How Much Does a Full Detail Cost? Inside, Outside and Add-Ons

A full detail is an interior detail and an exterior detail performed in the same visit, usually at a small discount compared to booking each separately. It is not a single fixed service; it is the sum of whatever interior tier and exterior tier you pick, plus whatever the car's condition demands.

On the exterior side that means a hand wash, wheel and tire cleaning, decontamination, drying, and a protective wax or sealant. On the interior side that means a full vacuum, wipe-down, glass cleaning, and trim dressing. Paint correction, clay bar treatment, and ceramic coating are add-ons layered on top, not part of the base price.

Vehicle size is the single biggest lever after service tier. A coupe or small sedan sits at the bottom of the range; a full-size truck or three-row SUV with more glass, carpet, and painted surface sits well above it, often by $100 to $250.

Interior-only work runs $50 to $350 depending on tier and condition, and it is the half of the job most affected by how dirty the cabin is, since pet hair, stains, and odor all add time. Exterior-only work runs $100 to $350, and it is affected more by paint condition than by mess, since swirl marks and bonded contamination need correction steps a basic wash does not include.

Booking both together usually costs less than booking them on separate visits, since the detailer avoids repeating setup and drying time, but the savings are modest, typically $20 to $50 off the combined total rather than a steep discount.

Three add-ons account for most of the gap between a $250 full detail and an $800 one: paint correction, ceramic coating, and clay bar decontamination. Each is priced separately because each takes dedicated time and products the base full detail does not include.

Paint correction removes swirl marks and light scratches before any protection goes on and typically adds $200 to $1,000 depending on how many polishing stages the paint needs. Ceramic coating adds long-term protection on top of correction and typically adds $450 to $2,000 depending on product tier. Clay bar decontamination, often bundled into a premium exterior package, pulls bonded contaminants like tree sap and rail dust off the paint before polishing and usually adds $50 to $150 on its own.

Start from the base full detail price for your vehicle size, then add only the extras your car actually needs. A newer car with clean paint and a tidy interior rarely needs correction or odor treatment, so it should price near the bottom of its size bracket.

On Coateau, typical ranges for a standard sedan run $300 to $550 for a full detail, with paint correction priced separately at $500 to $1,200 on top when the paint needs it. SUVs run about 20 percent higher and trucks about 40 percent higher than those sedan numbers. Running a few local studios through the instant quote tool on Coateau is the fastest way to see where a specific quote sits against that range before booking.

Two shops looking at the identical car can land $100 or more apart without either one overcharging. The gap usually traces back to what their base full-detail package already includes. One shop may bundle a basic clay bar pass and tire dressing into its standard price; another may sell those as separate add-ons and quote a lower headline number that climbs once the extras are added back in.

Asking each shop to itemize their quote, rather than comparing two bottom-line numbers, is the only reliable way to tell whether a cheaper quote is actually cheaper for the same scope of work or just missing steps a pricier quote already includes.

Many studios discount a full detail when it is booked as part of a recurring plan, commonly a maintenance wash every few weeks alongside a full detail two to four times a year. The discount reflects the predictability of repeat business rather than any change in the work itself, but it can meaningfully lower the per-visit cost for an owner who was already planning to detail that often.

For an owner who only wants a one-time deep clean before selling a car or after a long road trip, a single full detail booked without a plan is the simpler and often only necessary option, since the discount on a maintenance plan rarely offsets the cost of visits you did not otherwise need.