“What should I charge per square foot to pressure wash?” The honest answer is another question: which square foot? A concrete driveway is flat and open. Vinyl siding takes low pressure and care around every window. An asphalt shingle roof should not see a pressure washer at all. Three methods, three paces, three rates.
This article starts from what homeowners report paying by surface, explains why the method sets the rate, then builds a rate card from your own pace, with chemicals, water and a minimum charge in it.
What homeowners report paying, by surface
HomeAdvisor’s pressure washing cost guide (updated June 2026) and its deck guide (updated the same month) report these national figures. They are the guides’ national ranges, not a price list:
| Surface or basis | The guide’s figure |
|---|---|
| Any surface | $0.10 to $0.50 per square foot; $50 to $100 per hour per crew member |
| Outdoor concrete (pools, patios, walkways); driveways | $0.20 to $0.40 per square foot; a driveway $100 to $250 |
| Deck | $0.30 to $0.35 per square foot, or $100 to $350 in total |
| House exterior | One story $150 to $750; two stories $400 to $1,400; three stories $700 to $1,800 |
| Soft wash of the outside of most homes | $250 to $1,000 |
| Roof | $0.50 to $1 per square foot; $450 to $700 |
| Minimum charge | About $100, to cover equipment and travel |
The guide notes that flat surfaces like driveways and patios are often cheaper to clean than intricate ones like siding or roofs, and that roofs cost more per square foot because they take more setup and are harder to reach. Both of those are pace, and pace comes from method.
The method sets the rate
Concrete: the fast surface
Driveways and patios are flat and open, and the guide reports them among the cheaper surfaces to clean; it adds that larger projects and easy surfaces like driveways may come with lower rates per square foot. That is the place for your lowest rate. It is not a place for careless pressure, though: the same guide warns that high-pressure water can damage concrete, as well as wood and vinyl siding, if excessive force is used.
Siding: low pressure, slow hands
The Polymeric Exterior Products Association, formerly the Vinyl Siding Institute, tells cleaners to hold the washer straight at eye level and never aim the stream upward, which can force water behind the panels. It says some siding manufacturers do not recommend power washing at all, while others limit the pressure and the cleaners that can be used, and it lists undiluted chlorine bleach among the cleaners to avoid. It also cautions around windows, doors, electrical wiring and plumbing. HomeAdvisor’s guide says professionals use low pressure on siding because high pressure can damage many siding materials. All of that is time, and the guide’s house prices climb with every story.
Wood decks: a pressure ceiling
HomeAdvisor’s deck guide says to use a maximum of 1,300 PSI on wood and composite decks, warns that a pressure washer used incorrectly can strip paint and sealant or damage the wood itself, and says that is why a professional takes more time on a wooden deck.
Shingle roofs: no pressure at all
Here the cost guide and the shingle makers disagree, and the shingle makers make the shingles. HomeAdvisor prices roof pressure washing at $0.50 to $1 per square foot. The Asphalt Roofing Manufacturers Association’s bulletin on algae, revised June 2024, says plainly: do not use a power washer or any type of brush or broom to clean algae from the roof surface, because high-pressure washing is likely to damage asphalt roofing and should not be used for any purpose.
What ARMA describes instead amounts to a soft wash: a solution of household bleach (sodium hypochlorite) and water, gently dispersed, mixed to the shingle manufacturer’s directions, left on for at least 15 and no more than 20 minutes, then rinsed off with a gentle spray. It warns that the result is only temporary, that the process makes the roof slippery and hazardous to walk on, that the solution must be kept off the rest of the building and the landscape, and that other chemicals or methods should not be used without the shingle maker’s approval. So on an asphalt roof, quote a chemical application with a timed dwell and a gentle rinse, not a pressure wash, and price it at the pace you can do that safely.
Build the rate card from your own pace
For a wage benchmark, the nearest Bureau of Labor Statistics line is the catch-all for building cleaners not listed separately, “building cleaning workers, all other,” with a median wage of $21.17 an hour in May 2025. Add payroll costs, the rig, the truck and fuel, and you have a cost per crew-hour; your real hourly cost shows how. Then log, for each surface, how many square feet an hour the crew actually finishes, setup and rinse included.
Say a one-person crew costs $70 an hour all in. The paces and chemical costs below are illustrative; replace them with your own log.
| Surface | Sq ft per hour | Labor and rig per sq ft | Chemicals per sq ft | Price at 30% margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Concrete | 400 | $0.175 | $0.01 | $0.26 |
| Vinyl siding, one story | 350 | $0.200 | $0.02 | $0.31 |
| Vinyl siding, two stories | 250 | $0.280 | $0.02 | $0.43 |
| Shingle roof, soft wash | 200 | $0.350 | $0.03 | $0.54 |
The price column is cost divided by 0.70, the margin math in markup vs. margin. As a sanity check, every line lands inside the guide’s per-square-foot figures: the concrete and roof ranges, and the any-surface range for siding. If yours land far outside, recheck your pace log before you recheck the market.
Chemicals and water are job costs
Chemical cost per square foot is two numbers you already have: what a gallon of your mixed solution costs, and how many square feet a gallon covers on that surface. Say a roof mix costs you $1.50 a gallon once mixed and covers about 50 square feet a gallon: that is $0.03 a square foot, or $60 on a 2,000-square-foot roof. Mix to the product label and, on a roof, to the shingle maker’s directions, as ARMA says.
Water is usually the customer’s: HomeAdvisor’s guide says most pressure washing companies use the homeowner’s water. Say so in the quote. If you bring your own, it is a line item, and the arithmetic is simple: a machine that moves 4 gallons a minute uses 360 gallons in 90 minutes of spraying. Where that water goes afterward is its own question: wash water and storm drains covers it. Capture and disposal take time, so they belong in the price as well.
The minimum charge
HomeAdvisor’s guide puts the typical minimum at about $100, to cover equipment and travel. Work out your own the same way. Say the drive is 20 minutes each way and setup plus teardown is 30 minutes: that is 70 minutes, or $81.67 at $70 an hour, before a square foot is cleaned. At a 30 percent margin that is a $117 floor, so a $120 minimum covers the visit. Below it, the job loses money whatever its size.
The same arithmetic prices bundles honestly. A driveway added to a house wash on the same visit does not repeat the drive or the setup, so it can be quoted at its square-foot price alone, and that saving is a real reason for the homeowner to book both.
Quote by surface before you visit
Each line of the rate card is a question a homeowner can answer online: which surfaces, roughly how big, how many stories, the roof material, and whether they want it once or on a recurring plan. If you want that range on your own website, NapkinPrice™ shows the homeowner a price range built from your own rates by surface. The pressure washing page shows how it is set up for this trade.