Work out what to charge for a detail
Put in your own numbers — your time, the hours the job really takes, the materials it burns and the travel it costs. It works out a job price, the profit in it, and what you are actually earning per hour.
Your numbers
Use whole pounds. Leave a box empty and it counts as zero, except your hourly rate.
What your hour has to earn you.
The real figure, not the one you quote.
Chemicals, pads, consumables used.
Round trip, plus water if you carry it.
Insurance, machine wear, admin. See below.
On top of what the job costs you.
Check it before you send it.
Your price
Profit plus your time, divided by the hours.
Rounded to the nearest £5, before VAT.
The maths, plainly
Rate × hours gives your time. Add materials, travel and the overhead you chose. That total is what the job costs you to do — not what you charge.
Cost plus your profit percentage. The profit is what buys the next machine, covers the quiet week and pays you when a job overruns.
If you are registered, the customer pays the price plus 20%. You reclaim VAT on materials, so the VAT line is a pass-through, not income.
Put in the price you were about to quote. It tells you what that price actually pays you per hour — which is the number that decides whether the job is worth doing, before you send it.
What this deliberately leaves out
Three costs are real and easy to forget, which is why most detailers underprice without noticing. None of them are guesses — they are your own figures, so work them out once and put them in the overheads box.
- Insurance and registrations. Annual premium plus any trade body or licensing fee, divided by the jobs you expect to do in a year.
- Machine and van wear. A polisher, a pressure washer and a van all get replaced eventually. Put the replacement cost over its working life into every job, or you will pay for it in one painful lump.
- The unpaid hours. Quoting, messages, booking in, driving, invoicing and chasing. If those are an hour per job, your real hourly rate is lower than the one in the box — either add that hour to the hours, or price the admin into overheads.
The calculator is a guide, not advice, and it is not a quote. Your prices are yours to set — it only does the arithmetic you would otherwise do on the back of a job sheet.
Do this once per service, not once per job
Buff holds your services and your vehicle size classes, so the price appears on the booking page and on the invoice without anyone reaching for a calculator. You set the numbers once.
14 days free. No charge until day 15.
Questions about pricing
What hourly rate should I use?
Start with what you need to take home, not with what a competitor charges. Add up what you must pay each month — insurance, van, machine, products, phone, accounting — divide it by the billable hours you can realistically sell in a month, and add the wage you want on top. That figure is your floor: any job priced below it is losing you money.
Should I price by the hour or by the job?
Price by the job, but calculate from the hours. Customers compare job prices, not hourly rates, and a job price lets you charge for the result rather than the clock — which is fairer both ways on a car that turns out to need two stages of correction. What you must not do is quote by eye without knowing what the job costs you in hours.
Why is the price higher than the cost plus a bit?
Because cost here is only what the job consumes — your time, materials, travel and the overhead you chose to cover. The percentage on top is the profit that lets you replace equipment, survive a quiet fortnight and pay yourself in a bad month. A business that prices at cost plus nothing has no money to do any of that.
Does this include VAT?
Only if you tick the box. Below the VAT threshold you charge the price with no VAT on top. Once registered, the price your customer pays includes 20% VAT, but you reclaim the VAT on your materials — the calculator shows both numbers so you can see the difference.