1. Vehicle size
More glass, more carpet, more panels, more seats. Our three bands are sedan, midsize SUV, and large SUV or truck.
Interior: $229 / $250 / $300. Full: $279 / $300 / $350. Exterior: $100 / $125 / $150.
Five things legitimately change a detailing price: vehicle size, which services are included, which add-ons the car needs, how much correction the paint gets, and travel distance. Everything else is presentation.
The reason two quotes for the same car look wildly different is almost always scope. A quote that is a fraction of another is usually not competing for the same job at all — one is a wash and the other includes decontamination, correction and protection.
This is written so you can compare quotes properly, including ours. The full price list is in the pricing guide.
More glass, more carpet, more panels, more seats. Our three bands are sedan, midsize SUV, and large SUV or truck.
Interior: $229 / $250 / $300. Full: $279 / $300 / $350. Exterior: $100 / $125 / $150.
Interior only, exterior only, or both. The Full Package is deliberately cheaper than the two booked separately.
Pet hair, extraction, odor, leather, decontamination, trim, engine bay. Each solves a problem the base service cannot.
Agreed before we start, never added at the end.
The biggest single variable on a paint job. One step adds $250 on a sedan, two step $500, three step $750, scaling up by size.
No fee in San Francisco or the northern Peninsula. 5% for Marin and the southern Peninsula, 10% for the East Bay.
The base price does not change based on condition. Condition changes which add-ons make sense, and you agree those first.
The reason detailing prices seem chaotic is that the word 'detail' describes everything from a forty-minute wash-and-vac to a two-day correction and coating. Comparing prices without comparing scope is meaningless.
Five questions make any two quotes comparable:
Iron removal and a clay bar. If a quote for paint protection does not include this, whatever is being applied is going over bonded contamination and will fail early. This is the most common thing left out of a cheap coating quote.
One step, two step or three step, and how many machine stages that actually means. 'Polish' with no level attached is not a specification.
A wax, a 12-month sealant and a 5-year coating are three different products with three different lifespans. A price without a duration is not a price.
Our coating and sealant packages include a full interior and exterior detail. Many coating-only quotes do not, which is why ours can look higher until you add the missing line items back.
A shop price does not include your time driving the car there and back twice. We come to the car, and there is no travel fee anywhere in San Francisco or the northern Peninsula.
A sedan, all three quoted honestly. These are not competing prices — they are three different amounts of work.
| What you actually want | What it includes | Sedan price |
|---|---|---|
| The car cleaned inside and out | Full Package: interior detail plus exterior wash and protection | $279 |
| Cleaned, plus the paint reset | Full Package plus iron decontamination and clay bar | $279 plus $125 |
| Cleaned, corrected and protected for 5 years | 5-Year Gtechniq Coating with one-step correction — includes the full detail and decontamination | $899 |
Notice the third row is not the first row plus a markup. It is a different job that happens to include the first row inside it.
Everything that can be a fixed price is a fixed price and is published. The three core services by three vehicle sizes, and every add-on by size, are all listed rather than quoted, so you can work out your own total before contacting us.
Two things are quote-only: paint correction and ceramic coating. Not because we are being coy, but because the price genuinely depends on what the paint looks like, and nobody can assess that from a description. The full coating matrix — four packages, four correction levels, three vehicle sizes — is published on the ceramic coating page, so the range is visible even though the exact figure needs a look.
Travel fees are published by zone rather than by distance: no fee in San Francisco and the northern Peninsula, 5% for Marin and the southern Peninsula, 10% for the East Bay.
Payment is card, Apple Pay, Venmo, Zelle or cash, taken after the job is done. A deposit may be requested for larger jobs such as a coating.
Photos of the areas you care about get you an actual quote rather than a range. It costs nothing and there is no obligation.
And if what you need is the $279 job rather than the $899 one, we will say so.
More short answers live on the FAQ.
The services this guide is about:
Back to the full guide library.
Ask what is included. Then the numbers start making sense.