What you actually net per job
The invoice total is not what you keep, and "hours on site" is not all the time the job cost you. Four things come out before an invoice is profit: product and consumables, drive time, payment processing, and a fair share of whatever software the business runs. None of them is large by itself. Added together and divided across the actual hours the job took - including the drive - the real hourly rate is routinely 15 to 25 percent below what the invoice divided by hours-on-site implies.
The four things that come out first
Product and consumables. Soap, wax, interior products, microfiber replacement, cleaning solution - whatever the job actually used. Most operators know this exists as a cost but do not price a specific number per job, which means it is being paid for out of the same margin as everything else without anyone deciding how much of it there should be.
Drive time. Time spent driving to and from a job is time that is not billed to anyone, and it also puts real miles on a vehicle that costs money to run. The IRS's standard mileage rate - 76 cents a mile for the second half of 2026 - is built to approximate the real cost of operating a vehicle for business use, fuel and wear included, which makes it a reasonable stand-in for what a mile of drive time actually costs even if you are not claiming the deduction on it.
Payment processing. Stripe's standard published rate is 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per successful domestic card transaction. It is a fixed, predictable cost of getting paid by card, and it is easy to mentally file under "the price of doing business" rather than subtracting it the way you would subtract product cost.
Software and tools. Whatever the job management, payments, and texting tools cost per month, spread across however many jobs run through them that month. On a busy month this is a small number per job; on a slow month it is a larger one, which is itself worth knowing.
Worked, on a real job
A full interior-and-exterior detail invoiced at $179, timed at 3.5 hours on site plus a 15-minute drive each way (10 miles round trip, 4 hours total time), paid by card:
- Invoice total: $179.00
- Product and consumables: -$15.00 (an estimate - cost your own kit to get your real number)
- Card processing at 2.9% + $0.30: -$5.49
- Drive time at the IRS rate, 10 miles: -$7.60
- A rough per-job software share: -$2.00
- Net: $148.91, over 4 hours total (3.5 on site + 0.5 driving) = about $37.20 an hour
Compare that to the number most operators actually track: $179 divided by 3.5 hours on site = $51.14 an hour. The gap between $51 and $37 is not an error in either calculation - it is the difference between "what the invoice implies" and "what actually landed," and only one of those two numbers is the one to compare against your target hourly rate.
These are worked figures, not your figures. Cost your own product use, your own real drive distance, and your own software bill before using this math to reprice anything. The pricing calculator. · Detailing maintenance plans: the same gap shows up when discounting a recurring visit.
Why this matters more as you get busier
A single job's $13-an-hour gap between the invoice rate and the real rate looks small. Multiplied across every job in a full month, it is the difference between a calendar that looks successful and a bank balance that does not quite match it - the exact pattern behind a full diary that still produces a disappointing month. Knowing the real per-job number is what lets you tell the difference between a pricing problem and a volume problem, which are fixed in opposite ways.
What Rigsheet does with this
Every job records the package price, any deposit, and the payment method, and Stripe payments already carry the true processing fee rather than the sticker total - so the gap this page describes is visible per job rather than something you reconstruct by hand at tax time. Recurring jobs and drive-time gaps in the schedule mean the drive-time side of the calculation is based on your actual route rather than a rough estimate.
Software can show you the real number. Deciding what to do about it - raise the price, tighten the route, cut the product cost - is still yours. Why you are probably underquoting. · Raising your prices. · What each plan includes.
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
What actually comes out of a job's invoice total before it is profit?
Four things most operators do not subtract in their head: product and consumables used on the job, drive time to and from it, the card-processing fee if the customer paid by card, and a fair share of whatever software or tools the business runs. None of these are large individually, and together they are routinely 15 to 20 percent of the invoice.
How much does card processing actually cost per job?
Stripe's standard published rate is 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per successful transaction on domestic cards. On a $179 job that is $5.49 - small on its own, and consistent enough across every card payment that it belongs in the same mental bucket as product cost, not treated as free.
How do you put a number on drive time?
The IRS's standard mileage rate - 76 cents a mile for the second half of 2026 - is designed to approximate the real cost of operating a vehicle for business, including fuel, wear, and depreciation, which makes it a reasonable stand-in for what a mile of drive time actually costs you even if you never claim the deduction.
Why does the real hourly rate come out lower than the invoice divided by hours on site?
Because "hours on site" leaves out the drive time it took to get there, and the invoice total leaves out product, processing, and software cost before it is profit. Dividing invoice by hours-on-site answers a different, more flattering question than "what did I actually make this hour."
Does this mean the job was priced wrong?
Not necessarily - it means the price was quoted from the invoice-and-hours-on-site number rather than the true net number. A job can be priced correctly and still net less per hour than it looks like on the calendar, and the fix is knowing the real number before you quote the next one, not assuming this job was a mistake.
What is the fastest way to find your own real net per job?
Take one recent job, write down the invoice total, then subtract product cost, the processing fee if paid by card, drive time at a per-mile cost, and a rough per-job share of your software bill. Divide what is left by total hours including drive time. That number, not the invoice, is what to compare against your target hourly rate.
Rigsheet. “What you actually net per job.” Baker Ventures LLC, September 8, 2026. https://rigsheet.bakerventuresstudio.com/guides/what-you-actually-net-per-job/