Vehicles score lowest in the database, 83 to 86, and honestly so. Cars are the one thing in this ledger people enjoy talking about, detailing has a visible enthusiast culture, and the low entry cost guarantees crowded competition. What keeps the category in: demand is genuinely recurring, the work is physical and unpleasant enough that most enthusiasts quit, and the subscription model at the tunnel end converted an errand into monthly revenue.
The database Category
Vehicles & detailing
No category in this database has a wider entry range, and both ends are now documented. Alan Tursunbaev started GoDetail with $500 and drives to the customer, reporting roughly $900,000 a year at 60 percent gross margins. The D'Eri family put $3 million into a failing Florida car wash and built Rising Tide into three locations washing close to half a million cars a year at nearly $6 million in revenue. Same dirty cars, opposite businesses.
The entries
Why it scores boring
Common questions
Is mobile detailing or a car wash more profitable?
They are different businesses. Mobile detailing starts for hundreds to a few thousand dollars, and one documented operator reports 60 percent gross margins on roughly $900,000 in revenue. Express tunnels cost $1.5 million to $4 million to build but convert washes into monthly membership revenue, which is why private capital has crowded into them.
How much do detailing businesses make on average?
Roughly $220,000 per company across more than 67,000 companies, with net income near 17 percent of revenue. The documented outlier in this database reports about $900,000 at 60 percent gross margins, which is a systems-and-crew result rather than a pricing one.
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