This is the “when” question. If you need to build a rate from scratch, start with how much to charge for pressure washing, which works from a cost floor.

The two numbers to track

Close rate is the share of quotes that turn into booked jobs: jobs won divided by quotes given. Count it by job type if you can; house washes and roofs can tell different stories.

Booked-out weeks is how far away your next open day is when a new customer calls. Write it down every Monday. A single busy week means little. A trend over a month or more is a signal.

Neither number works alone. A high close rate with an open calendar points to a lead problem. A full calendar with a low close rate may mean you can afford to be picky.

What owners report on the forums

These are posts on a pressure washing trade forum, not survey data. They show how owners think, not what’s normal.

  • In September 2026, one owner offered a rule of thumb: if your close rate is above 50% and you’re booked five days a week, five weeks out, it’s time to raise prices.
  • The owner who started that thread said they were booked five weeks out and closing roughly 75% of quotes.
  • Another owner said they prefer to stay about 2 to 3 weeks booked, because most homeowners don’t want to wait much longer than that. Their close rate was around 45%, accepted in exchange for a higher average ticket and better margins.
  • A third-year owner, after a slow 2024 season, reported a 53% close rate but said only about half as many people had contacted them that year. The close rate was fine. The lead flow wasn’t.

The useful idea isn’t the 50% line. It’s the trade-off: a lower close rate on better-paying jobs can mean more gross profit per workday. Recurring customers can steady the calendar too; see annual house wash plans.

Reading the signals together

Close rate Booked out What it often means What to try first
High Several weeks Demand is ahead of your price Raise the price on new quotes for your busiest service
High Days, not weeks Price is fine; you need more leads Marketing and follow-up, not a raise
Low Several weeks Lots of calls, and you’re filling up anyway Raise your minimum or drop the lowest-margin jobs
Low Days, not weeks Trust, lead quality or price Fix proof and presentation before you cut

When “highest quote” isn’t about price

In May 2025, a new roof washer in Broward County, Florida, asked the same forum why he kept hearing that he was the “highest quote.” He was asking $300 to wash a 4,000-square-foot roof. Other local companies, he said, were quoting $190 to $200.

Experienced owners replied that it probably wasn’t the price. As the new company in town, he had no proven track record or social proof yet. They asked about his truck, uniform, before-and-after photos and lead sources. He was also quoting by phone because of a day job. One owner who replied, who runs a wrapped truck and a matching uniform, said their close rate had been about 60% the whole time they’d been in business.

So read the last row of the table above carefully. Before you drop a price, build the proof: photos, a clean listing and honest reviews. Our guide to getting more reviews without breaking the rules covers how.

The third signal: costs eating your margin

Rising costs don’t prove customers will pay more. They show whether your price still covers the job. Federal price data, August 2025 to August 2026:

  • Unleaded regular gasoline (consumer prices): up about 28%. It rose about 58% from January to May 2026 alone, so it swings hard.
  • No. 2 diesel fuel (producer prices, preliminary): up about 78%.
  • Basic inorganic chemicals (producer prices, preliminary): up about 7%. That’s a broad group, not sodium hypochlorite alone, so treat it as a rough guide and check your own supplier invoices.
  • All items, U.S. city average (consumer prices): up 3.4%. In the Miami–Fort Lauderdale–West Palm Beach area, up about 3.7%.

The SBA’s break-even guide gives a simple test: contribution margin is your price minus your variable cost per job, divided by the price. Run it on your most common jobs, with fuel and chemicals included. If the margin has shrunk since spring, your price is doing less work than it used to.

A fuel spike that may reverse fits a trip fee or a higher minimum better than a permanent price-sheet raise. In March 2026, a post on a pressure washing subreddit urged owners to raise their minimum trip fee as gas prices climbed.

Test a raise before you commit

The SBA’s market research guide asks what customers pay for the alternatives. Answer that from local quotes you win and lose, not national averages.

Then raise one service at a time, on new quotes only. Honor every price you have already given. Keep logging close rate and booked-out weeks. If both hold, the market accepted it. If your close rate drops and the calendar thins, you’ve found your ceiling for now.

Quiet months are a good time to set next season’s prices. If fall is slow, our guides on adding window cleaning and bidding commercial work look at ways to fill the gap. Our methodology explains how we check numbers. If growth means buying, see what to check before buying a franchise or route.

Sources

Checked 2026-10-09. Forum and social posts are anecdotes about what owners report, not data. Two trade-forum threads and one social post are paraphrased but not linked.