Plenty of detailers price the Metroplex like it’s one town. It isn’t. A van based in Frisco and a van based in Fort Worth can both “serve DFW” and mean two different maps. The figures above come from 20 local providers’ own menus. What the table can’t show is what those menus say line by line: how far a detailer will drive, whether they need your hose, and when they’d rather you bring the car in.

Why DFW comes in under the national figures

When we checked, every service in the table above came in under the national median. The BEA line above puts the metro a little over the national price level, but housing carries most of that. In the same 2024 BEA release, the DFW index for housing is 117.9, while the index for services other than housing and utilities is 99.7, about the national level. A detail is labor and supplies, so it sits in that second bucket, not the first.

Several of the surveyed menus come from north-side suburbs (Frisco, Plano, McKinney and Denton), and the spread across the metro is wide. One Frisco operator lists inside and out together at $135, while a Fort Worth van’s full detail package starts at $425 for cars. They’re selling different hours. Read how vehicle size moves a quote before you line up two menus.

The free radius and what lies past it

The Metroplex is big enough that drive time is a real cost, and local menus handle it in a few ways:

What the menu says Provider (base)
No travel fee within 20 miles of Allen; 64 cents a mile beyond TruGloss Detailing (Allen)
Serves areas within 30 minutes of travel time from Downtown Dallas Refresh My Car (Dallas)
No travel fee to Fort Worth Klean It DFW (Fort Worth)
Final price depends on the vehicle’s condition and location Wash Doc (Fort Worth)

The pattern is a free zone around home base, then either a per-mile charge or a polite no. If you live on the outer ring of the Metroplex, pick someone based near you rather than paying for their drive. Our breakdown of travel fees shows how to tell whether a mileage charge is fair.

Summer heat sets the calendar

NOAA’s 1991–2020 normals for DFW Airport count 106.2 days a year at 90°F or hotter, and 20.3 days at 100°F or hotter. June, July and August hold 78.6 of those 90-degree days. That shapes how local detailers book. One Denton detailer says mobile scheduling may be switched off in extreme heat or rain, and some services must be done at its shop. A Keller detailer says multi-stage paint correction in Texas heat is best done at its shop and offers drop-off. The mobile versus shop comparison covers what that does to the bill. If your car lives outside in that sun, paint protection priced per year is a better guide than any one coating price.

Rain is the other scheduler. May is the wettest month at the airport, with a normal of 4.78 inches, and October is next at 4.37. Ask how a detailer handles a rain day before you put down a deposit.

Wash water in Dallas and Fort Worth

Both big cities treat soapy runoff as a business matter. The City of Dallas says it’s a violation of city code and the federal Clean Water Act for businesses to let water mixed with soap or cleaning chemicals reach the street or storm drains, and that chemical wash water has to be blocked and collected. Fort Worth goes further. Anyone doing mobile commercial cosmetic cleaning, which the city’s ordinance defines to include vehicles, needs a city permit: $25 for the business plus $25 per wash unit, valid for a year, with registration numbers shown on each side of the rig. The city’s FAQ adds that the EPA exempts residential car washing, so washing your own car in your own driveway needs no permit.

Several local menus say they arrive with their own water and power; one Fort Worth operator lists its service area as requiring water and power access from the customer. Neither is wrong, but know which one you’re booking. Our wash-water rules guide explains capture mats and rinseless methods.

Five questions for a Metroplex detailer

Then hold the quote up against the table above and the national price index. Our methodology explains how each provider is counted once.

Sources

Based on 15 sources · How we price