Choosing what to offer
Three services, with size and condition modifiers, beats eleven services every time.
A short menu is faster to quote, faster to schedule, easier to price correctly, and easier for a customer to choose from. Every additional service adds products you buy rarely, time you have not measured, and a new way to underquote.
And offering more rarely wins more customers. People choose on trust, availability and price for the thing they already wanted. A long menu mostly makes choosing harder.
What to add later is not a guess. It is whatever customers keep asking for that you keep declining. That is a demand signal you are already collecting for free, and it beats any market research you could do.
Three that look profitable and usually are not, at the start:
Anything with a long unpaid learning curve. The first several are slow, and slow at a fixed price is a loss.
Anything needing expensive consumables you use rarely. Product with a shelf life, bought for one job a month.
Anything where a mistake is expensive to put right. Paint correction, specialist surfaces, anything involving a customer's most valuable thing.
All three can be worth adding once you have volume. None is worth starting with.
The starting three
Detailing: an express service, a full interior and exterior, and a premium tier. Size modifiers for vehicle class, condition modifiers for heavy jobs. Auto detailing pricing. · Stop underquoting large vehicles.
Cleaning: a standard clean, a deep clean, and a move-out. Size by bedrooms and bathrooms. House cleaning pricing. · Pricing a move-out clean.
Plus priced add-ons for the recurring surprises: pet hair, smoke, heavy interior contamination, extra rooms, engine bay. An add-on with a number is a sale; without one it is an argument in a driveway. Offering more without being pushy.
Deciding what to add
The demand signal. Write down every request you decline. After two months, the list ranks itself.
Then check three things before adding it:
- Can you do it well, now? If it needs a learning curve, price the first several as learning rather than as jobs, and decide whether you can afford that.
- What does it cost to be able to offer it? Equipment, product, and the shelf life of anything you will use rarely.
- How long does it actually take? Time it once before it goes on the menu, not after.
Then price it from your own clock, not from what someone charges elsewhere. The pricing calculator. · Quoting fast without underpricing.
Deciding what to stop
Revenue per hour by service, not revenue per job. This is the calculation almost nobody runs and it usually contains a surprise.
The $349 job that takes seven hours pays less per hour than the $179 job that takes two and a half. The big number feels like the good job, and the diary full of big numbers can produce a bad month. Is your diary full but your month bad?
Also drop:
- Anything you dread, if it is not paying above average. Dread is usually a signal about time you have not counted.
- Anything that produces most of your complaints.
- Anything you offer for one customer who no longer books.
The cheap entry service
A genuinely smaller service at a lower price is useful. It is a way in, it fills quiet slots, and it is not a discount on your main service.
What causes trouble is an entry price so low that it fills the calendar with work that pays badly. The test: if every slot next month were that service, would the month work? If not, cap how many you take rather than removing it. Seasonality and the slow months. · How to fill a quiet week.
Serving both trades
Detailing and cleaning have different seasons, and doing both smooths the year: cleaning does not stop when it rains.
It also doubles the equipment, the product knowledge and the marketing, so it is a decision rather than a free upgrade. Worth it if you are already doing both informally, or if your area's detailing season has a long trough. Seasonality.
What Rigsheet does
Packages with size modifiers and priced add-ons live in one place, so adding or repricing a service is one change that reaches every future quote. Jobs record what was actually done and when, which is what makes the revenue-per-hour question answerable rather than a guess.
Packages, add-ons, quotes and invoicing are on every plan, including the $4 Starter tier. What each plan includes. · Your first week in business.
More in this section
About Rigsheet
Rigsheet is a job app from Baker Ventures LLC for one-to-three-person mobile service businesses: mobile auto detailers and residential cleaners first. Scheduling with drive-time gaps, quotes with vehicle and home-size pricing, deposits, "on my way" texts, before and after photos, invoices, and automated review requests. Plans start at $4 a month, with unlimited jobs, customers, quotes and invoices on every tier and no per-user fees.
It exists because the alternatives charge a solo operator team prices. A one-van business is not a small version of a ten-truck business, and pricing built around seats and add-ons makes that mistake expensive. The pricing calculators and operator guides on this site are free and need no account.
Questions and answers
How many services should a mobile detailer or cleaner offer?
Three, at the start, with size and condition modifiers. A short menu is faster to quote, faster to schedule, easier to price correctly and easier for a customer to choose from, and every additional service adds products, time and a way to underquote.
What services should you add first?
Whatever customers keep asking for that you keep declining. That is a demand signal you are already collecting for free, and it beats any guess about what a market wants.
Which services look profitable and are not?
Anything with a long unpaid learning curve, anything needing expensive consumables you use rarely, and anything where a mistake is expensive to put right. Each can be worth adding later and none is worth starting with.
Should you offer a cheap entry service?
A genuinely smaller service at a lower price is useful and it is not a discount on your main one. What causes trouble is an entry price so low that it fills your calendar with work that pays badly.
How do you decide what to stop offering?
Look at revenue per hour by service, not revenue per job. The service you dislike is often the one paying worst, and the one you assume is your best earner is frequently a slow job with a big number attached.
Does offering more win more customers?
Rarely in this trade. Customers choose on trust, availability and price for the thing they already wanted, and a long menu mostly makes choosing harder.
Rigsheet. “Choosing what to offer.” Baker Ventures LLC, September 7, 2026. https://rigsheet.bakerventuresstudio.com/guides/choosing-what-services-to-offer/