Owners report very different results from the same channel, so treat every story below as one person’s experience, not a forecast.

The five channels side by side

Channel What you pay Rules to check first What some operators report (anecdotes)
Door hangers Printing and your walking time City solicitor rules; never in mailboxes (18 U.S.C. 1725) 300+ hangers in a week, one call back
Door knocking Your time, plus any city license City solicitor license, hours and signs; FTC Cooling-Off Rule $5,000 in jobs sold in 20 hours
USPS Every Door Direct Mail $0.26 per piece postage (Retail), 200-piece minimum, plus printing Mailpiece size and postage marking About 500 hand-delivered postcards, no customer calls
Google Local Services Ads A price per valid lead, within a weekly budget you set Category eligibility; what counts as a valid lead About $500 a month for one owner; one $30 lead in two months for another
Lead resellers (“marketing partners”) A markup on the customer’s price Who owns the customer, the invoice and damage claims Mixed: steady work for some, loses repeat customers for others

Paper on the door: hangers and mailers

One owner on a pressure washing forum hung more than 300 door hangers in a week without knocking, and got one call. Another handed out about 500 postcards over two weeks. The only call came from an HOA asking for the yard signs to come down.

Two rules apply. First, hang it on the door, not in the mailbox. Federal law fines anyone who knowingly puts unstamped circulars in a mailbox to avoid postage. Second, check whether your city treats flyering as soliciting. Bloomington, Minnesota, regulates anyone going place to place advertising or selling a service. Solicitors need a city license and ID card, can work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and must obey no-soliciting signs.

If you’d rather have the mail carrier deliver it, Every Door Direct Mail Retail costs $0.26 per piece in postage. You send at least 200 and up to 5,000 pieces a day per ZIP Code. A 1,000-piece drop is $260 in postage before printing.

Knocking: fast feedback, with paperwork

Knocking is the most argued-over channel. One owner said they sold $5,000 in pressure washing jobs in 20 hours of knocking; it is a controversial channel. Either way, it gives instant feedback on your price and pitch.

Two rules apply here too: the city solicitor license, and the FTC’s Cooling-Off Rule. For a sale of $25 or more made at the buyer’s home, you must give a receipt or contract with a notice that the buyer may cancel before midnight of the third business day. Put that notice on your agreement before you head out.

A Traverse City, Michigan, owner’s list of early lessons claims every clean driveway turns into two or three neighbor conversations, though a six-year veteran in the replies called that overstated. Treat it as one owner’s view. The house next door to a job you just finished is still a natural place to start knocking.

Pay-per-lead search ads

The search engine’s pay-per-lead program charges for each valid lead instead of each click. You set an average weekly budget, and it won’t spend past a monthly max. A missed call during business hours counts if the caller stays on the line more than 20 seconds. Low-quality leads may be credited automatically. But the program no longer credits leads for job types or areas you don’t serve, so set those tightly.

Check eligibility first. The U.S. category list on the program’s getting-started page, checked October 9, 2026, did not include pressure washing. The closest listed were window cleaning, house cleaning and siding services. Run its eligibility check yourself.

Owners on a trade forum this May reported very different bills. One was charged about $500 a month and was turning down about half the calls as too small. A newer owner got a single $30 message lead in two months. Another said the suggested budget was $270 a week in their rural county and $3,500 a week in the busier county next door.

Lead resellers and “marketing partner” deals

The FTC’s staff report on lead generation describes companies that collect leads and sell them to companies seeking them. For washers, a common pitch looks like one an owner described in January: the middleman quotes the homeowner $500, pays you your $400 rate and keeps $100. That’s 20% of what the customer pays.

Before you say yes, ask:

  • Whose name is on the invoice and the reviews? If it’s theirs, repeat work goes to them. Your own review requests won’t reach that customer.
  • Who handles a damage claim? Put it in writing.
  • What does a customer cost you otherwise? One commenter put their own cost per new customer at about $121. If yours is lower, the markup may cost more than it saves.

If your own rates are still shaky, settle them first with our guide on how much to charge. Commercial jobs work differently; see bidding commercial jobs.

Track it before you scale it

Log every lead: channel, date, cost, whether you quoted and whether you booked. Divide what you spent by jobs booked to get each channel’s cost per booked job. After a season, keep what pays and drop the rest. New to the trade? Start with starting a pressure washing business. Our methodology page explains how we check every number here.

Sources

Checked 2026-10-09. Operator results are anecdotes from public posts, not verified data. This page explains published rules and is not legal advice.