Ask ten detailers what a lead costs and you get ten answers, because they are buying ten different products. A shared Bark lead, an Airtasker job with a commission attached, a hipages credit bundle and a phone call from your own Google ad are not the same thing, and the sticker price tells you very little. This article puts the 2026 prices side by side, converts each one into a cost per booked job, and shows what the detailing accounts Detail Up runs produce for comparison.

The market you are buying into

Australia's car wash and detailing industry is worth about $608 million in 2025-26 according to IBISWorld, and the number of businesses has been shrinking: 1,683 in 2026, down 2.3% a year since 2020. The cars are not going anywhere, though. BITRE counts 22.3 million registered vehicles, up 2.6% in a year. Fewer businesses chasing more cars is a good position for the detailers who can make the phone ring. One platform closed in the middle of it: Oneflare shut down on 30 June 2026 and now redirects to Airtasker, so any detailer who relied on it is looking for a replacement channel this year.

What the marketplaces charge in 2026

Turning each price into a cost per booked job

Cost per lead is the wrong comparison. The number that matters is what you pay for a job that goes on the calendar, and that depends on whether the lead is shared and what size job it brings.

Airtasker, $150 full detail. At a 15% fee you keep $127.50. The lead itself cost nothing, so the marketplace looks free until you count the time spent bidding against other Taskers and the customer's expectation of a marketplace price. On a $1,200 coating the same fee is $180, and Airtasker's own median suggests few coating jobs are posted there at all.

Bark, shared lead. Suppose a detailing lead costs 8 credits, or about $27, and it goes to four detailers. If you win one in four, the cost per booked job is around $108 before you have spent a minute quoting. Win one in three and it is $81. Bark's help centre does not publish credits per lead, so use your own account history.

hipages, Advanced plan. $249 plus GST is about $274 a month for 310 credits. If a lead costs 60 credits that is five leads, and at a one-in-three win rate on a three-way shared lead, roughly $165 per booked job. The contract runs whether you win or not.

Your own Google Ads. There is no published Australian benchmark for "car detailing" clicks. The closest public numbers are a global automotive repair average converted to about AUD $3.82 per click with a 14.7% conversion rate, an Australian agency range of $3 to $12 per click and $40 to $120 per lead for trades, and the US automotive-service benchmark of US$6.42 per click and US$42.10 per lead, which is a US figure and should be read as one. Take $40 per enquiry as a conservative Australian number. That enquiry is exclusive: one person, searching for a detailer, who called you. Book one in two and the cost per job is $80, with the whole job value yours.

What the Detail Up accounts produce

Our own figures are lower than the benchmarks because the campaigns are narrow: one service, one territory, a landing page about that service and call tracking on every number. Across the Google Ads accounts Detail Up manages, $507K of spend has produced 34,500 enquiries, an average of $14.70 per tracked enquiry. The car detailing Google Ads accounts in Newcastle and on the Gold Coast sit in that pool. On Meta, the detailing campaigns have delivered 441 leads at $11.86 each, including 254 leads at $13.21 in Wollongong and 187 at $10.02 in Perth. One detailer took 88 leads in 30 days. Those are our numbers, not industry averages, and the account-level detail is on the results page.

At $14.70 an enquiry and a one-in-two booking rate, a job costs about $30 to win. A $1,200 ceramic coating at $30 of marketing is a different business from a $150 wash at 15% commission plus bidding time.

Which channel for which detailer

  • Just starting, no reviews, mobile only: Airtasker fills the calendar with $100 to $200 jobs and builds a review base. Treat it as a bridge, not a plan.
  • Established, wants coatings and correction: the marketplaces barely carry that work. Your own Google Ads for service keywords, Meta Ads for before-and-after creative, and a Google Business Profile that ranks in the map pack are the channels that bring $1,000-plus tickets.
  • Workshop with a fixed catchment: SEO pays back over 12 months and keeps paying; subscriptions stop the day you cancel.

Whatever you run, track it. Every channel above should have its own phone number and form so you know what each booked job cost, not what each lead cost.

What to do next

Put your own job values into the lead value calculator to see what a lead is worth to you at your booking rate, then book a call. We will tell you whether your territory is open and what the accounts we run in similar markets are producing.

Sources

Third-party prices and terms were checked on 28 September 2026 and can change — check the platform's own page before deciding. Detail Up's own figures come from the accounts on the results page.