Pricing is where pressure washing businesses quietly win or lose money. Charge by feel and you'll scare off the easy jobs and lose your shirt on the big two-story house with an oil-stained driveway. The fix isn't a magic number: a simple, repeatable way to price each surface for what it actually takes.
Price off the surface, not a hunch
Almost everything you clean has a measurement: a driveway has square footage, siding has square footage, a fence has linear feet. Price off that measurement and every quote scales with the real job.
Typical residential ranges in 2026:
| Surface | Typical rate | Per-job minimum |
|---|---|---|
| Driveway & concrete | $0.15–$0.25 / sq ft | ~$99 |
| House wash (siding) | $0.15–$0.30 / sq ft | ~$175 |
| Deck & patio | $0.20–$0.30 / sq ft | ~$125 |
| Fence | $2–$4 / linear ft | ~$150 |
These are starting points, not gospel. Your market, water source, and chemical costs move them. The point is the method: measure once, price per unit, and let the number reflect the work.
Always set a per-line minimum
A 200 sq ft entry walkway at $0.18/sq ft is $36, which doesn't cover the drive out, the setup, or the tank of water. That's what the per-line minimum is for. Set a floor (say $99 on concrete) so small jobs still pay. The minimum protects your time; the per-square-foot rate protects your margin on the big ones.
Don't forget the surcharges
The difference between a profitable route and a busy-but-broke one is usually the surcharges nobody remembers to add on site:
- Second-story access (+15%). Extra setup, reach, and risk. Make it automatic on two-plus-story homes.
- Heavy soiling / oil staining (+20%). A grease-soaked dumpster pad or an oil-stained driveway is a different job than a dusty one.
- Trip charge (+10%). For work outside your tight service area, so windshield time doesn't eat the ticket.
The trick is to bake these into the quote, not your memory. If a surcharge only exists in your head, you'll forget it exactly when it costs the most.
A worked example
Say you're quoting a two-story house with a driveway:
- House wash: 1,800 sq ft of siding × $0.18 = $324
- Driveway: 700 sq ft × $0.18 = $126
- Second-story access: +15% on the house wash = +$48.60
That's $498.60 before tax, and every line traces back to a measurement and a rule, so you can defend it to the customer and repeat it on the next house. (This is exactly how the estimator prices a job, surcharges and all.)
Charge for the result, not the hour
Customers aren't buying an hour of your time; they're buying a clean driveway and a house that looks new. Price the transformation. A confident, itemized quote that's clearly tied to the surfaces beats a vague hourly rate every time, and it's far easier to raise next season.
The operators who price this way stop leaving money on two-story houses, stop losing it on tiny jobs, and stop re-deriving a number on every estimate. Build the rate card once, and let the math do the work.