Professional Business aspect of detailing

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FiveOhMustang

New member
I was just curious on how well, you professional detailers/mobil/fixed location owners do. Like if you are a moble detailer how many full details do you average per week and what is your monthly income, and same for fixed loction ownders and how much do you have to pay for products,water,insurance....... pretty much how well do yuo ownders do, because i am staring a mobil business and later in life would love to own a nice shop and am just curious if you can make a good living at it
 
You can definately make a living at it! I am opening this spring and have done a lot of research in my area. Most guys who run a set location can make 5k a month. And most of there business is word of mouth. I allready have about 30 cars to do this spring and as soon as I can find a good location. I have figured a net income for me just at start is about 3k for my first month with about a 30% increase after 2 months. And the 30% is low figure. It all depends on how much word of mouth you get out there before you acually start. I just talk to people about what it is I do. I do not know about the mobile stuff. Rightlook.com has a suryey up that was done in 2000 comparing mobile detailers to a fixed location you can check that out if it helps. ( it's right on the front page of the website )
 
I just started detailing in my truck accessory stop 3 weeks ago and I wonder if there is much profit in detailing for me. By the time I buy product, and pay the help the profit margin has not been much. I am sure we will get our timing down bettter in weeks to come but for now it takes my detailer around 5 hours to do a complete detail on a fullsize car. I wonder what time an experienced detailer can do the same car in.
 
FiveOhMustang said:
if you are a moble detailer how many full details do you average per week
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If you are successful you could expect to average at least ten full details per week. That's about two per day at five days per week.
 
I do between 2-3 vehicles per day @$70 (dealership), when the weather permits, I usually do 2 on Sat and 1 on Sunday at my house. My personal prices vary from $100 to $300. I'm already buried in personal details and we just got a foot of snow on the ground. I'm up to 40+ vehicles in line already....I can't work with this snow!!!!
 
My suggestion is to save well through the year in case you live in a climate where weather will have you sitting on DC all day :lmfao
 
I have owned my detail shop for about 3 1/2 years, in the summer i can average between 4-6 cars a day sometimes more. I charge $119 for cars 129 for trucks and 149 for mini-vans and anything over-sized. You can defintely make a living with it. Although the winter gets pretty slow sometimes, jan-mar.. So it would be a good idea to offer other services as well. I also do bodywork ( i am also a semi-experienced painter) electronic and accessory installs, tinting, paintless dent removal, and i also do insurance photo inspections through Carco, 5 bucks each and they only take a few minutes to do. Hope this helped, Brian
 
I've done detailing for people here and there for the past few years and am now considering doing it more frequently just for some extra steady cash. Here in NJ, the concentration of wealthy people is considerable and most people wont mind spending $200 on a full detail. A shop that just opened in Red Bank, NJ (a high traffic area) that does mostly high end vehicles charges an arm and leg for their work and they are very busy! I talked to a guy who just had his S500 done there and he paid $400 for a job that I could have done better myself. That really opened my eyes.
 
M23Accord said:
Here in NJ, the concentration of wealthy people is considerable and most people wont mind spending $200 on a full detail.
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I started my own mobile detailing business here in Southern New Jersey back in 1986 and now average about $225 for a complete detailing of a mid-size car.
 
I charge a bit more than average for my area. My area averages around $75-100 per car, wheras I charge $125. However, when I ever get asked about why the extra $25 is there, I explain my products. Poorboy's PwC/EX combo beats out looks and protection of anything any other detailer around here provides. When people see me using high-end products (because Poorboy's is the shiz) on their cars, instead of mass produced Megs or Auto Magic (not saying there is anything wrong with those two) then they feel it is worth it.
 
hey tassadar i jsut checked out your webpage it is very nice and also very nice and clean LX i have a 90 GT i will psot the link to my cars pics below
 
I'm in a stand alone location and have a pickup and delivery service. I can only do one car a day but I charge 150 and up, more along the lines of 225 plus.
 
I average about $105-$165+ per vehicle. Since I'm mobile, my income pretty much varies through out the year.
 
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