How to Price Your Car Detailing Services in the UK (2026 Guide)

When I started detailing out of my Vauxhall Corsa with a Karcher K2 and a bucket of Autoglym products, pricing was the thing that kept me up at night. Not technique, not marketing — pricing. I had absolutely no idea what to charge. I looked at what the bloke down the road was doing, knocked a fiver off, and hoped for the best.

That was a mistake. And if you're reading this, there's a decent chance you're making the same one.

The truth is, most new detailers underprice their work. They're terrified of losing a job, so they quote low, work themselves into the ground, and wonder why they're earning less than they did stacking shelves. I've been there. This guide is everything I wish I'd known about pricing car detailing services in the UK before I started.

Understanding Your Costs First

Before you even think about what to charge a customer, you need to know what it actually costs you to turn up and do the job. This is the bit most people skip, and it's the reason most detailers are unknowingly working for minimum wage — or less.

Here's what you need to account for:

• Fuel and travel: If you're mobile, every job has a travel cost. At current UK fuel prices, you could easily be spending £5–15 per job just getting there and back. Don't ignore this.
• Products: Shampoo, fallout remover, dressings, microfibre cloths, detailing spray — it all adds up. A typical full valet might use £5–10 worth of product, more if you're using premium gear.
• Insurance: Public liability insurance for mobile detailing runs around £200–400 per year. You are insured, right?
• Equipment depreciation: Your pressure washer, polisher, vacuum, and other kit won't last forever. Budget for replacements. If you spent £1,500 on equipment and it lasts two years, that's roughly £15 per week you need to be earning back.
• Vehicle costs: Tax, MOT, maintenance, and wear on your own vehicle. If you're running a van, this gets even higher.
• Software and admin: Car detailing business software, accounting tools, phone bill — the small monthly costs that quietly eat into your margin.
• Your time: This is the big one. Every job takes longer than you think when you include setup, teardown, travel, and messaging the customer beforehand.

A Quick Cost Calculation

Let's say your fixed monthly costs (insurance, software, phone, vehicle) come to £300. You work 20 days a month and do 3 jobs per day. That's 60 jobs, so your fixed cost per job is £5. Add £8 for fuel and £7 for products, and every single job costs you at least £20 before you've earned a penny.

If you're charging £30 for a mini valet, you're making £10 for potentially 90 minutes of work including travel. That's less than £7 an hour. See the problem?

What Are Other UK Detailers Charging?

One of the first things you'll do is Google what other detailers near you are charging. That's sensible, but take what you find with a pinch of salt. Some are deliberately underpricing to stay busy. Others are overpricing and barely getting work. What matters is finding the sweet spot where your prices reflect your skills, your costs, and what the local market will bear.

Here are realistic UK price ranges for 2026, based on what I see working detailers actually charging across the country:

Mini Valet / Maintenance Wash: £30–50

A quick exterior wash, wheel clean, tyre dressing, and maybe a wipe of the interior surfaces. Takes 45–90 minutes. This is your bread-and-butter service for regular customers. In the South East, £40–50 is standard. Up north and in rural areas, £30–40 is more common.

Full Interior Detail: £60–100

Deep vacuum, steam clean or shampoo of seats and carpets, leather conditioning, all plastics cleaned and dressed, glass done inside. Expect to spend 2–3 hours. Pet hair jobs or particularly neglected interiors should be at the top of this range or beyond.

Full Exterior Detail: £80–150

Full decontamination wash, clay bar, polish by hand or light machine polish, wax or sealant. This is a proper detail, not a quick wash. Budget 3–4 hours. The higher end of this range is justified if you're using quality products and your finish is genuinely better than the competition.

Full Valet (Interior + Exterior): £120–200

The full works — everything inside and out. This is typically a half-day or full-day job. Most mobile detailers settle around £140–160 for a standard-sized car. Don't be afraid to charge £180+ for larger vehicles or cars that clearly haven't been cleaned since 2019.

Paint Correction / Machine Polish: £150–350+

Single-stage or multi-stage machine polishing to remove swirl marks, scratches, and oxidation. This is skilled work that takes real time and expensive pads and compounds. A single-stage correction on a small car might be £150. A full multi-stage correction on a large saloon is easily £300+. Don't undersell this — it's specialist work.

New Car Protection / Ceramic Coating: £200–500+

Preparation and application of a ceramic coating or long-term sealant. The product cost alone can be £30–80+, and the prep work is where the real time goes. New car protection packages are a brilliant upsell. Customers who've just spent £30,000 on a car are rarely going to baulk at £300 to protect it.

Pricing by Vehicle Size

This is something that took me far too long to figure out. When I started, I had one price for every car. A Fiat 500 and a Range Rover Sport paid the same. Madness.

A Range Rover has roughly twice the surface area of a small hatchback. It takes nearly twice as long. It uses more product. It's harder to reach the roof. If you're charging the same for both, you're effectively giving yourself a pay cut every time a big car rolls up.

Most established detailers use 3–5 size categories. Here's a simple structure that works:

• Small: Fiat 500, Ford Fiesta, VW Polo, MINI — your base price
• Medium: Ford Focus, VW Golf, BMW 3 Series, Audi A4 — base price + 15–20%
• Large: BMW 5 Series, Audi A6, estate cars, smaller SUVs — base price + 30–40%
• Extra Large: Range Rover, Discovery, large pickups, 7-seaters — base price + 50%+

So if your full valet base price is £120 for a small car, you might charge £140 for medium, £160 for large, and £180+ for extra large. That's fair to the customer and fair to you.

This is actually one of the things I built into DetailBook from the start. You can set up your services with different prices per vehicle size, and when a customer books online, they select their vehicle and see the correct price automatically. No awkward "actually, it'll be more because you've got a Defender" messages after the fact.

Hourly Rate vs Fixed Price

This is a debate that comes up constantly in detailing forums and Facebook groups. Should you charge by the hour or set fixed prices?

Fixed Pricing (Recommended for Public-Facing)

Customers overwhelmingly prefer to know what they're going to pay upfront. No surprises, no anxiety about the clock ticking. Fixed pricing also makes your booking process much simpler — they pick a service, see a price, and book. Done.

The downside is that some jobs take longer than expected. A "standard" interior clean on a car with three kids and a dog is a very different job to the same service on a commuter's Golf. You can manage this with clear descriptions of what's included and a surcharge for heavily soiled vehicles.

Hourly Rate (Keep This Private)

Even though I recommend fixed pricing publicly, you absolutely should be tracking your effective hourly rate privately. After every job, note how long it actually took (including travel, setup, and teardown) and divide your fee by those hours.

If your hourly rate drops below £25–30 per hour, something needs to change — either your prices are too low or you're taking too long. As you gain experience and invest in better equipment, your effective hourly rate should be climbing. If it's not, that's a sign you need to either raise prices or improve your efficiency.

Common Pricing Mistakes

I've made most of these myself, so this section comes from painful experience.

1. Underpricing to Compete

The biggest one. You see someone local charging £40 for a full valet, so you charge £35. They drop to £30. You follow. Before you know it, you're both working for nothing and hating every job. Don't enter a race to the bottom. There are always customers willing to pay more for a better service, better communication, and a more professional experience.

2. Not Accounting for Travel Time

If a customer is 30 minutes away, that's an hour of your day just driving. An hour you're not earning. Either factor travel into your prices, set a travel radius with surcharges beyond it, or politely decline jobs that are too far out. Your time has value even when you're behind the wheel.

3. Offering Too Many Discounts

"10% off your first booking!" "Refer a friend and get £10 off!" "20% off this week only!" Before you know it, nobody's paying full price and you've trained your customers to wait for a deal. Be very selective with discounts. A small loyalty reward for regulars is fine. Constantly discounting devalues your work.

4. Not Raising Prices as You Improve

The quality of your work after 6 months is dramatically better than when you started. Your equipment is better. You're faster. You're more reliable. Your results are better. Your prices should reflect that. The version of you with 200 jobs under your belt is not the same person who nervously did their first mobile valet in a Tesco car park.

5. Charging the Same All Year

Consider seasonal pricing. In winter, cars are filthier, jobs take longer in the cold, and you've got fewer daylight hours. There's nothing wrong with a small winter surcharge. Conversely, summer is peak season — if you're fully booked, that's a signal your prices could be higher.

When to Raise Your Prices

This is the question I get asked most. Here are the clear signs it's time:

• You're fully booked more than 2 weeks ahead. If you can't fit anyone in for a fortnight, demand is outstripping supply. The market is literally telling you to charge more.
• You never lose a quote. If every single person who enquires goes ahead and books, your prices are too low. You should be losing maybe 20–30% of quotes. That's healthy.
• You're exhausted and resentful. If you're doing 4–5 jobs a day just to make ends meet and you dread getting up in the morning, something's wrong. Fewer jobs at higher prices is almost always the answer.
• Your costs have gone up. Fuel, products, insurance — everything goes up. Your prices need to keep pace. Review at least every 6 months.
• You've invested in new skills or equipment. Just completed a ceramic coating course? Bought a proper DA polisher? Your prices should reflect your expanded capabilities.

When you do raise prices, don't apologise for it. A simple message to existing customers — "Just to let you know, my prices will be updating from [date]" — is all you need. Most regulars won't bat an eye. The ones who leave over a £5 increase were never your ideal customer anyway.

How to Display Your Prices

There are two schools of thought here. Some detailers hide their prices and insist on quoting for every job. Others put everything out there for the world to see.

I'm firmly in the transparency camp. Here's why:

• It saves you time. No more spending 20 minutes messaging back and forth with someone who was never going to pay your prices. They see the price, they either book or they don't.
• It builds trust. Hidden pricing feels dodgy. Customers worry they'll be overcharged or that prices are made up on the spot. Clear, published prices feel professional.
• It filters customers. People who book after seeing your prices have already accepted what they're going to pay. Fewer awkward conversations, fewer cancellations, fewer complaints.
• It makes online booking possible. You can't have a self-service booking system if customers don't know the price. And self-service booking is an absolute game-changer for reducing admin.

Your booking page should show each service with a clear description of what's included, the price (by vehicle size), and an estimated duration. That's it. No jargon, no confusing tier names. Just honest, clear information.

This is exactly what DetailBook is designed to do. You set up your services, define your prices per vehicle size, add descriptions, and share your booking link. Plans start from £25/month, and customers see everything upfront, pick what they want, choose a date and time, and book. You get a notification. Job done — no phone tag, no quoting, no admin.

If you're just getting started, you might also find our guide useful: How to Get Your First 100 Customers as a Mobile Detailer.

Want to reduce cancellations once you've set your prices? Read How to Reduce No-Shows as a Mobile Detailer.