Don't copy a price per square foot from a website. Time three of your own jobs, work out how many square feet you clean in an hour on each surface, and divide your hourly target by that number. In the example below, an hourly target of $70 gives about $0.12 per square foot for a driveway, $0.07 for siding and $0.47 for a deck, plus a $55 setup fee and a $150 minimum job. Your numbers will differ, which is the point: the sheet at the end is blank, and you fill it from your own stopwatch.
Why copied prices fail
Published ranges for pressure washing are wide, and they don't say whether the washer used a surface cleaner or a wand, hauled water, or drove 30 minutes. Two businesses charging the same $0.25 per square foot can have a profit of $40 and a loss of $20 on the same driveway. Speed, equipment and travel decide the margin, and those are yours, not the internet's average. That is why the method below starts with a clock.
Time three of your own jobs
Pick a driveway, a house and a deck, or whatever you do most. For each one, write down:
- The square feet (measure length by width; for siding, wall height by length minus big windows and doors).
- Setup time: unloading, hooking up water, pre-treating, covering plants. Include travel from the last job.
- Working time: only the cleaning, rinsing and cleanup.
- What you used: chemicals, fuel, and whether you used a surface cleaner or a wand.
A single sample is unreliable, so repeat each surface three times over a month and average them. If you haven't started, borrow a friend's driveway and a neighbor's fence and practice with a stopwatch.
Illustrative results for one operator: a 900 sq ft driveway took 1.5 hours of working time (600 sq ft an hour). A 2,000 sq ft house wash took 2 hours (1,000 sq ft an hour). A 300 sq ft wood deck took 2 hours (150 sq ft an hour). A 2,400 sq ft roof soft wash took 3 hours (800 sq ft an hour). Setup and travel averaged 45 minutes a job.
Price per square foot by surface
First find your hourly target. In this example one worker costs $22 an hour with payroll costs, equipment, fuel, water and chemicals average $19 an hour, and insurance and software $4. That is $45 an hour. To cover 15 percent overhead and a 20 percent profit, divide by 0.65, which gives about $69, rounded to $70 per hour.
Then divide $70 by the square feet you clean in an hour.
- Driveway: $70 / 600 = $0.117, so $0.12 per sq ft.
- Siding: $70 / 1,000 = $0.07 per sq ft.
- Wood deck: $70 / 150 = $0.467, so $0.47 per sq ft.
- Roof soft wash: $70 / 800 = $0.0875, and with a 25 percent premium for height and damage risk, $0.11 per sq ft.
The setup fee is 45 minutes at $70, $52.50, rounded to $55. Quote it as a line, or fold it into the minimum.
The minimum job
A small patio would price at $30 on square feet alone, and still cost you the drive and the setup. Set a minimum: setup $55 plus about 1.4 hours of work ($95), so $150. Quote "$150 minimum" up front, and a customer with a 200 sq ft patio won't be surprised.
Worked jobs from this sheet: the 900 sq ft driveway is 900 x $0.12 = $108 plus $55 setup, $163. The 2,000 sq ft house wash is 2,000 x $0.07 = $140 plus $55, $195. Done together on one visit, setup is charged once: $108 + $140 + $55 = $303, instead of $358 for two visits. That is a real saving for the customer, and a fair reason for the bundle.
Chemicals, water and equipment
Detergents and soft-wash chemicals vary with the surface and the dirt; track what you actually use per job for a month and put the average into the $19 above. If the customer has no outdoor tap, or low pressure, you'll be hauling water: add a line for it. Redo the timing once a year, because machines, nozzles and surface cleaners wear out and slow you down. Local rules apply to wash water and chemical runoff in many places (storm drains in particular), so check what yours require before you wash.
Damage risk and insurance
The cost that doesn't show in a price sheet is damage: etched concrete, stripped paint, water pushed behind siding, a damaged roof, a broken window. Protect yourself three ways. Photograph the surface before you start, with the customer present if you can. Use soft washing, not high pressure, on roofs and painted or aged siding. And carry general liability insurance that covers this kind of work, with the policy limits your state or your customers require. Ask your insurer exactly what is excluded; some exclude roof work or cleaning chemicals. A reasonable premium on high-risk surfaces (the roof line above) is a way to pay for the risk.
Bundles and repeat customers
Bundles of surfaces on one visit save setup time, as above. Repeat customers are cheaper to serve: you know the property, the water source and the surface. Offer an annual visit at a lower rate if the customer books the next one when you finish: 10 percent off the second visit, say, because you know the property and skip the estimate. A route or a street of customers lowers your setup time, which is the same lever as in lawn mowing prices.
A blank quote sheet
| Surface | Sq ft cleaned per hour (your timed jobs) | Hourly target / sq ft per hour = price per sq ft | Risk premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Concrete driveway | ____ | $____ | 0% |
| Siding (house wash) | ____ | $____ | 0 to 10% |
| Wood deck or fence | ____ | $____ | 10 to 20% |
| Roof (soft wash) | ____ | $____ | 25% |
| Setup fee | Setup and travel hours x hourly target = $____ | ||
| Minimum job | Setup fee + about 1.4 hours x hourly target = $____ | ||
Put the finished sheet beside your measuring wheel. For how to lay out the quote itself, read how to write a quote for a service; for when to quote by the hour and when by the job, hourly rate versus flat fee; and for the bigger picture, how to price your services. To find customers once the sheet is ready, see getting customers for a pressure washing business, with window cleaning as the neighboring trade. The same cost-first build for a different trade is in how much to charge for house cleaning.
A good sheet still needs people to send it to. Rocketship finds the buyers, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, and books the meeting on its own. Plans that get you customers start at $24.99 a month (Launch), and both Launch and Frontier start with a 7-day free trial, card required.