The right price for a pressure washing job is its cost, divided by one minus the margin you want to keep, then checked against what the surface should bring per square foot. Cost is your crew's time on site and on the road, plus equipment, chemicals and fuel, plus your share of overhead. For a reference point, Housecall Pro's October 2026 guide lists residential concrete at $0.20 to $0.40 a square foot and vinyl siding at $0.20 to $0.50 (Housecall Pro). Those are what customers pay, not what your jobs cost you, so this guide builds the price from your own costs and treats the market as a check.
What the market charges, and why it is only a check
Published pressure washing prices come from software companies and marketplaces, and they overlap without agreeing.
- By surface, per square foot. Housecall Pro lists concrete at $0.20 to $0.40, brick at $0.10 to $0.40, vinyl siding at $0.20 to $0.50, wood at $0.30 to $0.55 and roofs at $0.50 to $1 (Housecall Pro). Joist, citing Angi's 2026 figures, lists driveways at $0.30 to $0.55 (Joist).
- By the hour. Housecall Pro lists $50 to $100 an hour per crew member for residential work (Housecall Pro). Joist lists $60 to $125 (Joist), and Thumbtack lists a national average of $75 to $90 (Thumbtack).
- By the job. Thumbtack puts the national average for a home at $241 to $418 (Thumbtack).
When two sources put the same kind of driveway at 20 cents and 55 cents a square foot, no number on a web page is yours. Your price comes from how fast your crew works and what it costs to send them.
Three ways to quote
- By the square foot. You price each surface by its area at a rate you worked out from your own speed. It is easy to explain and to put on a price sheet. Flat concrete and siding go at different speeds, so each surface type needs its own rate.
- By the hour. You charge for time on site. Housecall Pro suggests hourly billing for jobs that are hard to reach or mix several surfaces (Housecall Pro). Customers cannot budget for it, but it protects you when you cannot know the time in advance.
- By the job. One flat number for the whole property. It sells well and rewards a fast crew, but it only works if you measured and timed first.
A workable setup is a price by the square foot, built from your costs, with an hourly rate for odd jobs and a minimum charge for small ones.
Step 1: measure and time
Measure every surface before you quote. A driveway is length times width. A house is the wall height times the distance around it, minus the big windows and doors. Then time yourself. Run a few real jobs with a stopwatch and note the square feet cleaned per hour for each surface and each tool. Use your own speed, not a figure from another crew.
Step 2: setup, teardown and the drive
Every job has time that does not shrink with the size of the surface: unloading, running hoses, covering plants and outlets, rinsing, loading back up, and the drive. Joist says small jobs often carry a minimum fee because travel, setup and cleanup take about the same time whatever the size (Joist). Count that fixed time on every quote.
Step 3: labor cost
Multiply the people on the job by their hours on site plus the drive, then by each person's hourly pay. If you have employees, add employer payroll taxes and workers' compensation to the wage. Our labor rate calculator works out that fully loaded rate. If you work alone, pay yourself a wage here too, or the price will leave out the one cost you are sure to have.
Step 4: equipment, chemicals and water
Put a cost per on-site hour on the machine, surface cleaner, hoses, tank, trailer and truck. Add what you spend in a season on fuel, repairs, nozzles and payments, then divide by the hours that gear runs. Add chemicals job by job. Ask whether the customer has an outdoor tap you can use. If you carry water or run a generator, that is a cost line.
Treat hot water and soft washing as their own services. Joist says soft washing takes more chemical knowledge and care and should be priced separately, and it cites HomeGuide's 2024 figures of about $0.08 to $0.20 a square foot for pressure washing against $0.35 to $0.77 for power washing with hot water (Joist).
Step 5: overhead and margin
Overhead is what runs whether you wash or not: liability insurance, phone, software, your website, and the hours you spend quoting and invoicing. Add up a year of it, divide by the hours you expect to be on site, and add that amount to every on-site hour. Our guide to what a service hour really costs covers each cost line. Liability insurance belongs here, not on the "nice to have" list, because a mistake on siding or a deck can cost more than the job paid.
Then divide the total cost by one minus your target margin. Guides use two different formulas, and they give different prices from the same percent. Housecall Pro divides break-even cost by one minus the target margin (Housecall Pro). Joist multiplies the total job cost by one plus a markup percentage (Joist). Margin is profit as a share of the price and markup is profit as a share of the cost, so know which one your number is.
A pressure washing price calculator in five lines
You can run the whole calculation on paper.
- Hours on site = surface area divided by your speed, plus setup and teardown time.
- Labor = (hours on site plus drive hours) times loaded hourly pay.
- Equipment and chemicals = hours on site times your cost per on-site hour.
- Overhead = hours on site times your overhead per on-site hour.
- Price = (labor plus equipment and chemicals plus overhead) divided by (1 minus margin).
Divide the price by the area to get your rate per square foot, and run the same five lines for the smallest job you take to find your minimum charge.
Example: a driveway, and the small job that sets your minimum
This is an illustration with invented figures, not an average for any crew or city. Swap in your own.
Your worker earns 20 dollars an hour, and payroll costs add 20%, which makes 24 dollars. Your equipment costs 12 dollars for each hour on site, chemicals and fuel 3.50 dollars, and overhead 7.50 dollars. You clean 400 square feet an hour, setup and teardown take 1 hour, and the drive is half an hour. A 1,200 square foot driveway and walkway takes 1,200 divided by 400, which is 3 hours of cleaning, plus 1 hour of setup, so 4 hours on site and 4.5 paid hours with the drive.
| Cost line (1,200 sq ft of concrete) | Dollars |
|---|---|
| Labor: 4.5 paid hours at 24 | 108.00 |
| Equipment: 4 hours at 12 | 48.00 |
| Chemicals and fuel: 4 hours at 3.50 | 14.00 |
| Overhead: 4 hours at 7.50 | 30.00 |
| Cost of the job | 200.00 |
- At a 30% margin: 200 divided by 0.7 is 285.71 dollars. Profit is 85.71, and 85.71 divided by 285.71 is 30%.
- The markup trap: 200 times 1.3 is 260. Profit is 60, which is about a 23% margin.
- Your rate: 285.71 divided by 1,200 is about 0.24 dollars a square foot.
- The hourly check: 285.71 divided by 4 hours on site is about 71 dollars an hour, which sits inside the $50 to $100 an hour range Housecall Pro lists (Housecall Pro).
- If a neighbor quotes 15 cents a square foot: 1,200 times 0.15 is 180 dollars, less than the job costs you. Do not match it.
Now the small job, 200 square feet of walkway. Cleaning takes half an hour, so it is 1.5 hours on site and 2 paid hours with the drive. Labor is 48, equipment 18, chemicals 5.25 and overhead 11.25, so the cost is 82.50 dollars. Divided by 0.7, the price is about 117.86 dollars. At your 0.24 rate, 200 square feet would bill only about 48 dollars. That gap is why you need a minimum charge: here, 120 dollars.
What changes the price on the day
Joist lists heavy staining, mold or algae, multi-story buildings, steep access, delicate surfaces that need low pressure or special solutions, long travel and rush requests as reasons to price up (Joist). It also says to list extras such as sealing, stain removal or hot water as separate lines on the estimate. Look at the surface before you quote, or ask for photos. If you also clean gutters, how much to charge for gutter cleaning uses the same cost-plus-margin method.
Mistakes to avoid
- One rate for every surface. Roofs, siding and concrete take different time and carry different risk.
- Leaving out setup and the drive. They cost the same on a small job as on a big one.
- No minimum charge. Small jobs lose money at a per-square-foot rate.
- Copying a competitor's rate. Their speed, equipment and costs are not yours.
- Mixing up margin and markup. The example above shows the gap.
- Skipping insurance in the price. It is a running cost, so it belongs in overhead.
When to raise the price
- The job took longer than you quoted for several jobs in a row. Time it and requote.
- Your costs went up. Fuel, insurance, chemicals and pay all move. Rerun the numbers at the start of each season.
- The customer adds work. A second driveway, a fence or sealing is a new line on the quote.
Where your website fits
Once your price is set, the next job is making it easy to ask for. A website that lists the surfaces you clean and the towns you cover, with a way to request a quote, helps. So does a phone that gets answered while the machine is running.
Fasite is $199 a month, or $1,990 a year, for a done-for-you website, a 24/7 AI receptionist on its own new number that books free visits, online booking, recurring jobs, estimates, invoices and scheduling. The receptionist does not quote prices, so your price stays yours. The first subscription starts with a 30-day free trial, and no card is needed to start. Our guide on how to stop missing calls on the job covers the phone side.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I charge for pressure washing?
Enough to cover the job's cost and keep the margin you want: cost divided by one minus your margin, never less than your minimum charge. The cost depends on your speed, crew pay, equipment, chemicals, drive time and overhead, so it differs from one crew to the next.
How do I price pressure washing jobs?
Measure the surface, time your own speed, add setup and drive time, then add labor, equipment, chemicals and overhead. Divide the total by one minus your margin. The five lines above do it on paper.
How do you quote a pressure washing job?
Measure each surface, time your own cleaning speed, build the price from labor, equipment, chemicals, overhead and margin, and write each surface as its own line on the quote. Look at the surface before you quote, or ask for photos, because heavy staining, mold, height and steep access change the time. Extras such as sealing or hot water go on separate lines, and no quote goes out below your minimum charge.
Should I charge by the square foot or by the hour?
Square foot pricing is easiest for customers to compare, and hourly pricing protects you on hard-to-reach or mixed-surface jobs. Build a rate per square foot from your own costs, and keep an hourly rate for jobs you cannot measure.
What is a pressure washing price calculator?
It is the same arithmetic as the five lines above: hours on site, labor, equipment and chemicals, overhead, then cost divided by one minus margin. A spreadsheet or a sheet of paper does it. What matters is that the inputs are your own.
Do I need a minimum charge for pressure washing?
Yes. Setup, teardown and the drive take about the same time whatever the size of the surface, so a small job loses money at a per-square-foot rate. Run the five lines for the smallest job you take and set your minimum at or above that price.
What is the difference between margin and markup?
Margin is profit as a share of the price. Markup is profit as a share of the cost. A price with a 30% margin has about a 43% markup.