Starting a mobile detailing business: the honest checklist

Most guides to starting a detailing business are equipment lists with affiliate links. The equipment is the easy part. Here is the rest of it, in roughly the order it will bite you.

Register the business before you take money

An LLC in most US states is a form and a fee, and it separates your truck and your house from the business. Get an EIN from the IRS directly — it is free and takes about ten minutes online. Anyone charging you for an EIN is charging you for a free form.

Open a business bank account the same week. Not next month. Mixing personal and business money is the single most common reason a first-year detailer cannot tell whether he is profitable, and it is the hardest thing to unpick later.

Insurance is the one that ends businesses

General liability covers you if something goes wrong on someone's property. Garage keepers liability covers damage to the vehicle you are working on, which general liability generally does not. If you are polishing paint or steam-cleaning an interior, you want the second one — the first claim without it costs more than several years of premiums.

Check whether your auto policy covers a vehicle used commercially. Many personal policies do not, and finding that out at the roadside is a bad day.

Water and power decide where you can work

Three setups, honestly described:

• Customer's tap and outlet — cheapest to start, and it rules out apartments, offices and half of commercial work.
• Own water tank, customer's power — covers most driveways and a lot of car parks. The common middle ground.
• Tank plus generator or a deep-cycle battery setup — go anywhere, costs the most, and is the point at which you can quote fleet and dealer work.

Also find out what your area says about runoff. Some municipalities are relaxed and some are not, and a complaint from a business park is a cheaper way to learn than a fine.

What you actually need on day one

Not everything. A pressure washer or a good rinseless system, a decent extractor if you are selling interiors, two buckets and grit guards, microfibre in volume, a dual-action polisher, chemicals you know rather than chemicals that were on offer, and lighting. Lighting is the one people skip and the one that separates a finish that looks done from a finish that is done.

Sort the money side before the first job, not after

This is where new detailing businesses lose the most and notice the least.

• Take card payments from the start. "Cash or Venmo" costs you the customer who does not carry either, and it makes your books guesswork.
• Invoice on site. An invoice sent that evening gets paid slower than one handed over before you leave, every time.
• Photograph every receipt the day you get it. Chemicals, fuel, pads, the replacement polisher.
• Take before and after photos of every car — they settle disputes about pre-existing damage and they are the only marketing that costs nothing.

All four of those are things Mobile Detail Pro does in one place, which is why it exists — but the practice matters more than the tool. Do them in a notebook if you must; just do them from the first job rather than the fiftieth.

Tax, in one paragraph

Set aside a percentage of every payment as it arrives rather than working out what you owe in April. Track mileage from day one — in the US the standard mileage deduction is usually worth more to a mobile operator than actual vehicle costs, and it is only claimable if you recorded it. Keep the receipts and the mileage log in the same place as the invoices, so handing everything to an accountant is one export rather than one weekend.

Getting the first ten customers

Not ads. The first ten come from people who can already see the work: the street you did the first car on, the local group where somebody asks for a recommendation, and the before/after photos you have been taking since job one. Ask every satisfied customer for a review the same day, while the car still looks like that.