As a detailing business owner in Orange County, one of the biggest challenges you face is determining your prices. Given that Orange County is one of the most expensive places to live in the country, setting the right car detailing prices is crucial to increasing revenue and ensuring your success.
The first step to determining your own prices is to get in-depth knowledge of what your competition is doing. Your competition isn’t just the other detailing business across the street or even in your county, but it includes detailers across your state and even the country.
You need to know what the detailer across the street charges, and you also need to know what the detailer in San Diego and even the detailer in Utah charges. Once you compare your prices to those of your competition in your area, you might find they are lower than average. This would give you a great reason to raise prices! (For help on how to raise your detailing prices, check out the Mobile Tech RX detailing app that helps you create perfect estimates.)
In this practical guide, we’ve done the competitive research for you. To do this, we scraped data from Yelp to find the low, average, and high car detailing prices in the Orange County area. We then compared the price of car detailing services, so that you can see how your pricing stacks up.
Average Detailing Prices in Orange County, California
The average price of a detailing service in Orange County is $179.58. Orange County’s average detailing cost is slightly higher but very comparable to the state of California average of $176.30. Compared to the national average of $160.16, we see that average Orange County prices are about 12% higher than the rest of the country.
Most Expensive and Least Expensive Cities
The most expensive cities on average are San Juan Capistrano and Placentia then Huntington and Brea. The average cost of detailing in these four cities is $298.75.
The least expensive cities on average are Laguna Hills, Costa Mesa, and Rancho Santa Margarita. The average cost of detailing in these three cities is $93.33
Range of Detailing Pricing Across Orange County
If we wanted the cheapest detail in the city with the lowest price, we would go to Westminster, CA. The cheapest cost of a detail in Westminster is $32. If we wanted to find the most expensive detail in the city with the highest price, we would go to Santa Ana, CA. The most expensive detail in Santa Ana is $800. If we compare these two cities, we see the range across the lowest price and the highest price in Orange County is $768.
Now, let’s compare the average price in the cheapest city and the most expensive city. Laguna Hills, CA, has the lowest average price at $80 while San Juan Capistrano has the highest average price in the county at $400. The range across the average prices in Orange County is $320.
| City | Low | Medium | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anaheim | $120.00 | $160.00 | $250.00 |
| Brea | $150.00 | $250.00 | $250.00 |
| Costa Mesa | $65.00 | $100.00 | $145.00 |
| Fullerton | $80.00 | $160.00 | $220.00 |
| Garden Grove | $112.00 | $189.00 | $599.00 |
| Huntington Beach | $179.00 | $250.00 | $400.00 |
| Irvine | $73.00 | $169.00 | $275.00 |
| La Habra | $75.00 | $130.00 | $196.00 |
| Laguna Hills | $57.00 | $80.00 | $190.00 |
| Lake Forest | $125.00 | $169.00 | $225.00 |
| Mission Viejo | $80.00 | $120.00 | $150.00 |
| Newport Beach | $125.00 | $200.00 | $400.00 |
| Orange | $100.00 | $150.00 | $250.00 |
| Placentia | $150.00 | $295.00 | $350.00 |
| Rancho Santa Margarita | $45.00 | $100.00 | $125.00 |
| San Juan Capistrano | $225.00 | $400.00 | $550.00 |
| Santa Ana | $120.00 | $240.00 | $800.00 |
| Tustin | $75.00 | $125.00 | $225.00 |
| Westminster | $32.00 | $125.00 | $178.00 |
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Why are we seeing such a large range across cities? It could be due to the range of services offered, and some shops could be more high end than others. However, it could also be that detailing services don’t have a standard price in Orange County.
Setting Variable-Based Prices to Make More Money
If you find that your prices are lower than the averages listed in this article, I recommend re-thinking your pricing strategy. Ask yourself if the prices you charge really reflect the time and resources you give to each car that comes into your shop. If you charge the same price for two cars in different conditions, you’re definitely leaving money on the table.
A Wider Look: Price of Detailing in California and the United States
Price of Detailing in California
Price of Detailing in the United States
Research methodology
To pull numbers for this report, we used data from Yelp to find the low, average, and high price for auto detailing in cities of Orange County, California. We listed over 40 of the most populous cities in Orange County and compiled pricing data by city where car detailing prices were available. (19 of the 44 cities had enough accurate data on detailing pricing to use them in this report.)