How Much Do Mobile Detailers Make? Ranges and Costs

There’s no single answer. Employed detailers earn around $17 an hour on average, while an owner-operator’s income depends on how many jobs they book, what they charge and what it costs to run the business.

Nothing here is a promise of income. The figures below are published estimates, and your market could land well above or below them.

What the published numbers say

Source	Who it covers	Figure
BLS data via O*NET (2025)	Employees classed as cleaners of vehicles and equipment, a broad group	Median $17.23 an hour ($35,830 a year). 10th to 90th percentile: $13.17 to $22.89 an hour
Indeed (updated October 2026)	Automotive detailer job postings	Average $17.35 an hour. Low $11.59, high $25.99
Jobber	A solo mobile detailer with steady repeat customers	Around $50,000 a year
Housecall Pro	Small detailing businesses	$50,000 to $100,000+ a year

Read these with care. The BLS survey doesn’t cover the self-employed, so there’s no official figure here for owner-operators. The Jobber and Housecall Pro numbers are estimates from companies that sell software to detailers. They aren’t surveys, and they don’t spell out which costs have already come off.

You’ll find bigger numbers online too. Salary.com lists an $85,622 average for “mobile detailer,” far above the wage data in this table, so treat that as an outlier.

Revenue isn’t income

Jobber says $100 to $300 per job is common for mobile work. Its guide models a part-time detailer doing 5 to 10 jobs a week at $2,000 to $6,000 a month, and a full-time mobile detailer doing 2 to 3 jobs a day at $6,000 to $15,000+ a month.

Those are sales before costs, built on assumed job counts. Jobber cites a typical margin of 15% to 35% for auto detailing, while Housecall Pro says there’s no universal benchmark. Your own numbers are the only ones that count.

What comes out of revenue

• Supplies. Chemicals, towels and pads. Worked examples from Jobber and Housecall Pro use $15 and $35 in materials for one interior job.
• Vehicle. Fuel, repairs, tires and wear. The IRS 2026 business mileage rate is 72.5 cents a mile for January to June and 76 cents for July to December. It’s a handy stand-in for running costs, though your real cost will differ.
• Insurance. Insureon’s median quotes for detailers and car washes are $646 a year for general liability and $550 for commercial auto, plus $1,567 for workers’ comp if you have staff. Yours will vary by location, services and limits.
• Equipment. Pressure washers, vacuums and polishers wear out, so set money aside.
• Overhead. Phone, booking software, website and ads.
• Taxes. The self-employment tax rate is 15.3%, generally applied to 92.35% of net earnings, and income tax comes on top. Nobody withholds it for you, so the IRS generally expects quarterly estimated payments.
• Unpaid time. Driving, quoting, restocking, invoicing and rained-out days.

A worked example, not a forecast

Here’s how the math can fall for a solo detailer in one month. The job counts, $200 average ticket, supply cost, miles and overhead are round assumptions for illustration only. Insurance uses Insureon’s monthly medians ($54 general liability plus $46 commercial auto), and the vehicle line uses the 76-cent rate. Swap in your own numbers.

	Busy month (30 jobs)	Slow month (15 jobs)
Revenue at $200 a job	$6,000	$3,000
Supplies at $20 a job	-$600	-$300
Vehicle, 15 miles per job	-$342	-$171
Insurance	-$100	-$100
Phone, software and marketing	-$300	-$300
Equipment repair fund	-$200	-$200
Left before tax	$4,458	$1,929
Self-employment tax	-$630	-$273
Left before income tax	$3,828	$1,656

Three things stand out.

Fixed costs bite. Halving the jobs cuts what’s left by more than half, because insurance and overhead don’t shrink in a slow month.

Hours matter as much as dollars. A full detail takes four hours in one Jobber pricing example. At that pace, 30 jobs means 120 hours on cars. Add a further 30 hours for driving, quoting and restocking, and $3,828 works out to about $25.50 an hour before income tax. That comes with no paid time off, health plan or employer retirement match.

This money is your pay, not profit. Jobber’s margin range treats labor as a cost. Charge those 120 job hours at $25 an hour, the labor rate used in Jobber’s and Housecall Pro’s examples, and the busy month’s $4,458 drops to $1,458. That’s about 24% of revenue.

Remember too that this leaves out startup costs, income tax, and any loan or van payment. Change one assumption and the result moves a lot.

What moves the number

• Average ticket. Jobber’s mobile price list puts a full interior and exterior at $180 to $350. Prices vary by region and vehicle size, and it helps to know what customers expect to pay. Add-ons like paint correction and ceramic coating sell for more, but they take training and carry more risk.
• Drive time. Grouping jobs by area cuts both mileage and unpaid hours.
• Repeat work. Regular customers fill your calendar without new marketing. Jobber’s $50,000 estimate assumes exactly that, so getting and keeping customers is where much of the income comes from.
• Location. Busy, higher-priced markets can support higher rates, and they often come with higher costs too.
• Season. Rain and winter can thin out the calendar, depending on where you work.

If you’re still weighing it up, how to start a mobile detailing business covers startup costs and local rules.

Car Cleaning Pro is a US directory of car washes and mobile detailers. If you detail for a living, the detailer sign-up page is your next stop.