Detailer Price Checkup: Free Break-Even & Target-Pay Calculator for Mobile Detailers (Google Sheets + Excel)

A free one-tab Google Sheets / Excel checkup for solo mobile detailers. Enter five numbers: your monthly costs, jobs per month, the pay you want per hour, hours per job, and your current price. It shows your break-even price, the price that covers your target pay, what your price pays you per hour now, and a plain verdict.

Is your price actually covering your pay, or just your costs?

The Detailer Price Checkup is a free one-tab spreadsheet. Type five numbers into the yellow cells (two more are optional, for card fees). The formulas show you:

- What your current price pays you per hour, counting setup, cleanup and drive time, not just time on the car.

- Your break-even price per job: the price that covers your costs and pays you $0. Below it, every job loses money.

- The price that covers your target pay: costs, card fees and your full hourly wage, with $0 left for the business.

- Owner pay and business profit, shown separately. Your wage is one line. What the business keeps after paying you is another.

- A plain verdict, colored red, amber or green, such as "Your price covers your costs, but it is $16.14 short of covering your target pay."

It opens with example numbers (the $75 maintenance wash from the Job Math Sheets YouTube videos: $1,128 a month in costs over 40 jobs, a $30/hr target, 2 hours all-in, 2.9% + $0.30 card fees). With those example inputs it shows $22.16/hr, a $29.35 break-even, and $91.14 to cover target pay. These are illustrative numbers, not real customer data. Replace them with yours.

Every formula is visible. Formula cells are locked so a stray tap can't break them, and you can unlock them with no password.

Want the full math? The checkup averages everything into one standard job. The $19 Detailer Job Math Sheet (https://payhip.com/b/s7Tnh) adds a suggested trip fee with optional distance bands, up to 6 services side by side, a profit goal % with a rounded suggested price, real hourly before and after a tax set-aside, a status flag per service, an Example tab, and a Quick-Start PDF.

Free to download. Payhip will ask for your email address to send the file.

WHAT'S INCLUDED

- Detailer-Price-Checkup.xlsx: one tab, "Price Checkup", prefilled with example numbers.

- Detailer-Price-Checkup-Quick-Start.pdf: a one-page guide with the worked example and the formulas.

Works in Google Sheets (upload to Drive, then File > Save as Google Sheets) and Microsoft Excel. No macros, add-ons or sign-up beyond Payhip's download email.

FAQ

Is it really free? Yes. $0. Payhip asks for your email address so it can deliver the file.

What's the difference between "break-even" and "the price that covers your target pay"? Break-even covers your costs and pays you nothing. The target-pay price also pays your full hourly wage. A price between the two means the job covers its costs but pays you less than your target.

Is covering my target pay the same as profit? No. At that price the business keeps $0 after paying you. The checkup shows owner pay and business profit as separate lines.

Can it price my whole menu or a trip fee? Not this one. It checks one standard job. The $19 Detailer Job Math Sheet does up to 6 services and a suggested trip fee.

Is this financial or tax advice? No. It's a spreadsheet that does arithmetic on the numbers you enter. It doesn't promise any result.

Are the example numbers real? No. They're illustrative numbers matching the Job Math Sheets videos, not data from a real business.

Scheduling & invoicing tip: once your price is set, a simple ops tool helps jobs not slip — Jobber is optional (sponsored partner): https://go.getjobber.com/yr7g2b5vbfph

Support? aaronc@theresponsiveway.com

DISCLOSURES

- This is a free spreadsheet template for estimates, not financial, tax, or legal advice.

- All example numbers are illustrative, not real customer data.

- AI assistance: AI tools helped draft the spreadsheet, the guide, this listing, and the product images. The formulas were checked with a LibreOffice recalculation against independent calculations.