How to Estimate a Pressure Washing Job Without a Site Visit

Here is how to estimate a pressure washing job without a site visit. Trace the driveway, patio and house footprint from satellite, and multiply the footprint by its stories for the house. Apply a per sq ft rate from a published homeowner survey, then check it against your own chemical, fuel, insurance and labor. Send the quote the same hour with the one or two conditions that would change the price on arrival.

How to estimate a pressure washing job you have not seen

A remote estimate can promise a price for area, and satellite imagery shows area: driveway, walks, patio and roofline. A traced outline is close enough for a first-pass bid; anything where inches matter gets checked on site.

What it cannot promise is what a photo hides: oil in the concrete, growth under the eaves, a spigot that barely runs; the quote names the one or two things that would change it.

Step 1: How to measure a driveway for pressure washing from satellite

Trace each surface as its own shape and read its area in sq ft.

1. 1Step 1: Enter the address and pick the imagery date with the clearest view: leaf-off, no cars on the driveway.
2. 2Step 2: Trace the driveway corner by corner and tap the first point again to close the shape; read the area and the perimeter.
3. 3Step 3: Trace the patio and walks as separate shapes; for a patio that wraps a pool, subtract the pool.
4. 4Step 4: Trace the house along the roofline for the footprint; the overhang makes it run a little high, the safe side.

The free satellite tool measures area and perimeter from a traced outline with no account, and Cut out removes a pool or a bed from the shape.

Step 2: Footprint × stories for house wash pricing by square footage

Footprint times stories is the house's square footage, which is what a per sq ft house wash rate applies to. Fixr's homeowner survey, updated January 31, 2025, prices a house wash at $0.30 to $0.80 per sq ft, so a 900 sq ft footprint with two stories is 1,800 sq ft of house.

Count the stories from the customer's photos. To price by siding area instead, multiply perimeter by wall height by stories, reading the wall height off a photo with the front door as the scale.

Step 3: Pressure washing price per square foot in the cost guides

The public figures are homeowner surveys from consumer cost guides, a market band and not a cost sheet. HomeAdvisor's driveway page, updated June 20, 2026, puts the rate at $0.30 to $0.55 per sq ft and names 576 sq ft as the most common driveway size.

The two driveway surveys overlap at $0.30 to $0.40 per sq ft, and HomeAdvisor's band runs on to $0.55; pick a point inside the band you trust (the worked example below takes the midpoint of HomeAdvisor's), then test it against your costs.

Step 4: Add your real costs

Chemical, fuel, insurance and the wage floor can be read from published pages today; the hours come from a published pace until you have timed your own.

Chemical from a published price

Leslie's lists a two-pack of 1 gallon bottles of liquid chlorine, sodium hypochlorite at 10 to 12.5 percent available chlorine, at $15.99 on October 12, 2026, about $8 a gallon. Count the jugs each job opens and price chemical as jugs times that figure.

Time from GPM and the surface

Flow matters as much as pressure for flatwork pace, and the spec sheet gives both: Simpson rates the PowerShot PS4240 at 4,200 PSI and 4.0 GPM. Four gallons a minute is 240 gallons an hour, so the water source is a quoting question. The spec sheet gives flow, not a pace. The published paces are homeowner surveys and they are rough: Fixr says a 600 sq ft driveway takes about three hours, which is 200 sq ft an hour. Use that until your own timed pace replaces it.

Fuel has a published price as well: the US Energy Information Administration's average for regular gasoline was $4.35 a gallon for the week of October 5, 2026. Fill the tank before and after a job to learn your burn per hour.

Insurance and the wage floor

Insureon's median for general liability on pressure washing businesses, updated September 8, 2026, is $73 a month or $879 a year, and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median hourly wage for janitors and building cleaners at $17.71 in May 2025, the closest federal series to this work. Spread the premium over your expected billable hours, and treat the wage as the floor for every hour, the road included.

Your pressure washing minimum charge

Fixr's homeowner survey notes that a 200 sq ft driveway usually carries a minimum charge of around $100. A short job still costs the drive, so build yours from the floor: an hour of travel and setup at the wage, its share of insurance, the fuel, and the margin a short stop has to earn.

When a pressure washing estimate from satellite stays a range

Say "subject to inspection" only for what a map and a photo cannot settle. A driveway's area is not in doubt; whether the black streaks are mildew or oil is, so the wash gets a firm number and the quote names the one condition that would add a treatment. Three things on the request settle the rest.

• Photos: each side of the house, the driveway from the street, and a close shot of any stain or growth.
• Water source: an outside spigot that works, or none. A machine that draws hundreds of gallons an hour needs a spigot that keeps up or a tank on the truck.
• Access: gate codes, dogs, cars to move, and whether anyone has to be home.

In MakeHay, a request form built under Settings › Request forms carries the built-in Job site address question and a Photo upload answer type. Convert to customer + quote creates the customer, job site and draft quote in one click, and the request shows its Lead source (how to work a request).

Where the wash water goes

Whether wash water may reach the storm drain is a city rule, so ask the stormwater office before you quote in a new town. In a US city with separate storm sewers, the drain at the curb is part of a municipal separate storm sewer system, an MS4, which the EPA's MS4 program page defines as a publicly owned system of storm drains, pipes and ditches. Runoff through an MS4 is "often discharged, untreated, into local water bodies," so permitted cities run programs to keep pollutants out of the drains: cities of 100,000 or more since 1990, and small systems in urbanized areas since 1999.

Where wash water must stay out of the drain, the usual options are to berm the inlet, let the water soak into lawn, vacuum and recover it, or discharge to the sanitary sewer with permission. Each takes time or equipment, so price containment as its own line where it is required.

Good to know: This is general information, not legal advice. Statutes and rules change; read the current text and ask your state licensing board or a lawyer before you rely on it.

Sending the quote and taking a deposit

Send the quote the same hour: each surface on its own line, the deposit set, the conditions written into the terms.

In MakeHay, the pressure washing starter list prices "House wash, single story" and "House wash, two story" as flat lines, "Driveway and flatwork", "Roof soft wash" and "Deck or fence wash" per square foot, and "Gutter brightening" per linear foot. A deposit on the quote is paid by card at approval, and Get link shares the quote without an email.

Gutter brightening by the foot follows the same from-above method as pricing gutter cleaning per linear foot; the size of the deposit is covered in how much deposit a contractor should ask for.