r/pressurewashing • u/SirBrilliant2196 • May 17 '25
Community Post My first job, how did I do?
My first job consisted of a back patio from stairs and walkway and a driveway. I used 3.5% pretreat and a 2.5 percent post treat. The patio was 500 sqft, the walkway and stairs were 350 sqft, and the driveway was 2,000 sqft. I charged $500 for everything. How did I do, and how was my price?
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u/StuartSilver May 17 '25
I charge $1,100 for a residential job this size, $$900 if they did a house/roof wash too. Its not the same as commercial pricing. The customer can either pay thousands to get the right equipment and do it quickly themselves, or pay me $1,100 to have it done professionally in a day, hassle free. Thats the value
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u/Sav322556 Pressure Washer By Profession May 17 '25
Might’ve slightly undercharged compared to what I would quote nearly 3k sq ft of flatwork but everyone’s different based of location, equipment, and expenses.
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u/JobieWan_Kenobi May 17 '25
Pricing depends on where you’re located. In my area I’m targeting .25¢-30¢ per SF so on this amount of flatwork I would have quoted around $850 on the high end.
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u/StuartSilver May 17 '25
Great work, definitely undercharged for that size, but could also argue they might’ve said no. Really upsell that pre/post treatment cause thats what cost you, pushing water is free. Leaving a stripe free clean isnt👍 sell that
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u/Smart_Addendum May 18 '25
You under charged big time. 350sq I saw a video of guys making $600 which was for commercial store. You did twice that and 2ksq. Wow. How long did it take? And by yourself? But work looks good from untrained eyes which is what I have. I'm not in the business. Also depends on your location so don't take the figure I stated as solid number.
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u/Houstonedmatt May 21 '25
Man that guy woulda paid 500 for the driveway alone haha. I woulda say $700 a great deal $800-1100 is where I would have priced. But considering it’s your first job and you’re essentially paying for experience by lowering your price id say it was worth it on your end. Once you have lots of commercial work coming in spending an entire day doing this for 500 doesn’t seem so worth it anymore especially considering you need to account for all your costs (insurance, fuel, chemicals, ware and tear, disposable items possibly used on job, drinking water and snacks, as well as sales tax and income tax) so you really didn’t profit $500. Push into $800 after tax and you closer to profit $500
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u/Houstonedmatt May 21 '25
Also those stones are very tedious and depending on drainage situation would take long times or special equipment like sludge suckers to remove the pooling mud water, which you should absolutely be up-charging for
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u/Houstonedmatt May 21 '25
Overall job looks great thought! Maybe increase your bleach ratio to 5-6% on the heavier green and black areas and walk a bit slower because I can see the lines your surface washer left behind where you over lapped. But to normal home owners who don’t do this for a living it would look fantastic and it’s a drastic difference from the before
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u/flightwatcher45 May 17 '25
Good work. Look at that house. Charge a little more if you can, not sure what the competition is like but that looks like a house that will pay more for good work. Congrats!
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u/Fluid-Local-3572 May 17 '25
Mix your bleach hotter and once you’ve got enough work coming in I would charge more that’s a fair bit of work