A kid washing and drying the outside of a car usually starts between $15 and $25, or $25 to $35 with a vacuum and interior wipe down. A professional express wash and wax runs $50 to $100, and the kid goes to the customer, which is exactly what mobile services charge a premium for. Getting faster, not charging more, is how this business grows.
A driveway wash and a full detail are two different businesses, and pricing them the same is the most common mistake here.
Not clean paint. They are buying not spending an hour of their weekend on it, and not driving around in a car that quietly embarrasses them.
For a lot of customers there is a smaller thing underneath: the car wash down the road means driving there, waiting in line, and coming back. You mean walking outside and handing over a key.
An express wash and wax on a sedan runs about $50 to $100 in 2026, which is a forty five to sixty minute job at a shop. A full interior and exterior detail is a different tier entirely at $150 to $300.
The express wash is the right benchmark here, and fifty to a hundred dollars is what an adult charges to make a car clean on the outside.
Somewhere between $15 and $25 for an exterior wash and dry on a normal car is a sensible opening price. Add five to ten for an SUV or a truck. Add a vacuum and a wipe down of the dash and door panels and you are at $25 to $35.
The gap is for being unproven, and it is fair at the start, because somebody's car is one of the more expensive things they own and they do not yet know whether you know about the two bucket rule.
Ten cars in, with nobody's paint scratched and a set of before and after photos, that concern is answered. You are doing what the fifty dollar express wash does, in their driveway, and you can charge closer to it than most kids ever do.
You go to them. That convenience is exactly what mobile services charge a premium for, and a kid working in the customer's own driveway is delivering it.
Getting faster is the other one, and it works in reverse from what most kids assume. A clean car is worth what a clean car is worth. If you get quick and finish in thirty minutes instead of an hour, the customer does not pay less. So the way this grows is doing three cars in the time the first one took, not charging by the hour, which would punish you for getting good.
One wash is a one off. Every second Saturday is a business. Ask before you leave, while the car looks its best and the customer is pleased with you.
Four cars every other week at twenty five dollars is a hundred dollars, and none of those customers have to be found again.
A kid who washes cars well for a summer has the customers and the reputation to start charging detailing prices the following year, and the gap between the two is large. The cheap work now is buying something.
Five questions about age, budget, time, and what they actually like doing. Four matched ideas at the end, free, with no email needed to see them.
Take the quizA kid who cuts, edges, and cleans up usually starts between $25 and $40. Professionals charge about $30 to $85 a visit, and a young founder starting below that is being paid less for being unproven, not for being young.
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What should a kid charge to mow a lawn?Ten people who already know them, one prepared sentence, and an easy way for each of them to say no.
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How does a kid find their first customer?Less than almost anyone expects, and for a lot of these ideas the honest answer is nothing until somebody has already said yes to a price.
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How much money does a kid need to start a business?Earlier than most people think, as long as the business matches what the kid can actually handle. The limit is rarely age itself.
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What age can a kid start a business?A program from Founder's Best Friend. Built for kids 8 to 18 who want something of their own.