Last updated 16 October 2026
Fresh takes 25% of every valet it books you. Google charges £1.47 a click.
Car valeting and detailing leads, in the sense of a customer's details sold to you for a fee, hardly exist in the UK. What valeters and detailers are offered instead is a booking platform that keeps 25% of the job, a franchise, credits on Bark, or an agency that runs ads for a monthly fee. Or you buy the click yourself: "car valeting near me" gets 27,100 searches a month at £1.47 a click.
Which one is cheaper depends on the job. On a mini valet, Fresh's cut costs less than winning the customer from an ad. On a full day detail or a set of paint protection film, it's the other way round. Dent and scratch work is in our body shop leads guide.
From Fresh's partner page
"You don't have to quote or call anyone, as our prices are set."
That's how Fresh Car's valeting marketplace works. The customer books one of your free slots online at Fresh's price, you do the job, and Fresh pays you weekly after keeping 25%. On its £85 full valet, that's £21.25 to Fresh.
Where we stand
We don't sell car valeting leads. We help you get your own.
This guide is the honest version of what buying car valeting leads costs, and who else gets them. What we do instead is build valeters and detailers a website that turns visits into calls, and run Google Ads in an account in your own name, so every lead that comes in is a customer who found you, and nobody else was sold it.
Job by job
Fresh's cut is cheaper than a click on a valet, and dearer on a full detail.
The table puts Fresh's 25% beside what it costs to win the same job from your own Google ad. For the ad column, each job is matched to the search a car owner would type for it, and we assume you win one customer in 3 who gets in touch. Fresh doesn't sell paint protection film, so those rows have no Fresh figure.
| Job | Price | Fresh keeps 25% | Won from your own ad |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mini valet, inside and out | £50 | £12.50 | £60 a win, 120% of the job |
| Full valet | £85 | £21.25 | £79 a win, 93% of the job |
| Ceramic coating, 2-year | £150 | £37.50 | £103 a win, 69% of the job |
| One-stage machine polish and sealant | £250 | £62.50 | £88 a win, 35% of the job |
| Full day detail | £320 | £80 | £70 a win, 22% of the job |
| Paint protection film, front end | £1,000 to £1,500 | Not offered | £188 a win, 15% of the job |
| Paint protection film, whole car | £3,000 to £6,000 | Not offered | £175 a win, 4% of the job |
Valet and detailing prices are Fresh Car's own "from" prices, read October 2026. Paint protection film prices are the RAC's (August 2026), worked at the middle of each range. Winning one in 3 is MyJobQuote's figure for its own trades; nobody publishes one for valeters. The ad column uses the click prices in the table further down.
Our rough guide is that winning a job should cost about 10 to 15 percent of what the job is worth. Fresh's fee sits at 25% on every job, so it never gets there. An ad gets inside the band only on film: 15% of front-end film and 4% of a whole car. A full day detail comes nearer, at 22%. On a £50 mini valet the ad costs 120% of the job, more than the job itself.
If your diary is mostly mini and full valets
One booking from Fresh costs you £12.50 to £21.25. Winning the same customer from an ad costs £60 to £79. For a single visit, Fresh wins. Whether it still wins over a year depends on who the customer rebooks with, which is covered further down.
If you want ceramic and PPF work
Fresh lists a ceramic coating from £150 and no film at all. A detailer who wants £1,000 to £1,500 film jobs has to find those customers some other way, and that is where an ad pays for itself. Tinting the windows is a separate line of work again, with a guide of its own: window tinting leads. Performance work under the bonnet is covered in remapping leads, and full colour changes and van livery in car wrapping leads.
Your numbers
Put your own prices in and see what a valeting customer can cost you.
The presets are the jobs from the table. It starts on the ceramic coating. If you charge more than Fresh does, type your price over it, then put in what a customer costs you per lead, from an ad or anywhere else, and watch where the line falls.
WHAT CAN YOU PAY FOR A VALETING CUSTOMER?
Pick a job, or type in what yours are worth
Starts on one in three, the figure MyJobQuote tells its own trades to expect. Put in yours.
You can pay up to about
£8
a lead, winning one in 3
- Healthy range, per won job
- £15 to £23
- Which per lead is
- £5 to £8
Put a seller's price in the last box and this will tell you what each won job would cost you.
That 10 to 15 percent band is a rough guide we use across every trade, not a measured figure.
Who sells the work
Nobody sells valeting leads one at a time. Fresh sells you the booking.
These are the routes we found, each quoted from the firm's own website. "Not published" means we looked and the firm doesn't say.
| Route | What it costs | Who sets your price | In their words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fresh Car marketplace | 25% of each completed job | Fresh | "our prices are set" |
| Fresh Car franchise | At least £5,000 + VAT to start | Fresh | "your own local marketing initiatives" |
| Bark | Credits, £1.80 each + VAT | You | "Car Cleaning & Valet" |
| Leads Everyday | Monthly fee, not published | You | "never shared with competitors" |
| Auto Growth | Packages, not published | You | "Limited Spaces Per Area" |
| TrustATrader | Annual membership, not published | You | "Memberships are limited per area" |
Fresh sets the price and keeps a quarter
Fresh calls itself the UK's "fastest-growing mobile valeting brand", with "more than 100 vans on the road" and over 75,000 customers. Its partner scheme is for valeters who already have a van, a track record and liability insurance: Fresh takes a flat 25% of each completed job and you keep the other 75%. There's no subscription and nothing to pay upfront. You set the days you're free and customers book into them.
The trade-off is the price. Fresh's customers pay Fresh's rates, from £50 for a mini valet to £320 for a full day detail, and you work for 75% of that. Fresh says you can keep serving your own clients. Its page doesn't say whether the fee applies when a customer it sent you books again, which matters more in this trade than almost any other.
The Fresh franchise still leaves the leaflets to you
The franchise asks you to put in "at least £5,000 +VAT" for the van, kit, chemicals and launch marketing, and Fresh gives each franchise "a page on our website along with Google Ads campaigns". There are no fees in a month you turn over less than £2,000; the ongoing fee above that isn't published. The agreement runs 5 years. Its own FAQ is plain about the rest: "your success will depend on your own local marketing initiatives", meaning leaflets, your own network and local companies.
Bark sends each valeting job to up to five
Bark has a Car Cleaning & Valet category and still runs it on credits: its new subscription marketplace only covers cleaners, end of tenancy cleaners and roof and gutter cleaners so far. Credits cost £1.80 each plus VAT, last 3 months, and the number a valeting customer costs is set by "the service, the value of the job, and the supply and demand in the area". Up to 5 professionals respond to each one. A car owner holding up to five quotes for a £50 valet tends to pick on price. More on how that plays out in is Bark worth it and the shared-lead trap.
Leads Everyday and Auto Growth run detailers' ads and print no price
Leads Everyday pitches at "paint correction, ceramic coating, interior deep cleans, machine polishing, or full paint protection film installation", builds a landing page, runs Google Ads and says campaigns go live within 48 hours on average. Its terms charge "a flat monthly fee as agreed during your consultation", with the ad spend "paid directly to Google". Auto Growth sells packages by turnover band, leans on Facebook and Instagram for detailers, and says most of its detailing clients start at £20 a day on Facebook for 15 to 30 leads a month. That's its own figure, and neither firm publishes its fee.
The firms that sell other trades' leads skip valeting entirely
Zapo's motoring list stops at car garages, driving instructors and taxis. Leads Do Work's price list has no valeting row, Lead Pronto's only motoring pages are car finance, and PromoSEO and TextBadger Marketing have no valeting page. WhoCanFixMyCar, which our mobile mechanic leads guide covers, lists car wrapping and upholstery repair but not valeting. TrustATrader does have a Car Valeting category, sold as a yearly membership with a limited number per area.
Everything here about Fresh Car's contract comes from its own published terms and conditions, last read on 1 October 2026. Terms get revised, so check yours against the current version before you act on anything.
Rather have car valeting leads that are yours alone?
That's what we do. We don't sell leads. We build the website and run the Google Ads that bring customers straight to you, in an ad account in your name that stays yours if you ever leave.
See pricingWant to know how many people near you search Google for what you do each month? Message us your town and we'll send you the real numbers.
Check my areaBuying the click yourself
The dearest click in this trade is on the job worth the most.
On the seller side there's nothing to bid on. "car valeting leads" returned no search figure at all, and "car detailing leads" gets about 10 a month with no click price. Car owners are a different story. Each month 27,100 of them type "car valeting near me", and reaching one who clicks costs £1.47. For paint protection, "paint protection film near me" comes in at £4.60. For the last column we use WordStream's conversion rate for home improvement search ads, 7.33%. It comes from US campaigns, so read it as a guide.
| Search | Searches a month | Per click | Per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| paint protection film near me | 1,300 | £4.60 | £63 |
| ppf car | 2,400 | £4.27 | £58 |
| ceramic coating car near me | 880 | £2.63 | £36 |
| ceramic coating near me | 2,400 | £2.51 | £34 |
| mobile car detailing | 1,000 | £2.25 | £31 |
| mobile car valeting | 3,600 | £2.17 | £30 |
| paint correction near me | 880 | £2.16 | £29 |
| mobile car detailing near me | 1,300 | £1.99 | £27 |
| mobile car valeting near me | 8,100 | £1.92 | £26 |
| car detailing near me | 12,100 | £1.71 | £23 |
| car interior cleaning near me | 880 | £1.63 | £22 |
| car valeting near me | 27,100 | £1.47 | £20 |
| mini valet | 590 | £0.53 | £7 |
Google Ads data for the UK, pulled 1 October 2026. Click prices are what advertisers bid, so your real cost per click will sit around these figures rather than exactly on them.
A lead off "mini valet" costs about £7, but only 590 people a month type it. Most car owners search the general phrases, where a lead is £20 to £26. Ceramic coating sits at £34, paint correction at £29, and film at £58 to £63, on jobs worth many times a valet. What running your own ads changes:
- Bid hardest on film, ceramic and correction
- Charge your price, not a platform's
- The 4-to-6-week rebooking comes to you
- Your business name on the ad they tap
- Google bills your card; we add nothing
- Leave us and the ad account goes with you
The budget side, from daily spend to which searches to leave out, is in how much to spend on Google Ads and our Google Ads guide for trades.
No Local Services Ads for car care
Google's UK list of Local Services Ads categories has no valeting, detailing or vehicle category at all. For a valeter the route into Google is ordinary search ads. How the pay-per-lead version works in the trades that do have it is in our Local Services Ads guide.
The second booking
A valeting customer books again every few weeks. Work out who gets that booking.
Fresh's own mini valet page says "Most customers book every 4-6 weeks as maintenance, with a full valet every few months." That's about 9 to 13 mini valets a year from one car, or £450 to £650 at £50 each, before the full valets.
If every visit goes through Fresh
At 9 visits, 25% comes to £112.50 a year on that one customer, and it keeps adding up for as long as they stay. Ask Fresh, before you join, whether a customer it introduced stays on its fee when they rebook.
If you won them from your own ad
You paid about £60 once to win them. Book the next visit before you drive away and that £60 is spread over a year of valets. It only works if they rebook with you, so keep their number and text them when the next one is due.
Where the water goes
Vehicle washing is on the government's list of jobs that make contaminated water.
The pollution guidance for businesses from Defra and the Environment Agency, which applies in England, names "vehicle washing" among the activities that produce contaminated water, and gives detergents as an example of something that can pollute. Then it says: "Surface water drains discharge directly to the environment. You must make sure contaminated water from your premises and business activities goes into the foul drain or is recycled or removed by a registered waste carrier."
The penalty it gives for polluting is "an unlimited fine, go to prison for up to 5 years, or both", and you may have to pay for the clean-up as well. Scotland and Wales have their own versions of this guidance.
Working from the van
Fresh's vans carry "onboard water tanks and power generators", and its FAQ suggests "a quiet street or a public car park" for the job. Neither tells you where the rinse water ends up, so that part is yours to plan.
Working from a unit
Using the foul drain needs "permission from your water company". If you were relying on an oil separator, the guidance says separators "do not work" when there's detergent in the water, "for example, from car washing."
Using less water at all
The guidance's first suggestion is to avoid making contaminated water in the first place, "for instance by using dry systems". Otherwise it points to a sealed system for reuse or a registered waste carrier.
None of this shows on a booking. A slot on a platform tells you the car and the postcode, not whether you'll be on a sloping drive above a road gully. The same guidance shapes pressure washing, where the dirty water comes off driveways instead of cars.
The upsell on the drive
Sell a ceramic coating on someone's drive and they get 14 days to back out.
A deal agreed face to face anywhere other than your business premises is an off-premises contract under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. The customer who booked a mini valet and agrees a coating while you're standing on their drive has 14 days to cancel it. You can't start inside those days unless they've made "an express request", and for an off-premises deal that request has to be in a lasting form such as paper or email.
- Agreed on their drive: 14 days to cancel
- Starting today: get the request by email
- Cancel partway: they pay for what's done
- No cancellation info given: they pay nothing
- Under £42: no information duties
The fourth line is the one that bites. Regulation 36 says the customer "bears no cost" for work done in the 14 days if you didn't give them the cancellation information. On a £150 coating done the same afternoon, that's the whole price at risk. Hand over the cancellation information with the quote, and get their request to start today in an email. The £42 line doesn't help much here: Fresh's cheapest mini valet is already £50.
Through the year
Valeting searches peaked in March. Paint protection peaked in September.
UK searches for "car valeting near me" sat at 22,200 in most months, climbed to 33,100 in March and dropped to 18,100 in November, a swing of about 1.8 times.
UK searches for "car valeting near me", by month
September 2025 to August 2026. Google Ads keyword data, rounded bands.
Film and coatings run on a different clock
"paint protection film" hit 18,100 in September and fell to 8,100 by the quietest months, and "ceramic coating near me" peaked the same September. A detailer doing both can move budget between them through the year.
November is the month to rebook
The valeting low came in November. That's when a list of regular customers earns its keep, because new ones are scarcest. We don't know why the peaks land where they do, and one year of data can't promise they'll repeat.
Before you switch your diary on
Ask a platform the questions its partner page doesn't answer.
The ICO expects a business that buys customer details to make proportionate checks of its own, and says a seller's assurance isn't enough. For a valeter, the questions that decide whether a platform pays are mostly about money and repeat work:
- Who sets the price the customer sees?
- Is the fee charged when they rebook?
- Can other valeters see the same job?
- What happens to my customers if I leave?
- How did the customer find you?
Get the answers in writing before you open your diary to anyone, and keep them with the agreement.
Which way to go
Let Fresh fill the gaps. Win the regulars and the film work under your name.
Take platform bookings if
- Your diary has empty weekdays
- You only do valets
- Fresh prices suit your area
- You hate quoting
Think twice if
- 25% would come off every rebook
- You sell ceramic and film
- Bark sends it to up to 5
- Your prices sit above Fresh's
Run your own ads if
- You want PPF and coatings
- You rebook every customer
- You set your own prices
- You want the account in your name
Valeting is a trade where the first booking is the cheap part and the twentieth is where the money is. A platform is a fair way to fill a quiet Tuesday. The customers worth keeping for years, and the coatings and film that pay for a unit, are worth finding under your own name. Swapping tyres from the van too? See mobile tyre fitting leads.
Our sources
Where each valeting figure on this page came from.
Our side of it first: we build websites and run Google Ads for trades and local services, valeters included, so we aren't neutral. That's why every platform is quoted in its own words, and why the first table shows Fresh beating an ad on the small jobs.
Seller pages and terms were read on 1 October 2026, and the UK search and click data was pulled from Google Ads the same day. Valet, detailing and coating prices are from Fresh Car's own price pages, and film prices from the RAC. Bark's credit rules are from its pricing page. The water rules are from gov.uk, cancellation from the Consumer Contracts Regulations, Google's categories from its Local Services Ads help, and lead checks from the ICO.
Questions valeters and detailers ask
Car valeting and detailing leads, answered.
- How much do car valeting leads cost in the UK?
- Almost nobody sells them by the lead. Fresh Car books jobs into a valeter's diary and takes 25% of each completed job, at prices it sets: £21.25 of an £85 full valet. Bark sells credits at £1.80 each plus VAT and doesn't publish how many a valeting customer costs. Leads Everyday and Auto Growth run ads for detailers on a fee they don't print. A click on your own valeting ad costs £0.53 to £4.60.
- Does anyone sell valeting leads per lead?
- We found nobody. Zapo, Leads Do Work, Lead Pronto, PromoSEO, TextBadger Marketing and WhoCanFixMyCar all sell work in other trades, and none of them has a valeting or detailing page or a valeting price.
- What does Fresh Car charge valeters?
- A flat 25% of the value of each completed job, with no subscription and nothing upfront, paid weekly. Customers book online at Fresh's own prices, from £50 for a mini valet, so you don't quote. Its franchise is a separate route that asks for at least £5,000 plus VAT to start.
- Are car detailing leads different from valeting leads?
- The customer is. More people search "car valeting near me" (27,100 a month) than "car detailing near me" (12,100), and a valet customer books again every few weeks. The detailing searches lead to the bigger single jobs: "ceramic coating near me" works out at about £34 a lead, "paint correction near me" at £29 and "paint protection film near me" at £63. Fresh lists a ceramic coating and no film at all, so the film and correction work is the part a detailer has to win under their own name.
- Are Google Ads worth it for a car valeter?
- For the bigger jobs, yes. A lead off "car valeting near me" works out at about £20, which is a lot to win a £50 mini valet once. A lead off "paint protection film near me" is about £63 for a job the RAC prices from around £1,000 to £1,500. Valets pay back when the customer rebooks with you, every 4 to 6 weeks by Fresh's account.
- Can I wash customers' cars on the street?
- The government's pollution guidance for England lists vehicle washing as an activity that makes contaminated water, says surface water drains run straight to the environment, and says business water must go to the foul drain with the water company's permission, be recycled, or be taken away by a registered waste carrier. Plan where your rinse water goes before you take the job.
- Can a customer cancel a ceramic coating I sold them on their drive?
- Yes, within 14 days. A deal made face to face away from your premises is an off-premises contract under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. You can't start inside the 14 days unless they ask you to in a lasting form such as paper or email, and if you never gave them the cancellation information, they owe nothing for work done in that time.
- When are people searching for car valeting most?
- In the last 12 months, UK searches for "car valeting near me" peaked in March at 33,100 and were lowest in November at 18,100. Searches for "paint protection film" peaked in September instead.
- What should I ask a valeting platform before I sign up?
- Who sets the price, whether its fee applies when the same customer books again, whether other valeters see the job, and what happens if you cancel. The ICO also expects anyone buying customer details to check how they were collected rather than take the seller's word for it.
Keep reading
More straight answers for trades.
Regular valets and coating work, from car owners who searched for you.
We build your website and run Google Ads from an account in your own name, aimed at the coatings, film and regular customers that make a valeting business, not one-off washes. See what it costs, then tell us about your business and we'll set the campaign up around the jobs you want more of.