How Much to Charge for a Mobile Valeting Job in 2026

What a mobile valeting quote needs to include

"Full valet, £70" tells the customer almost nothing and leaves you with no protection once you're standing next to a van instead of a hatchback. Cover these ten things and there's nothing left to guess at:

1. 1Vehicle size and type stated on the quote — hatchback, estate, SUV or van — since it changes both the time on site and the price.
2. 2The service tier named plainly — exterior valet, interior valet, mini valet, full valet or full detail — not just "a valet".
3. 3Exactly what's included at that tier: pre-wash/snow foam, wheels and tyres, glass, interior vacuum, dash and door wipe-down.
4. 4Add-ons priced separately: pet hair removal, odour treatment, engine bay clean, leather conditioning, paint sealant or ceramic coating.
5. 5Where the job happens and what it needs from the customer — driveway or car park access, and somewhere your wastewater can be legally dealt with.
6. 6How you handle wastewater, stated plainly — minimal water, no pressure washer where runoff could reach a drain, and where any collected water goes.
7. 7A weather contingency — mobile valeting is weather-dependent, so say upfront what happens if it's pouring on the day.
8. 8Estimated time on site, so the customer can plan around it.
9. 9Payment terms — on completion, card/contactless, or a deposit for anything booked ahead of a larger job like a car sale.
10. 10What's excluded — heavily soiled vehicles, commercial vehicles, or anything that really needs a proper wash bay rather than a roving service.

Not every valeting job is priced the same way

Two things decide the price more than anything else: which tier of service you're actually doing, and — the part most competitors' quotes never mention — how you're legally allowed to get rid of the water once it's dirty.

Price by service tier and vehicle size, not a flat "valet" rate

As a working guide for 2026: an exterior-only valet (snow foam or hand wash, wheels and tyres, glass and mirrors) runs about £30–£50 and takes an hour to ninety minutes. An interior valet (vacuum, rubbish removal, optional pet hair or odour treatment) is similar in price at £40–£70. A combined mini valet — a lighter-touch exterior and interior together — sits at £50–£80, and a full valet with waxing, polishing, protective treatment and interior shampooing runs £80–£120 over three to four hours. A full detail — machine polishing, scratch removal, headlight restoration, engine bay cleaning and ceramic coating — starts from around £150 and can run considerably higher depending on paint correction and coating grade. On top of any tier, price add-ons separately: odour removal £5–£10, pet hair removal £10–£25, interior shampooing £30–£50, engine bay cleaning £30–£50, headlight restoration £20–£30, exterior waxing £20–£40, leather treatment £10–£20, a full ceramic coating £300–£800+, and paint correction £150–£400. Larger vehicles — vans, SUVs and 7-seaters — typically add 20–40% on top of the equivalent tier for a small hatchback, since there's simply more surface area and interior to work through.

The legal line most mobile valeters ignore: what happens to the dirty water

Every other trade in this series has a regulation about what you're allowed to do to someone's property or who's responsible for what you take away. Valeting has one about what comes off the vehicle — and it's routinely ignored by operators who've never been told it exists. You can't let wash water containing detergents, waxes or emulsifiers run into a surface water drain, soakaway or unmade ground. That's controlled under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 (equivalent regimes apply in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), and most vehicle-washing setups wouldn't qualify for a standard permit anyway — a bespoke one is normally needed. Wash water also can't be run through an oil separator, since detergent stops it working.

For a fixed site, the usual compliant route is a foul sewer connection with the water company's trade effluent consent, or a water-recycling system that filters and reuses most of the wash water. For a genuinely mobile, roving operator, the rules are tighter still: you can only work without a dedicated wash bay if your method produces no runoff at all, or any runoff is properly collected and disposed of — meaning the minimum amount of water, no pressure washer anywhere it could reach a drain, no heavily soiled or commercial vehicles, and effluent from buckets disposed of only at an agreed foul sewer point with consent. Operating without the required permit is a criminal offence, and since July 2023 the Environment Agency's previous £250,000 cap on civil penalties for these offences was removed entirely — variable monetary penalties for a breach are now uncapped, separately from the risk of prosecution. None of this needs to scare a customer on your quote. It's a reason to put a single honest line on it: low-water method, no runoff to drains, wastewater dealt with properly. Most competitors won't have thought to say it, which makes it free differentiation.

A worked example

A full detail on a large SUV ahead of a private sale, with add-ons priced and listed separately:

Low-water wash method throughout; wastewater collected and disposed of via an agreed foul sewer point, no runoff to the driveway drain. Approx. 3.5 hours on site. Wet-weather reschedule at no extra charge, 24 hours' notice preferred. Card payment taken on completion. To accept, tap Accept on the quote.

Five details that get mobile valeting quotes accepted faster

• State your wastewater method on the quote. A short line — "low-water wash, no runoff to drains, wastewater collected and disposed of correctly" — quietly tells an increasingly eco-aware customer you're not the operator leaving suds running down their driveway into the gulley.
• Name the vehicle size and confirm it on site. Avoids the awkward on-the-day renegotiation when a "small car" booked over the phone turns out to be a seven-seat SUV that takes twice as long.
• Price add-ons separately, not folded into a guessed "premium valet" figure. Pet hair, odour and stain removal vary wildly job to job — naming them keeps your headline price honest and makes it obvious why one booking costs more than the last.
• Offer a no-quibble wet-weather reschedule. Mobile valeting is one of the few trades where the weather can cancel the job outright — a clear policy stated upfront avoids an argument on a rained-off morning.
• Photograph before and after for anything beyond a basic wash. Especially for a full detail, paint correction or ceramic coating — it justifies the price and gives you something to show the next customer who's on the fence about the top tier.

The fastest way to do all of this

Mobile valeting is easy to underquote because "a valet" can mean anything from a twenty-minute exterior rinse to a full day of paint correction — and it's easy to lose a booking to an unlicensed competitor if your quote doesn't make clear you're doing this properly, wastewater and all.

This is what QuoteRocket is for. Describe the job in plain English — "large SUV full detail, machine polish, paint sealant, headlight restoration, engine bay clean" — and it turns that into a branded, itemised PDF quote in under a minute, with your tier, add-ons and wastewater note included every time. Your customer accepts it with one tap on their phone, and an accepted quote becomes an invoice in one click, so you're paid on the driveway instead of chasing it later.

Whichever way you produce the quote, the principles hold: name the tier and vehicle size instead of guessing a flat number, price add-ons separately, state how you handle wastewater, and make saying yes effortless.

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