Ask ten Calgary detailers what they charge for a full interior and you'll get ten answers, most of them too low.
Pricing in this market is set less by cost and more by nerve. The operators making a living generally worked out their numbers once and stuck to them; the ones who burn out spent two years matching whatever the cheapest guy on Kijiji posted last week.
Here's a practical way to price, using ranges that reflect what Calgary operators actually advertise.
Typical Calgary rates
Indicative ranges, not a rate card. Where you land inside them depends on your equipment, your travel radius, and how good your before-and-after photos are.
| Service | Typical range | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Maintenance wash & interior wipe-down | $60 – $120 | 1 – 1.5 hrs |
| Full interior detail | $180 – $350 | 3 – 5 hrs |
| Full interior + exterior | $250 – $500 | 5 – 7 hrs |
| Paint correction (single stage) | $400 – $900 | 6 – 10 hrs |
| Ceramic coating | $700 – $2,000+ | 1 – 2 days |
The spread inside each row is mostly vehicle size and condition. A compact commuter and a three-row SUV after a camping trip are not the same job, and pricing them the same is the fastest way to lose money on the second one.
Work backwards from your day, not up from your costs
The most common mistake is pricing a service by adding a margin to chemicals and time. Chemicals are almost never your constraint — daylight is.
Start from what you need to clear in a day. If you want $600 before tax and you can realistically fit two full interiors, your interior price is $300, not $180. If that feels high, the answer is usually a better package or a better photo set, not a lower number.
Winter changes this arithmetic more than people account for. A December day in Calgary gives you maybe seven usable hours, and a mobile job at -20°C takes noticeably longer — setup, water management, and the simple fact that your hands don't work properly. Your winter rate should not be your summer rate.
Price by vehicle size, not by service alone
The single easiest pricing upgrade: three tiers instead of one number.
- Small — coupes, sedans, compact hatchbacks
- Medium — mid-size SUVs, crossovers, small trucks
- Large — three-row SUVs, full-size trucks, vans
A 20–30% step between tiers is normal and nobody argues with it, because the difference is visible. This also ends the sight-unseen quoting problem: instead of guessing, you ask what they drive.
Calgary skews heavily toward trucks and large SUVs. If you're quoting one flat price, you are almost certainly subsidising the biggest vehicles with the smallest ones.
Charge for the things that actually cost you
Three add-ons get given away free constantly and shouldn't be:
- Pet hair. Heavy shedding adds 60–90 minutes to an interior. A flat $40–$80 surcharge is normal, and customers accept it without complaint if you say so upfront.
- Travel outside your radius. Set a free radius and a per-kilometre rate beyond it. Airdrie, Okotoks, and Cochrane jobs look profitable until you count the drive both ways.
- Excessive soiling. Construction dust, spilled milk, smoke remediation. Put a clause on the booking page so it's never an awkward driveway conversation.
Each of these is time you're already spending. The only question is whether you're paid for it.
The mistakes that keep good detailers underpaid
Quoting before seeing the vehicle. Ask for photos at booking, or price by size tier. Otherwise every quote is a guess and the bad guesses all go the same direction.
Not taking a deposit. This is the one that quietly costs the most. A no-show on a coating isn't a lost hour, it's a lost day you can't refill on a Saturday morning. A booking that carries money gets rescheduled instead of ghosted.
Competing with people who won't be here next year. The $80 full-detail operator is not your competition. They haven't worked out their hourly rate and they'll be gone by spring. Price for the business you want to still be running in three years.
Never raising prices. Costs went up; your rates should have too. Raising prices 10% loses you a handful of the most price-sensitive customers — usually the most demanding ones — and increases revenue. Do it once a year, quietly, on new bookings.
When to discount, and when not to
Discounting a single job to win a customer is almost always a mistake. Discounting to change behaviour is not.
Worth discounting:
- Packages. Four maintenance washes bought upfront at 10–15% off. You get paid ahead and the customer stops shopping around.
- Off-peak slots. Tuesday mornings are worth less to you than Saturdays. Price accordingly rather than sitting idle.
- Referrals. $25 off the next detail for anyone they send. It costs you nothing until it works.
Not worth discounting: the first job, to a stranger, because they asked. That teaches them your prices are negotiable, and they'll ask again.
Don't forget GST
Alberta has no provincial sales tax, so you're only dealing with 5% GST. You must register with the CRA once you pass $30,000 in revenue over four rolling quarters, and many detailers register earlier to claim input tax credits on equipment and chemicals.
Whatever you decide, GST needs to be on the invoice properly, with your registration number — especially if you do fleet or dealership work, where the customer's bookkeeper will ask.
Put the price somewhere people can see it
The last piece is boring and it matters most: if your prices live only in DM replies, you're re-quoting the same job twenty times a week and losing every customer who didn't want to ask.
PayDash gives Calgary detailers a booking page with services and prices listed, deposits taken at the time of booking, and invoices with 5% GST calculated automatically — so the price conversation happens once, on your terms, and the slots that fill stay filled.
See how PayDash works for detailers →
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