy pet hair is present on arrival, a surcharge of X per half hour applies” is a line the customer agreed to. “I ended up spending three extra hours” is a conversation you will lose at pickup.

How do I test before I promise paint correction?

With a taped square, not with optimism.

Wash, chemically decontaminate for iron and tar, and clay the panel. Tape off a section about two feet square on a representative panel — a hood or a door, not the trunk lid nobody sees. Run your least aggressive pad and polish combination first. Then wipe the section with panel prep, because polishing oils fill and hide the exact defects you are trying to measure. Inspect under the same light, and photograph the taped line.

Quote the car from the panel that fought back hardest, not the easiest one. One-step, two-step, or multi-stage is a decision made after that test, not from a phone photo in a parking lot. Correction quotes given from photos are the most common way detailers work a Saturday for free.

What does mobile work change about the estimate?

Four things that never appear on a shop menu.

Water first. Ask whether there is an outside spigot with real pressure, or a tank on your trailer with a fixed number of gallons per vehicle. No water changes the whole process to rinseless.

Power second. A household 15-amp circuit will trip with a heated extractor running, and generator noise is banned in plenty of complexes and HOAs.

Runoff third, and this one has teeth. Wash water carrying soap, brake dust, and oil is a pollutant, and stormwater reaches the nearest waterway untreated — EPA’s NPDES stormwater program is the framework, and local illicit-discharge ordinances prohibit sending runoff into the storm drain. On a driveway sloping to the street, containment mats or a rinseless process are the answer, and both belong in the quote.

Space and weather fourth. Polish and coatings cannot go on a hot panel in direct sun, so shade or an emptied garage is a requirement, not a preference. And setup and teardown run close to forty-five minutes per stop before a panel is touched. Price them, along with the drive.

How do I quote cure time without giving away the bay?

Cure time is inventory. A coated car sitting in your only bay overnight is a bay-day you cannot sell to anyone else.

Pick one of three: the customer takes the car after the dust-free window with a written aftercare card, you keep it overnight and charge for the space, or you only book coatings on days that can absorb it. Follow the coating manufacturer’s stated dust-free and cure windows rather than a rule of thumb, put the no-wash period on the card, and treat a rain forecast as a reason to reschedule a mobile coating.

How do the hours turn into a price?

Cost a bay-hour, count the consumables, then decide what profit means.

A bay-hour is your space — rent or mortgage share, power, water, insurance — plus equipment depreciation on polishers, the extractor, the steamer, the compressor, and the lighting, plus your own wage and burden. Divide the annual total by the hours you can realistically sell, not by 2,080. Detailers who divide by every hour in the year price themselves into a hole.

Consumables are per vehicle and they are not small: pads have a finite job count before they are dead, compound and polish, towels and the laundering they need, coating measured in milliliters per size class, tape, clay, and chemicals. Track them for a month per class and you will have a real number.

Then add overhead and profit, and be precise about which one. Markup is a percentage of cost; margin is a percentage of price. Adding 60 percent markup to $180 of cost gives $288, which is a 37.5 percent margin. Holding a true 60 percent margin means dividing by 0.40 and quoting $450. Menu prices copied from a shop three states away carry none of your rent, your climate, or your labor market, so use them only to check that your own arithmetic did not go somewhere strange.

What do I do when the keys go back?

Close the loop while the car is still in front of you. Before and after photos on the same panel from the same angle, the condition triggers that actually fired, and the hours the job really took by stage. Ten jobs of that turns your package times into measurements instead of hopes. Then the invoice, which is a different document from the estimate for a reason worth understanding — invoice vs receipt covers the distinction, and what to include on an invoice covers the contents.

Keel is an iOS app that handles the after-the-yes side entirely on the device: no account, no bank connection, no cloud, no login, and an App Store privacy label reading Data Not Collected. The invoice leaves in about a minute with your own numbering, logo, brand color, and a payment link the customer scans as a QR code before they drive off — which on detailing work is most of the collection problem solved. Receipts for pads, compound, coating, and towels get photographed and read on device by Apple Intelligence, and a mobile day of four driveways logs its own miles, the record described in IRS mileage log requirements. The year exports as a single file. Free covers unlimited invoices, receipts, and mileage; Keel Pro is a one-time $249.99 Lifetime purchase, not a subscription.

Frequently asked questions

How do you quote paint correction?

Only after a test spot. Wash, decontaminate, and clay a representative panel, tape off a two-foot square, run your least aggressive pad and polish, then wipe it with panel prep so polishing oils are not hiding the defects. Inspect under the same light, photograph it, and quote the whole car from the panel that resisted most.

How much extra should I charge for pet hair?

Charge it as time, not as a flat guess. Write the estimate so the first hour of hair removal is included and additional time bills per half hour at your labor rate. Heavy hair in carpet and cloth seats can add several hours of pumice, brushing, and repeat extraction, which is the most common reason a detail runs past its quoted price.

Can I estimate a detail from photos?

Interior condition, partly. Paint condition, no. Photos hide swirls, etching, clear coat failure, and repainted panels, and they never carry a smell. Use photos to set the size class and to spot obvious pet hair or spills, give a range, and state clearly that the final price is confirmed on inspection before work starts.

Does an SUV cost more to detail than a pickup?

Usually inside, sometimes not outside. Exterior hours follow surface area, so a crew-cab pickup can carry more panel than a crossover. Interior hours follow seats and cargo space, so a three-row SUV or minivan with seven or eight seats and long seat tracks takes far longer inside than a pickup with one row behind the front.

What should an auto detailing estimate exclude?

Guaranteed removal of deep scratches, etching, and clear coat failure. Full smoke odor removal. Repair of cracked leather, torn seats, sagging headliners, or dash cracks. Removal and reinstallation of child seats. Engine bay work on vehicles with exposed aftermarket electronics. Water intrusion and its cause. Naming these on the estimate keeps a finished car from becoming an argument.

---

This article is general information, not professional or tax advice.