PRICE TO START. Advice needed please

[Brookswash21]

ok my old car wash is just your basic soap, rinse and wax. It has been 50 cent from the time my husband opened it in 1996-1997.
Seeing how things have gotten more expensive like cost of soaps etc. what would be a good starting price? It takes quarters.
The vacuums I put all new coin selectors and timers and u up the price to $1 for 3min….. is that too cheap?

 

[Waxman]

I think it depends on a lot of things. Like how good is your wash? what are your competitors priced at?

i'm $5 start price for 5 minutes. i offer warm water year round. i have bug remover, soap, rinse, wax, tri foam polish, foam brush, air dry. i have cryptopay/ count up.

i focus on keeping everything working 100% of the time and keeping things neat and tidy always. i offer a free towel dry station ( inspired by Soapy!).

Thats how i justify my high price.

 

[soapy]

I would not start for anything under $3. I am at $4 for 3 minutes 30 seconds and will soo go to $5 for 4 minutes. This thought crossed my mind today. If I went with full dollar increments and dollar tokens it would eliminate a lot of the start/stop that contactors, pumps etc experience and should save equipment repairs in the long run.

 

[David Rolf]

I think it depends on a lot of things. Like how good is your wash? what are your competitors priced at?

i'm $5 start price for 5 minutes. i offer warm water year round. i have bug remover, soap, rinse, wax, tri foam polish, foam brush, air dry. i have cryptopay/ count up.

i focus on keeping everything working 100% of the time and keeping things neat and tidy always. i offer a free towel dry station ( inspired by Soapy!).

Thats how i justify my high price.

I'm the same as you. I raised my price to $5.00 4 months ago. Not one complaint, and profits are way up. Fortunately, I have no other self serves within 20 miles from me. Maintain a great wash with everything in working order.

 

[Keno]

$1 increments are the way to go, have to train customers to that. An updated, well run wash shouldn’t be dealing in 25 cent increments in this day and age. We are working to that goal and hopefully will eliminate quarter acceptance in our bays and vacs before the end of this year. Don’t want to make too many changes at once and alienate existing customer base. We switched to dispensing $1 coins and tokens at the beginning of this year, which already confused a lot of customers who were used to getting quarters for 30+ years