Pressure washing hourly rate calculator
Your pressure washing cost per hour is your year’s costs divided by the hours you actually bill. Enter your own truck, fuel, equipment, chemical, insurance and overhead figures plus the pay you mean to take, and the calculator returns your break-even per billed hour, the rate to quote at your margin, and what that rate is worth per square foot. It is the calculator form of how much to charge for pressure washing.
Your hourly rate
Pre-filled with example inputs. Replace every figure with your own year.
Hourly rate to quote
$122 /billed hr
Break-even $85.71 · 840 billed hr/yr · $0.054/sq ft machine time
- Per month, as the guide counts it
- $6,000 over 70 hr
- Profit per billed hour
- $36.73
- Your two-hour minimum
- $245
Where each billed hour goes
- Truck and trailer$9.52
- Fuel$5.71
- Equipment depreciation$4.76
- Chemicals$4.29
- Business insurance$2.86
- Phone, software and overhead$8.57
- Owner pay target$50.00
Machine-time $/sq ft is a floor, not a quote: setup, edging, travel between jobs and risk sit on top of it. Check it against the bands below.
PSI & nozzle quick reference
- 0 degRed
- Spot jet. Etches most surfaces.4000 PSI
- 15 degYellow
- Stripping bare concrete.4000 PSI
- 25 degGreen
- General concrete and walkways.3500 PSI
- 40 degWhite
- Siding, wood, vehicles.1500 PSI
- ~65 degBlack
- Detergent draw, low pressure.500 PSI
What a pressure washing hourly rate is made of
Two numbers, not one. The break-even is every cost of the year, your own pay included, divided by the hours a customer pays for. The rate to quote is that break-even with profit on top, so a wet fortnight or a dead pump does not come out of your wages. The calculator treats margin as profit’s share of the price: at 30% margin, 30 cents of every dollar billed is profit, which means dividing the break-even by 0.7.
The figure people get wrong is the divisor. Hours on the job are not billed hours. Driving between addresses, quoting, loading the trailer and topping up chemical all happen on your clock and nobody else’s.
How to use the calculator
- Pull last year’s numbers. Bank statements and card bills give you truck, fuel, chemical and software. A starting operator uses quotes and finance terms instead.
- Spread the equipment. A machine and surface cleaner that last four seasons cost a quarter of their price each year. Hose, tips and pump rebuilds go in the same line.
- Put your pay in. Leave the owner line at zero and the rate only keeps the truck running.
- Track the unbilled share for two weeks before you trust it. Start the clock when you leave the yard, not when the surface cleaner starts.
- Measure your production rate on a real job: square feet finished divided by hours on site, edging and post-treat included.
Worked example: the guide’s numbers, run through
The defaults reproduce the example in the how-much-to-charge guide: $6,000 a month of cost over 70 billed hours. They are example inputs, not typical figures for the trade.
| Line | Per year | Per billed hour |
|---|---|---|
| Truck and trailer | $8,000 | $9.52 |
| Fuel | $4,800 | $5.71 |
| Equipment depreciation | $4,000 | $4.76 |
| Chemicals | $3,600 | $4.29 |
| Business insurance | $2,400 | $2.86 |
| Phone, software and overhead | $7,200 | $8.57 |
| Owner pay target | $42,000 | $50.00 |
| Break-even | $72,000 | $85.71 |
| Rate at 30% margin | $102,857 | $122.45 |
At a measured 2,250 sq ft an hour, $122.45 an hour is $0.054 per square foot of machine time, and the two-hour minimum at this rate is $245. Planning a second crew or a slow month? The profit calculator takes it from here, and the business plan guide turns the same break-even into jobs per week.
Same costs, different driving
Hold every cost at the example figures and change only the unbilled share. Every hour pulled back from the road comes straight off the rate, which is why route density is the margin in this trade.
| Unbilled share | Billed hr/yr | Break-even | Rate at 30% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25% | 1050 | $68.57 | $97.96 |
| 40% | 840 | $85.71 | $122.45 |
| 50% | 700 | $102.86 | $146.94 |
From an hour to a square foot, then a sanity check
Customers buy driveways, not hours. Machine-time $/sq ft is the floor of a square-foot price, never the price itself: setup, mobilisation, risk and the fact that no job is all open concrete sit on top of it. Our working band for concrete flatwork is $0.20–$0.40 per sq ft, so a 1,400 sq ft driveway at moderate soiling prices at $280–$560. At the example rate that buys 2.3–4.6 billed hours, travel included. If your measured job takes longer, the band is too low for you or your production rate is. Price the job itself in the pressure washing cost calculator.
The one outside anchor
Questions operators ask
Should I quote by the hour or by the square foot?
Residential customers want a fixed price, so quote per job and use the hourly rate to check it. Hourly quoting still works for open-ended work: graffiti, rust, specialty stains. Fleet work prices per unit; the fleet washing pricing calculator handles that.
Where does insurance go?
In its own line. General liability is a fixed annual cost whether you work or not, and commercial clients will ask for the certificate. The insurance guide covers what to carry.
How do I show the rate to a customer?
You usually don’t. Show line items by area and surface on an estimate; the rate is how you know those lines make money.
No wage figures on this page