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$1 per minute seems fair to me!!!

J

jack954

Active member
I’ve been $3 for $4 minutes for about a year and a half now and want to raise my price. I decided to go ahead and wash my midsize suv myself to see how long it actually takes moving at a slightly quicker than casual pace. although i have all the extras in my bays, i decided just to use foambrush, hp soap, hp rinse, and spot free rinse. it took me just under 10 minutes. so now i feel really comfortable going to $1 per minute as for $10 people are using my space for 10 minutes, my water, my chemicals, my trash cans. then after that i get to pick up their trash, get their dirt sucked out of the pits, supply new hoses, fittings, brushes, flojets.
you barely get lunch for $10! i just can’t understand how some washes are still at $2.00 or less
 
So are you going to raise your start price as well? Or just keep it three dollars to start and give three minutes time? I'm for five dollars to start for five minutes. I get some complaints about price now and then but not too many. In my area that price is becoming the norm.

We're in business to make money, not to just do a lot of manual labor and barely squeak by.
 
I had to bring an outdoor rug to a laundromat last week to use one of their large oversized commercial washers. It was $13 for cold water, $14 for warm water and $15 for hot. I didn’t think it was unreasonable at all. There was no other way I could wash it. We can’t be hesitant to charge 2025 prices.
 
We reopened in October after a massive remodel with $4 for 5 minutes. I believe we are the most expensive around and definitely in our city. There is still one wash that is $1.75 to start. (4 minutes I think) We got very little pushback and the ones that said something about it do not see the value in what we are now offering. They can go to the $1.75 wash.
 
i agree. come to my place and pay up for the Starbucks, or go down the street and pay less for the four hour old gas station coffee
 
Im a dollar a minute and $4 start. Made the switch last year and going to $5 start soon. It was a good move. Ive been working for peanuts for years and years. As operators we deserve to be paid like everyone else. Im behind on my automatic pricing but will be correcting that soon. My belief is that the self sere carwash has been dang near free for my entire life. With a low price point, the customers act like your place doesnt matter and they can do whatever they want. Raise the price and they will come wash their car.
 
I run $4 cash to start for 5 minutes, and $5 for 6 min, $10 for 12 min, $15 for 18 min, $20 for 24 min presets on my Nayax readers based on the pulse multiplier.

My nearest SS competition is 10 miles in either direction... I have not looked at their prices recently but think I am in line with where they are - both of them are on lower volume roads though (I am 65K cars AADT). My disadvantage is that I am total self service, however I have a much better traffic flow and am in a very affluent area and market myself as a premium wash which does tend to bring in a mix of nicer vehicles.
 
Hahahaha oh wow. Well seeing I just have hp rinse and hp wash and wax I believe I am the ONLY 50 cent to start carwash in the USA. I’m trying to figure out my timer to actually up the price because I plan on adding the foam brush back and tire/engine cleaner.
 
Brookswash21 said:
Hahahaha oh wow. Well seeing I just have hp rinse and hp wash and wax I believe I am the ONLY 50 cent to start carwash in the USA. I’m trying to figure out my timer to actually up the price because I plan on adding the foam brush back and tire/engine cleaner.
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And by the way the closest other wash is 10 miles away and they are $2.50 to start and have only what I have.
 
update: it’s been a couple months now since I went up to $4 for 4min and I have only had one person say something to me and my washes are just as busy as they ever were. as with every price increase i have made through the years, my only regret is not doing it sooner. sometimes I think we have to remind ourselves that this is a seven day a week gig, and we’re not in business to break even.
 
you guys are giving be courage to increase the rate, what you think is good rate in Houston for good car wash ?
There are few options.
1. Increase the start price to $3 in place of $2 and make it $3 for 4 min ( current is $2 for 3.26 min)
2. Decrease the current start time $2 for 2.5 min

Please suggest . also I have good quality vacuums from Fragromatic ( shampoo and carpet clean ) . they run at a dollar for 4 min
 
zathura21 said:
you guys are giving be courage to increase the rate, what you think is good rate in Houston for good car wash ?
There are few options.
1. Increase the start price to $3 in place of $2 and make it $3 for 4 min ( current is $2 for 3.26 min)
2. Decrease the current start time $2 for 2.5 min

Please suggest . also I have good quality vacuums from Fragromatic ( shampoo and carpet clean ) . they run at a dollar for 4 min
Click to expand...
$3 for 4 mins is working well for us in Atlanta, probably do $3 for 3 mins or $4 for 4 mins in January.

We have fragramatics at $2 for 5 mins vac, 1 min fragrance, or 3 mins shampoo. Increasing the start price to $2 got rid of a lot of the riff raff and less desirable customers.
 
you are currently at 25-26 seconds per quarter. if it was me, so long as the place is clean with everything working great, i would go $3 for 4 minutes which would equal 20 seconds per quarter. that will give you about a 20% increase. then in another 18 months i would jump to $4 for 4 minutes which would equal 15 seconds per quarter. this would be a 25% increase. i would also make the vacs work like new and go straight to $2 for 5 minutes. those are fair prices so long as you’re giving a great service, clean place, quality chemicals that arent skimped on, good pressure, quality foam brushes that don’t look 3 years old. i have found that even though people don’t like increases, they will still pay and understand so long as they are getting quality! the days of 25-50 cent increases are over, all $1 increments from here on for me!
 
Not to get too deep into the psychology of this, but I think part of the reason ss washes were so slow to increase prices stems from the fact that they were primarily cash based business operating on coins. Ten dollars in quarters “feels” like a lot and requires a customer to drop 40 coins in the slot. I think that can be perceived as a lot of money when it takes the path from bill changer to bay to the meter. In modern times, bill accepters and credit card readers in the bay help to mitigate that perception. In fact, I think credit cards pretty much numb people of the value of money.
 
card readers were definitely a game changer for us!!! it doesn’t seem like real money in the moment, and people stopped racing around their car to beat the timer. with everything going up significantly since covid, it has given us a great opportunity to catch up with increases without much complaint. i do always try to come up with something new or have the lot resealed or all new hoses or fresh paint or something to show that i continually reinvest. this is a great time to get your place working and looking as it should and get the prices up
 
washnshine said:
Not to get too deep into the psychology of this, but I think part of the reason ss washes were so slow to increase prices stems from the fact that they were primarily cash based business operating on coins. Ten dollars in quarters “feels” like a lot and requires a customer to drop 40 coins in the slot. I think that can be perceived as a lot of money when it takes the path from bill changer to bay to the meter. In modern times, bill accepters and credit card readers in the bay help to mitigate that perception. In fact, I think credit cards pretty much numb people of the value of money.
Click to expand...

I don't disagree at all but there I still have talked to operators who've gone 5-10-20 years without raising their price. Yes, you read that correctly....20 years.
 
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