IBA memebership subscription

[SuperShine]

How about we stop using the customer that washes 4-6 times a year nonsense when trying to establish a baseline for membership calculation when we all know that guy will not buy a monthly unlimited anything anyway.
Use a customer that will actually buy a membership that washes three times a month and all the unlimited math falls to pieces.

Sure wash clubs, unlimited or otherwise have been a huge industry failure. I mean it’s not like there hasn’t been an unprecedented boom in express wash builds for the past ten years funded specifically on the game changer that is wash club revenue.
Averages are just that, the average washer and are well researched. Ignore at your own risk I’d say.

 

[edcrawfordlv]

I'm pretty green on the membership game. However, as a customer, a membership makes getting a car washed a much better experience. The worst part of getting a car wash is paying for it. Once you commit to the subscription the car wash feels "free". Much the same way Netflix is awesome because everything is "Free".

If a person has a membership with you, no one else can take their business from you. You will get all of their wash business. A person who only washes their car with you 4-6 times doesn't mean they don't wash their car 20 times a year, it just means that they don't always use your wash.

 

[washnshine]

If a person has a membership with you, no one else can take their business from you. You will get all of their wash business. A person who only washes their car with you 4-6 times doesn't mean they don't wash their car 20 times a year, it just means that they don't always use your wash.

Yes - part of the success of the membership concept is the loyalty component. Although the wash may feel free, people are well aware that they paid you $30 for the month and become loyal.

 

[Zal]

Membership with Dencar Pay station. You set the limits and control abuse Best thing I have done with my IBA. I considered using an app only based membership but they have very little control over multi car abuse. We track license plates and shut them down for abuse. Very easy to operate for a family based business. The LPR cameras are great. The software is great and getting even better.

 

[Car_Wash_Guy]

Membership with Dencar Pay station. You set the limits and control abuse Best thing I have done with my IBA. I considered using an app only based membership but they have very little control over multi car abuse. We track license plates and shut them down for abuse. Very easy to operate for a family based business. The LPR cameras are great. The software is great and getting even better.

100% This

 

[SuperShine]

Membership with Dencar Pay station. You set the limits and control abuse Best thing I have done with my IBA. I considered using an app only based membership but they have very little control over multi car abuse. We track license plates and shut them down for abuse. Very easy to operate for a family based business. The LPR cameras are great. The software is great and getting even better.

Good to hear Zal. Do you use Dencar bulk single use codes for auto dealer or other promo customers? I’m wondering how to turn the generated codes into QR codes for printing on business cards.

Anyone have any inbay or exterior Dencar LCD panels?

thanks!

 

[Zal]

I have not used the bulk codes. We hand out single code business cards for promo washes and will do the bulk codes if we have the opportunity

 

[Jsobi]

We purchased the Hamilton app since the day they offered it and have sold a wash club as soon as that feature became available. We limit it to one wash a day at any of our six IBA sites. The club revenue is now some real money. It has been worth it, and continues to grow considerably each yearly. I think it depends upon how many sites you have to distribute the costs.

 

[soonermajic]

I have not used the bulk codes. We hand out single code business cards for promo washes and will do the bulk codes if we have the opportunity

Expound upon what all this entails, please.

 

[Zal]

You can have random bulk wash codes printed as business cards, rack cards or flyers - or any way you like. Dencar will provide this at a reasonable price through their graphics and web design department. I don’t pursue bulk business but I just hand out the business cards for a free wash promotion from time to time. To me this also helped in transitioning my old Hamilton tokenote customers and get them onto our membership program.

 

[TrevorN_TX]

I operate IBAs and went through the same thought process when express tunnels started building near me. The instinct is to match their pricing or launch a membership to compete. That's the wrong move for most IBA operators.

Tunnels wash 100+ cars per hour. IBAs wash one car at a time. You cannot win a volume game against them. But you can win on positioning. Customers who choose an IBA over a tunnel are already self-selecting for quality over speed. One car at a time reads as premium and personalized to them. The operator who leans into that positioning has pricing power the tunnel can never match.

On the membership question specifically: if the previous owner said it "nearly killed him," the problem was almost certainly the pricing structure, not the concept. Memberships work at IBAs but you have to price them differently than tunnel operators do. Your cost per wash is higher, your throughput is lower, and your customer base values something different. Copying a tunnel's membership pricing at an IBA is how you lose money.

The Tidal Wave coming to your town is not the threat you think it is if you position correctly.

 

[Blanco]

I operate IBAs and went through the same thought process when express tunnels started building near me. The instinct is to match their pricing or launch a membership to compete. That's the wrong move for most IBA operators.

Tunnels wash 100+ cars per hour. IBAs wash one car at a time. You cannot win a volume game against them. But you can win on positioning. Customers who choose an IBA over a tunnel are already self-selecting for quality over speed. One car at a time reads as premium and personalized to them. The operator who leans into that positioning has pricing power the tunnel can never match.

On the membership question specifically: if the previous owner said it "nearly killed him," the problem was almost certainly the pricing structure, not the concept. Memberships work at IBAs but you have to price them differently than tunnel operators do. Your cost per wash is higher, your throughput is lower, and your customer base values something different. Copying a tunnel's membership pricing at an IBA is how you lose money.

The Tidal Wave coming to your town is not the threat you think it is if you position correctly.

Couldn't have said it better. You're 100% on point. Also creates more wear and tear on machines when membership customers abuse. I would rather wash fewer cars with a MUCH higher margin than a lot of cars with a low one. Memberships rely on the customers who dont use them. Its always better to be a leader then a follower. Great post Trevor.

 

[Car_Wash_Guy]

I operate IBAs and went through the same thought process when express tunnels started building near me. The instinct is to match their pricing or launch a membership to compete. That's the wrong move for most IBA operators.

Tunnels wash 100+ cars per hour. IBAs wash one car at a time. You cannot win a volume game against them. But you can win on positioning. Customers who choose an IBA over a tunnel are already self-selecting for quality over speed. One car at a time reads as premium and personalized to them. The operator who leans into that positioning has pricing power the tunnel can never match.

On the membership question specifically: if the previous owner said it "nearly killed him," the problem was almost certainly the pricing structure, not the concept. Memberships work at IBAs but you have to price them differently than tunnel operators do. Your cost per wash is higher, your throughput is lower, and your customer base values something different. Copying a tunnel's membership pricing at an IBA is how you lose money.

The Tidal Wave coming to your town is not the threat you think it is if you position correctly.

Quality? You are not competing with cleaning and drying ability with a well designed and built tunnel. This is coming from a very busy dual Petit site owner.

Our only leverage is the touchless angle. 24/7 is negligible.

 

[washnshine]

The touchless angle also gives you the ability to wash a wider variety of vehicles.

 

[Jsobi]

I can only speak from what works for us. We have 14 PDQ Touchfree in the Chicago Area on six sites. We have new express washes all around us. We added the Hamilton app in 2017 with the wash club a few years later, when it became available. Most of the app revenue comes from the wash club. From the revenue side it was like we added another two automatics. We could not survive in this extremely competitive market without the wash club.

 

[Wash4Life]

I can only speak from what works for us. We have 14 PDQ Touchfree in the Chicago Area on six sites. We have new express washes all around us. We added the Hamilton app in 2017 with the wash club a few years later, when it became available. Most of the app revenue comes from the wash club. From the revenue side it was like we added another two automatics. We could not survive in this extremely competitive market without the wash club.

Our touch-frees in Maryland would not be able to survive without our wash club either. For us, our wash club is weather insurance. Back in the day, it used to be we would have one rainy month. Maybe a second rainy month would occur. Nowadays? Half the year is lost due to rain. We also don't get the winters we used to. This winter has been our best in a decade. The ones before that were mostly rainy with hardly any snow.

 

[Jsobi]

Our touch-frees in Maryland would not be able to survive without our wash club either. For us, our wash club is weather insurance. Back in the day, it used to be we would have one rainy month. Maybe a second rainy month would occur. Nowadays? Half the year is lost due to rain. We also don't get the winters we used to. This winter has been our best in a decade. The ones before that were mostly rainy with hardly any snow.

We are planing on this year converting our cashiers to Commanders with LPR, to make wash club sign up easier for the customers. In my market you cant wait around.

 

[soonermajic]

You guys describe the Wash Club to me, please.

 

[JLanman]

***Reader beware - this is a long one***
Going to share some likely unpopular information here. Please digest the post before killing the messenger.... And do your research...

As a sponsor of this forum, I feel a duty to share a different perspective to keep the group as informed as possible.
A lot of good details in this post, but it has slanted towards "You have to have a high ticket pay station to run a successful plan"
"Success" has a different meaning for every operator.
You don't have to purchase a new pay station to run a successful plan
You don't have to run Unlimited to run successful plans
You need to know your budget and revenue goals and work a plan to reach those goals. Increasing revenue, lowering costs or both are the 3 avenues to improved profits - period...

The main point of this response is to address the comments on Abuse. Abuse can and does happen, but hopefully the data below will show that it is not near as rampant as some might lead you to believe. And to show that plans with as little as 100 members can have a significant impact on your business.
The data shows that the members utilized the wash 3.8 times per month.

Don't get me wrong here, adding all the bells and whistles will reduce abuse, no question! But, it drives up cost and creates friction. So there is a trade off....
We too offer LPR and offered RFID back in the day. These options get pricy...
The data below is real data from sites running an app based program WITHOUT LPR or RFID..
***Not a guarantee, all sites vary, these are averages and purely sharing as information to help the group...

TLDR Data Summary:
- Sites with > 50 members:
- Limited Plans (less than 30 washes a month) - Less members, less washes per month per member, avg 3.1 washes per month
- Unlimited Plans (1 wash per day 30 washes per month) - More members, more washes per month per member, avg 4.1 washes per month
- Data suggest that Unlimited plans are easier to sell and generate more members, but will increase wash usage by 1 wash per month per member over a Limited plan approach.
- Non member revenue referenced in this data is calculated as if the members were washing 6 times per year. With this assumption both Limited and Unlimited approaches saw an increase in annual revenue by over 340% per member. Even if you double the washes per year to 12 washes per year, you would likely still see over 100% increase in annual revenue per member. This is the advantage of these programs....
- When looking at the membership approach you have to look at a longer window of time and focus on LTV (Life Time Value) over max profit per wash.

Example:
Let's assume the following annual performance:
- Top wash is $15.
- Cost per wash is $5 (to keep the math simple. Use your own numbers here that include consumables and maintenance costs). To get your avg maintenance cost take your total maintenance spend for 2025, then divide that by the number of washes during the same time period = maintenance cost per wash.
- Limited plan approach with price set to 2.7 x top wash price = $40.5 per month
- Non member washes = 6 times per year.
- Member washes 3.1 times per month = 37.2 times per year.
Non Member annual revenue - (6 x $15) = $90
Member annual revenue - ($40.5 x 12) = $486
Increase in annual revenue per member = $396 (or 440% increase).
Costs:
Non Member will cost you $30 - (6 x $5) to earn $90 in Revenue = $60 Annual Profit per Non Member
Member will cost you $186 - (37.2 x $5) to earn $486 in Revenue = $300 Annual Profit per Member
- Member will generate $240 more annual profit than Non Member
- 100 Member plan would increase the profit to the business by $24,000
- Depending your profit goals:
- Take the goal, divide it by $240 and that sets your membership goal for that period.
- Now work the plan to secure that # of members.

I hope this helps a few in the forum....

The data:
**Keep in mind that this data has established sites and sites launching their plans throughout the time period.
Again, these are averages of sites with >50 members at the time the data was pulled.
For the Math Geeks (like me), keep in mind that the Avg member price includes full price plans and discounted family and additional vehicle plans.

 

[BenW@JCCW]

***Reader beware - this is a long one***
Going to share some likely unpopular information here. Please digest the post before killing the messenger.... And do your research...

As a sponsor of this forum, I feel a duty to share a different perspective to keep the group as informed as possible.
A lot of good details in this post, but it has slanted towards "You have to have a high ticket pay station to run a successful plan"
"Success" has a different meaning for every operator.
You don't have to purchase a new pay station to run a successful plan
You don't have to run Unlimited to run successful plans
You need to know your budget and revenue goals and work a plan to reach those goals. Increasing revenue, lowering costs or both are the 3 avenues to improved profits - period...

The main point of this response is to address the comments on Abuse. Abuse can and does happen, but hopefully the data below will show that it is not near as rampant as some might lead you to believe. And to show that plans with as little as 100 members can have a significant impact on your business.
The data shows that the members utilized the wash 3.8 times per month.

Don't get me wrong here, adding all the bells and whistles will reduce abuse, no question! But, it drives up cost and creates friction. So there is a trade off....
We too offer LPR and offered RFID back in the day. These options get pricy...
The data below is real data from sites running an app based program WITHOUT LPR or RFID..
***Not a guarantee, all sites vary, these are averages and purely sharing as information to help the group...

TLDR Data Summary:
- Sites with > 50 members:
- Limited Plans (less than 30 washes a month) - Less members, less washes per month per member, avg 3.1 washes per month
- Unlimited Plans (1 wash per day 30 washes per month) - More members, more washes per month per member, avg 4.1 washes per month
- Data suggest that Unlimited plans are easier to sell and generate more members, but will increase wash usage by 1 wash per month per member over a Limited plan approach.
- Non member revenue referenced in this data is calculated as if the members were washing 6 times per year. With this assumption both Limited and Unlimited approaches saw an increase in annual revenue by over 340% per member. Even if you double the washes per year to 12 washes per year, you would likely still see over 100% increase in annual revenue per member. This is the advantage of these programs....
- When looking at the membership approach you have to look at a longer window of time and focus on LTV (Life Time Value) over max profit per wash.

Example:
Let's assume the following annual performance:
- Top wash is $15.
- Cost per wash is $5 (to keep the math simple. Use your own numbers here that include consumables and maintenance costs). To get your avg maintenance cost take your total maintenance spend for 2025, then divide that by the number of washes during the same time period = maintenance cost per wash.
- Limited plan approach with price set to 2.7 x top wash price = $40.5 per month
- Non member washes = 6 times per year.
- Member washes 3.1 times per month = 37.2 times per year.
Non Member annual revenue - (6 x $15) = $90
Member annual revenue - ($40.5 x 12) = $486
Increase in annual revenue per member = $396 (or 440% increase).
Costs:
Non Member will cost you $30 - (6 x $5) to earn $90 in Revenue = $60 Annual Profit per Non Member
Member will cost you $186 - (37.2 x $5) to earn $486 in Revenue = $300 Annual Profit per Member
- Member will generate $240 more annual profit than Non Member
- 100 Member plan would increase the profit to the business by $24,000
- Depending your profit goals:
- Take the goal, divide it by $240 and that sets your membership goal for that period.
- Now work the plan to secure that # of members.

I hope this helps a few in the forum....

The data:
**Keep in mind that this data has established sites and sites launching their plans throughout the time period.
Again, these are averages of sites with >50 members at the time the data was pulled.
For the Math Geeks (like me), keep in mind that the Avg member price includes full price plans and discounted family and additional vehicle plans.

View attachment 14993

The only flaw in the math, IMO, is the migration from non-member to member is typically driven from customers that wash their vehicles much more frequently than six times per year. Average revenue per wash can really take a hit if you don't drive up the membership number by converting more of the customers that wash once or less per month. Like your app already does, once you have a member it allows you to more proactively manage communications, helping to grow and retain customers.