Pressure washing prices: price the job from your costs, not a per-square-foot guess
Price a driveway, a house wash, a deck or a roof from your own labor cost, water and chemical use, drive time and margin — then see where you land against typical pressure washing prices.
Every other pressure washing pricing calculator gives you a national average and calls it a price. This one works from your numbers: what your labor actually costs you per hour, how fast you really work, your drive time, your materials and the margin you need. The typical range is shown for context, not as the answer.
What it prices
- Driveway and concrete flatwork — priced per sq ft; typical customer price $0.15–$0.35 per sq ft
- House wash (soft wash) — priced per sq ft of siding; typical customer price $0.20–$0.40 per sq ft
- Deck or fence — priced per sq ft; typical customer price $0.50–$1.50 per sq ft
- Roof soft wash — priced per sq ft; typical customer price $0.30–$0.75 per sq ft
- Commercial flatwork — priced per sq ft; typical customer price $0.08–$0.20 per sq ft
How to use it
1. Pick the job type and enter the quantity. Square feet, linear feet, panes, loads — whatever that job is sold by.
2. Put in your loaded labor cost. This is what one person costs you per hour including payroll taxes, workers' comp and any benefits — or what you need to pay yourself. It is not the rate you charge. If you have never worked this out, start with the wage and add 25%.
3. Check the production rate. The default is a typical figure per person per hour. Your real number, from your last few jobs, is better.
4. Drive time, setup and minimum charge. Small jobs die on the trip. The calculator pays every crew member for drive time and setup, and applies your minimum if the job comes in under it.
5. Materials, overhead and margin. Materials at cost plus your markup; overhead per billable hour (monthly overhead ÷ hours you actually bill); the net margin you want on the job.
Pressure washing pricing: what actually moves the number
Production rate is the whole game. A surface cleaner on a 4 GPM machine does 600–900 sq ft of driveway an hour; a wand does a third of that. Bidding a 1,200 sq ft driveway at $0.20 is $240 either way, but one takes 90 minutes and the other takes four hours. Put in the rate you actually get with your equipment.
Decks and roofs are chemical jobs, not pressure jobs. Sodium hypochlorite, surfactant and the dwell time are why a deck is priced three to five times a driveway per square foot. Enter the chemical cost under materials.
Minimums matter more here than in most trades. A $95 driveway across town loses money once you count drive time, setup and water. Most operators hold a $150–$200 minimum for residential and price small jobs as a package (driveway + walkway + patio).
Water. If you carry a tank, a 500-gallon fill is cheap; if you use the customer's spigot, it is free but slow on low-pressure wells. Either way it is a rounding error next to labor — the chemical is not.
Worked example
A 1,000 sq ft driveway with a surface cleaner at 600 sq ft per hour: 1.7 hours on the job, plus 30 minutes of setup and cleanup and a 30-minute round trip. At a $28 loaded labor cost, $15 per billable hour of overhead, $10 of surfactant and a 20% margin, the calculator lands at about $158, or $0.16 per sq ft — the bottom of the typical range, which is where a fast solo operator with a surface cleaner should be. Add a 300 sq ft walkway and patio and the price rises less than proportionally, because the trip is already paid for.
How the math works
- Hours = quantity ÷ production rate, plus setup and drive time for every person on the crew.
- Labor = person-hours × your loaded cost. Overhead = clock hours the job occupies × your overhead per billable hour.
- Price = (labor + materials + fees + overhead) ÷ (1 − margin), plus the material markup. Dividing by (1 − margin) gives a true margin on the sale; multiplying by (1 + margin) does not, and it is the most common pricing mistake in the trades.
- If the result is under your minimum charge, the minimum applies.
Turn it into an estimate
Hit Turn this into an estimate and the price lands in the estimate generator as line items, ready to send. When the customer says yes, the same numbers become the invoice in BIG INVOICE, which works offline with no account. See what tradespeople earn in your state, and use the pressure washing estimate template for a clean quote.
FAQ
How much should I charge for pressure washing?
Most residential pressure washing lands between $0.15 and $0.35 per square foot for flatwork, $0.20 to $0.40 for a house wash and $0.50 to $1.50 for decks and fences, with a $150 to $200 minimum. The right number for you comes from your labor cost, your equipment's production rate and your drive time, which is what the calculator works from.
How much to charge for pressure washing a driveway?
A typical two-car driveway of 600 to 800 sq ft runs $120 to $250. Below about 600 sq ft, price it at your minimum charge rather than by the square foot — the trip and setup cost the same regardless of size.
How much do pressure washers charge per hour?
Established operators effectively earn $75 to $150 per hour once equipment is paid for, but almost nobody quotes hourly. Quote by the square foot or the job, and use the hourly figure only to check that the job is worth taking.
How much to charge for a house wash?
$250 to $600 for a typical single-story home and $400 to $900 for two stories, depending on siding, height and how dirty it is. Soft washing with chemicals is priced above pressure washing because of the chemical cost and dwell time.
Does this pricing calculator use my numbers or averages?
Yours. The typical range is shown as context, but the price comes entirely from the labor cost, production rate, materials, overhead and margin you enter. Change any of them and the price changes.
Is this calculator free?
Yes, completely. No account, no email, no download. It runs in your browser and we never see your numbers.