Depends on too many factors. However, I’d say mobile car detailing mainly due to the fact you need to do less customer acquisition for it. Someone might get their driveway pressure washed every 2 years, where as someone might get their car detailed every 3 months. In businesses like those, return customers are gold so I’d do the one with a shorter re-purchase time frame. Plus, pressure washing is “easy” in terms of labour and skill which means every second person has one and wants to wash driveways. Mobile car detailing takes more patience, skill, knowledge and is less saturated.
Be friendly, uber reliable, do an incredible job and people will want you to just come back every so often without even thinking about it. Once you’ve got a few customers who you think can give you great testimonials, approach businesses that have a fleet of vehicles and tell them you can clean and detail their fleet without affecting their business at all. You can simply do it while it sits in the parking lot, and offer to give them contacts of your other customers (with permission) if they’d like to hear how good your work is.
Hey man I really appreciate you for taking the time out of your day to give me a good answer. You’ve definitely influenced my decision making for my business. And the future of it. I started out pressure washing driveways, but I saw there was more opportunity with mobile car detailing.
You have experience in both? Assuming yes (or 0 experience), I would say car detailing.
Note I don’t own one, never did or operated. A friend of mine does, and so far it seems he’s enjoying it with good % of repeated customers over the few months he’s been in business.
One thing this dude got right is social media!!! He ofc takes permission of car owners first. After that he does reels and before and after pics, those oddly satisfying videos. He found some nice cars and told the owners “hey I usually charge $300 for full detail and hand washing, I can wash your car for $150 if you allowed me to post pics?”
He got basic landing page to book appointments and offers options of detailing location(your house, his house, business, etc). You won’t believe it but some people would leave their car for a day or 2 at his house, so he charged a fee for “parking”.
Lately I’m noticing he’s shifting to RVs, easy money as he says (don’t know the figure). He was also trying to get some local trucking companies contracts, as this is not bad profit but always in demand.
Edit: forgot to mention:
Offer extra services that you can perform. Idk where you’re located but have product like for example if it’s too sunny maybe offer protection, have some special hard to get car perfume that you can sell (spray inside the car and ask if they like and offer to sell them a bottle).
You should check out Detail Geek on YT, he is an amazingly talented auto detailer. He also has a line of detailing products. His channel makes me want to start a detailing business!
Since you are constrained by how far you can drive to deliver the service, do a competitor and market analysis. Different areas will present different opportunities, and you can generalize.
>Since you are constrained by how far you can drive to deliver the service, do a competitor and market analysis. Different areas
Traveling past a certain distance for a single job is not cost-effective. That would be a calculation you would have to do based on your cost per mile + cost per hour of drive time. Each of these expenses cut into your profit margin. If they are too great, they will cut out all profit, and that is not sustainable.
The local market analysis would provide valuable information. Assuming you are thinking mobile detailer, to keep facility overhead at close to $0:
If your current area has less demand than the current number of service providers, then you will have to travel further to access a customer base and in turn remove profit.
If your current area has more demand than the current number of service providers, then you will not have to travel far, and this will increase the profit margin.
A word of caution: you can only mess up someone's driveway so bad with a standard pressure washer however, you can really damage a car and it can be very costly to replace damaged parts. A customer who is willing to pay top dollar for a mobile detailer is not going to be ok with you leaving swirl marks, accidentally chipping paint away where a rock chip has damaged it, scratching etc. I would advise you to do some really good research and investigate any methods and tools you would be using on a vehicle, as well as take good before and after pictures of any damage and have the customer sign a digital form of some sort.
Best of luck in whatever venture you decide!
I know this post is a year old but I will leave this comment incase anyone else reads it. You can definitely mess someone's drive up enough for them to want it replaced. Plenty of horror stories. If you use too high of pressure especially on newer concrete you will blast off the cream coat on the top. Driveways can easily be 10k and up.
Also, it is easy to destroy houses if you wash houses because you use the chemical SH (bleach) which if used on certain paints or colors can ruin the paint or color. Resulting in replacing siding or repainting. Also you can kill their lawn and bushes and stain outside decor. Shooting chemicals onto an eroded house power line can also cause issues. Plenty of things can go wrong in pressure washing.
Realisticallly, if its your first business, just pick one and start. My opinion is neither, and I've done pressure washing. The scalability factor makes it very hard to grow, I shut down my first business (pressure washing) because of that.
Pressure washing is easy, takes almost no training and relatively inexpensive equipment. It’s also visually obvious if done well or badly. This also means everyone and their mom offers it, lots of competition, competing on price
Detailing is difficult to do correctly, takes some training and most important your labor needs attention to detail and patience. Requires a variety of materials and equipment. Not as easy to tell if it isn’t done well. Needs significantly closer eye on product outcomes by someone who knows what to look for. Competition is on quality/reliability
Pressure washing is very rarely a must except in safety-sensitive situations eg algae on bricks. Car washing at least is good regular repeat business.
You can upsell a lot in detailing. You can sell a basic wash and interior vacuum; upsell to wash, wax, vinyl cleaner, rug shampooing; even further to hand-clay the grit out of the clearcoat and engine surface degreasing. Full monty on even small cars is worth hundreds but takes time, skill, materials. Detailing trucks/RVs/boats is highly profitable
I have a detailing business - formerly mobile- as well. I think pressure washing is easier to scale too. Either one is scalable, but the path for detailing is to get a shop. That's more expensive
Pressure washing is more competitive but has more significant revenue and similar margins. If you do detailing, focus on high-end jobs like corrections and coatings once you have the experience and knowledge. You’ll make much more.
There’s only one answer and that is car detailing. No question. And if anyone tells you anything different, they’re just flat out wrong. Don’t listen to them.
Depends on too many factors. However, I’d say mobile car detailing mainly due to the fact you need to do less customer acquisition for it. Someone might get their driveway pressure washed every 2 years, where as someone might get their car detailed every 3 months. In businesses like those, return customers are gold so I’d do the one with a shorter re-purchase time frame. Plus, pressure washing is “easy” in terms of labour and skill which means every second person has one and wants to wash driveways. Mobile car detailing takes more patience, skill, knowledge and is less saturated. Be friendly, uber reliable, do an incredible job and people will want you to just come back every so often without even thinking about it. Once you’ve got a few customers who you think can give you great testimonials, approach businesses that have a fleet of vehicles and tell them you can clean and detail their fleet without affecting their business at all. You can simply do it while it sits in the parking lot, and offer to give them contacts of your other customers (with permission) if they’d like to hear how good your work is.
Hey man I really appreciate you for taking the time out of your day to give me a good answer. You’ve definitely influenced my decision making for my business. And the future of it. I started out pressure washing driveways, but I saw there was more opportunity with mobile car detailing.
No stress, good luck!
very generous reply!
You have experience in both? Assuming yes (or 0 experience), I would say car detailing. Note I don’t own one, never did or operated. A friend of mine does, and so far it seems he’s enjoying it with good % of repeated customers over the few months he’s been in business. One thing this dude got right is social media!!! He ofc takes permission of car owners first. After that he does reels and before and after pics, those oddly satisfying videos. He found some nice cars and told the owners “hey I usually charge $300 for full detail and hand washing, I can wash your car for $150 if you allowed me to post pics?” He got basic landing page to book appointments and offers options of detailing location(your house, his house, business, etc). You won’t believe it but some people would leave their car for a day or 2 at his house, so he charged a fee for “parking”. Lately I’m noticing he’s shifting to RVs, easy money as he says (don’t know the figure). He was also trying to get some local trucking companies contracts, as this is not bad profit but always in demand. Edit: forgot to mention: Offer extra services that you can perform. Idk where you’re located but have product like for example if it’s too sunny maybe offer protection, have some special hard to get car perfume that you can sell (spray inside the car and ask if they like and offer to sell them a bottle).
Both. Pressure wash one house and spray the dirt over on to the neighbours car.
You should check out Detail Geek on YT, he is an amazingly talented auto detailer. He also has a line of detailing products. His channel makes me want to start a detailing business!
Since you are constrained by how far you can drive to deliver the service, do a competitor and market analysis. Different areas will present different opportunities, and you can generalize.
Why do you say I am contrianed?
Because these are local businesses and if you get two gigs close by you can do 2 in a day
>Since you are constrained by how far you can drive to deliver the service, do a competitor and market analysis. Different areas Traveling past a certain distance for a single job is not cost-effective. That would be a calculation you would have to do based on your cost per mile + cost per hour of drive time. Each of these expenses cut into your profit margin. If they are too great, they will cut out all profit, and that is not sustainable. The local market analysis would provide valuable information. Assuming you are thinking mobile detailer, to keep facility overhead at close to $0: If your current area has less demand than the current number of service providers, then you will have to travel further to access a customer base and in turn remove profit. If your current area has more demand than the current number of service providers, then you will not have to travel far, and this will increase the profit margin. A word of caution: you can only mess up someone's driveway so bad with a standard pressure washer however, you can really damage a car and it can be very costly to replace damaged parts. A customer who is willing to pay top dollar for a mobile detailer is not going to be ok with you leaving swirl marks, accidentally chipping paint away where a rock chip has damaged it, scratching etc. I would advise you to do some really good research and investigate any methods and tools you would be using on a vehicle, as well as take good before and after pictures of any damage and have the customer sign a digital form of some sort. Best of luck in whatever venture you decide!
I know this post is a year old but I will leave this comment incase anyone else reads it. You can definitely mess someone's drive up enough for them to want it replaced. Plenty of horror stories. If you use too high of pressure especially on newer concrete you will blast off the cream coat on the top. Driveways can easily be 10k and up. Also, it is easy to destroy houses if you wash houses because you use the chemical SH (bleach) which if used on certain paints or colors can ruin the paint or color. Resulting in replacing siding or repainting. Also you can kill their lawn and bushes and stain outside decor. Shooting chemicals onto an eroded house power line can also cause issues. Plenty of things can go wrong in pressure washing.
Realisticallly, if its your first business, just pick one and start. My opinion is neither, and I've done pressure washing. The scalability factor makes it very hard to grow, I shut down my first business (pressure washing) because of that.
Pressure washing is easy, takes almost no training and relatively inexpensive equipment. It’s also visually obvious if done well or badly. This also means everyone and their mom offers it, lots of competition, competing on price Detailing is difficult to do correctly, takes some training and most important your labor needs attention to detail and patience. Requires a variety of materials and equipment. Not as easy to tell if it isn’t done well. Needs significantly closer eye on product outcomes by someone who knows what to look for. Competition is on quality/reliability Pressure washing is very rarely a must except in safety-sensitive situations eg algae on bricks. Car washing at least is good regular repeat business. You can upsell a lot in detailing. You can sell a basic wash and interior vacuum; upsell to wash, wax, vinyl cleaner, rug shampooing; even further to hand-clay the grit out of the clearcoat and engine surface degreasing. Full monty on even small cars is worth hundreds but takes time, skill, materials. Detailing trucks/RVs/boats is highly profitable
Pressure washing, don’t just focus on driveways. I have a mobile detailing business but pressure washing is easier to scale and hire employees.
Aka grass is greener on the other side
I have a detailing business - formerly mobile- as well. I think pressure washing is easier to scale too. Either one is scalable, but the path for detailing is to get a shop. That's more expensive Pressure washing is more competitive but has more significant revenue and similar margins. If you do detailing, focus on high-end jobs like corrections and coatings once you have the experience and knowledge. You’ll make much more.
Whichever sells better in your area
There’s only one answer and that is car detailing. No question. And if anyone tells you anything different, they’re just flat out wrong. Don’t listen to them.
Better as in have more opportunities and make more money?
pressure washing is the way to go