Your crew hourly wage, payroll burden, overhead on direct cost and target net margin are the same on every job you bid. Save them once and every trade bid calculator here opens with your numbers instead of a stranger’s ballpark.
Kept in this browser only, on this site’s own storage. Nothing is uploaded, and clearing your browser data clears it. Forgetting them leaves the numbers already on this bid alone.
Keep this bid so it is still here when the customer calls back. Every number on this form is saved together, under a name you choose, along with the figure it gave you, and restoring one puts the whole job back exactly as you priced it. Mark each one won or lost when you hear — the ones you have not heard back on stay listed as waiting, with how long they have been out. Once a few have come back, this panel says how long yours actually take, and how many are still out past that. Once enough of them have been decided, it also says whether the bids you save here have been landing differently lately than they used to. Once a few here are decided, this panel says what the ones you won averaged against the ones you lost, so you can see where your price tips. On a lost bid you can also note what the job went for, if you heard — then it says how far off you actually were, which is the part guessing gets wrong in both directions. On a won one, note what the job came to once it was done and this panel says what those jobs actually kept, so you can see whether the ones you are winning are worth winning — and it tells you how many of your won jobs are still missing that figure, rather than going quiet about it. Restoring a bid also pins the figure it was saved at above this panel, so when the customer asks what it costs without the tear-off, the new number is shown against the one they already have — and by how much, in money and in percent.
Kept in this browser only, on this site’s own storage. Nothing is uploaded, and clearing your browser data clears it — download a backup to keep a copy or open your bids on another device. Bids are kept per tool, so these are the ones you saved here.
FOR PRESSURE WASHING & SOFT-WASH CONTRACTORS
Price the drive, not just the driveway.
Bid a wash the way the job actually runs: each surface divided by the production rate your crew really hits, plus the drive, the setup, the chemical, and the minimum that covers showing up. You get the bid, what it works out to per square foot, and the after-travel hourly — the number a flat per-foot quote hides.
One row per surface. Production rate is square feet one technician covers per hour. Pick a surface to start from a common figure, then replace it with a rate timed from your own crew. Chemical is dollars for that surface on this job.
SurfaceSquare feetSq ft / hourChemical $
Travel, labor, and costs
Drive time is billed time. A forty-minute trip each way plus twenty minutes of setup is a full hour that never touches a surface — and on a small driveway that hour is most of the job. Payroll burden covers employer taxes, workers’ compensation, and insurance.
How contractors actually use this
How do I price a pressure washing job?
Split the property by surface. A driveway, a house wash, and a deck are three different production rates. Add the round-trip drive and the setup, then layer wage burden, chemicals, water, wear, overhead, and the margin you intend to keep. If that number is below your minimum job, bid the minimum.
Why does a per-square-foot quote lose money?
House siding soft-washes much slower than open concrete, and the drive does not care how many square feet are on the ticket. Two jobs of identical size can differ by an hour of unpaid travel. The after-travel hourly is the number that catches that before the quote is sent.
Are the starting production rates a standard?
No. They are common ballpark figures so a contractor who has never timed a surface can see that a roof and a parking lot are not the same job. Replace every rate with one timed from your own crew and equipment.
Your bid
$—
job price
Wash time
Travel + setup
Total hours
Loaded labor
Chemicals
Water, wear & other
Overhead
Job cost
Profit
Price per sq ft
On-site hourly
After-travel hourly
Walk-away price
Maintenance package
Where the wash time goes
What you would bid to keep these hourly rates after the drive
After-travel hourly
Bid
Transparent arithmetic from your own inputs. The starting production rates are common ballpark figures, not an industry standard, a benchmark, or a guarantee — time your own crews and replace them.
Hand the customer a proposal
The price above is for you. This is the page you print or save as a PDF and give to the customer — your details, their details, the scope, the deposit split, and a line for them to sign. Your business details are saved on this device so you only type them once; the customer’s details are never saved.
Everything on the printed page is text you typed or a number this calculator worked out. It contains no warranty, lien, or cancellation wording — those depend on your jurisdiction and your contract, and this tool is not the place to invent them.
Common questions
How do I price a pressure washing job?
Split the job by surface (driveway, house siding, deck, fence), divide each by a production rate in square feet per hour, add drive time and setup, then load wage, chemicals, overhead, and margin. A flat price per square foot cannot see that house siding washes much slower than a driveway, or that a 40-minute drive each way can cut the after-travel hourly in half.
Why is my pressure washing bid unprofitable even when the per-foot price looks fine?
Travel and setup are billed hours. A $200 driveway with 80 minutes of driving is a different job from a $200 driveway around the corner. This calculator reports the after-travel hourly so the drive is visible before the quote goes out.
What is a typical pressure washing production rate?
Ballpark starting points only: about 1,000 sq ft/hour for a clean concrete driveway, 500 for a house soft wash, 350 for a wood deck, 250 for a roof. Real rates depend on equipment, soil, storey height, and hand work. Time your own crew and replace the starting figures.
Want the margin, walk-away price and overrun headroom as well, or pricing a different trade? Price this job in the Bid Price Engine, one calculator for 121 trades.