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True Trade Cost

Pressure Washing Pricing Calculator: Siding and Flatwork by the Square Foot

Updated

A soft wash on a two-storey house with about 3,400 sq ft of siding, plus 2,400 sq ft of driveway and front walk, comes to $757.72, about 13 cents a square foot, at a $54 break-even rate with 25% profit. Change the square feet or your costs and the price shifts with them.

This pressure washing pricing calculator prices a job from the square feet you clean, the crew time each 1,000 sq ft takes and the chemicals you spray on it. The defaults are a simplified copy of the example house in the Pressure Washing Estimate Calculator spreadsheet, so the first result is a real soft wash and driveway priced out.

1. The job
× 1,000 sq ft

Siding plus concrete. 5.8 means 5,800 sq ft.

hrs

Washing and rinsing, plus the drive, rig setup and the quote.

$

SH, surfactant, degreaser, gas, plastic and tape, at your cost.

2. Costs that come with every job

The ones owners leave out most. Put 0 if it doesn't apply.

$
$
3. Your rate and profit
$/hr

What each labour hour has to bring in to cover wages and overhead.

%
%

Don't know your break-even rate? Work it out in two minutes with the true hourly rate calculator.

Job price$757.72

Why a wash job goes in as blocks of 1,000 sq ft

Square feet are how you already size a house wash or a slab, and the chemical mix scales with them. But typing 0.0014 hours a foot means nothing to anyone, so the calculator works in blocks of 1,000 sq ft. The example's 5,800 sq ft goes in as 5.8.

Each block carries 1.4 crew hours and $13.20 of chemicals, gas and covers at cost. Those hours are for the two-person crew together and include the trip there and back, the walk-around, covering outlets and lights, wetting plants, and pricing and writing up the quote. That makes the calculator's labour about $75.60 per 1,000 sq ft.

Siding against concrete: setting the hours per 1,000 sq ft

Siding and flatwork don't wash at the same speed. On the example, the soft wash keeps both washers busy for about an hour and a quarter, while one person surface cleans the driveway and walk in about an hour with pre-treat and post-treat on either side. The 1.4 hours is the blend of both on this job.

If a job is all concrete, the hours per 1,000 sq ft drop. If it is a three-storey house with heavy algae on the north wall, they climb. Time your next few jobs of each kind, divide by the blocks of 1,000 sq ft, and you have your own figures to type in.

The house alone, the driveway alone, and a small patio

Set the square feet to 3.4 for the house wash on its own and the price is $481.42, about 14 cents a foot. The driveway and walk on their own, at 2.4, come to $366.30, about 15 cents a foot. Together they cost less than separately because the $62 for the truck, trailer, washer and surface cleaner only gets paid once.

Go down to a 1,000 sq ft patio and the cost before profit is $164.10, so the $250 minimum sets the price. That is why washers who add a patio onto a house wash can afford to price it lower than the same patio on its own.

Rig hours and the $804.10 house wash in the spreadsheet

The $54 break-even rate is the example company's $54.31, rounded. It covers the crew's wages, the truck, insurance and the hours you spend quoting. The pressure washing hourly rate page builds the example's rate, and the free true hourly rate calculator builds yours.

The spreadsheet charges the washer, pump, surface cleaner and trailer each by their own running hour, prices every chemical from a list, adds a cushion, walks through the washing costs owners forget, prints a customer quote with your terms and logs each job. Its version of this job is $804.10. For per-foot rates owners use, read the pressure washing pricing guide.

How the math in the Pressure Washing calculator is checked

Every version of the pressure washing spreadsheet goes through an automatic test before it ships. The test rebuilds the file, recalculates it in a separate spreadsheet engine, and fails the release if any of these is off.

  • The example's break-even rate, $54.31 an hour, is worked out a second time outside the spreadsheet and the two have to agree to the cent.
  • The total for the customer has to equal the price plus sales tax, and the customer quote has to show that same total.
  • The example quote ($804 total) has to earn more per labour hour than it costs to run the business. It earns $79.93 an hour against the $54.31 break-even.
  • Then the test tries to break it: every yellow box on the quote emptied, nobody on the crew billable, a material price 400 days old, an order of zero. No cell may show an error, and the checks box has to flag the missing customer name and the out-of-date price.
  • The formulas only use functions that work the same way in Excel and Google Sheets.

Last test run: Pressure Washing passed, along with 39 of the other 39 trades. The example job and the list of easy-to-miss costs come from research into 8 videos of pressure washing owners explaining how they price. More on how the calculators are built.

Questions owners ask

How do I price a house wash and driveway together?

Add the siding and the concrete square feet, turn them into crew hours and chemical cost, add the rig, then put profit on top. The example 3,400 sq ft soft wash plus 2,400 sq ft of driveway and walk comes to $757.72.

How many cents a square foot does this calculator come to?

About 13 cents a square foot on the example's 5,800 sq ft: $130.64 per 1,000 sq ft. A driveway-only job at 2,400 sq ft comes to about 15 cents, because the rig costs the same.

What does a driveway-only wash come to?

About $366 for 2,400 sq ft of driveway and walk with the example's settings. Concrete alone is quicker per foot than siding, so lower the crew hours to price a flatwork-only job more closely.

Do I need a minimum charge for pressure washing?

Yes. 1,000 sq ft with the example's numbers costs $164.10 before profit, so the $250 minimum sets the price. It covers the drive and rig setup on small jobs.

Can I use this for commercial pressure washing?

Yes, for the math. Put in the square feet, your crew's hours per 1,000 sq ft on that surface and your chemical cost. Night work, water reclaim and boom lifts need numbers of their own.