Hiring a marketing agency for a pressure washing company, or doing it yourself
What each service is fairly worth per month, the red flags in a pitch, what you should never hand over, and why any real offer starts with a trial.
Pressure washing owners get pitched constantly. Lead sellers, SEO packages, "we have 40 exclusive leads in your zip code," directory upgrades, and the guy who calls every March promising the top of Google by May. Most of it is sold with no number you can check and a twelve-month agreement.
This guide is about how to tell the difference, and about which pieces you should genuinely keep in-house.
Keep these yourself, always
Some parts of a wash company's marketing cannot be outsourced without losing most of their value.
Asking for the review. It happens in the driveway, from the person holding the wand. No agency can do it. An agency can automate the text and the reminder afterward, which is real help, but the ask is yours. See the reviews guide.
Shooting the footage. You are standing in front of the best marketing asset in your industry every day. Nobody can shoot your before-and-afters but you. Ten seconds of a surface cleaner opening a clean stripe is worth more than any designed graphic, and an agency charging you for stock creative in this trade is charging you for something worse than free.
The local Facebook groups. Recommendation threads want a neighbor, not a brand. When an agency comments on those threads on your behalf it reads as exactly what it is and it gets you removed from the group.
Answering the phone. You can outsource the answering to a person, but not to a vendor who never learned your pricing or your service radius.
Worth paying for
Google Ads management. Genuinely technical, genuinely easy to waste $1,500 on, and the negative keyword work alone takes experience in this niche.
The website. A one-week build you will never get around to.
Missed-call text-back and follow-up automation. A setup job, not an ongoing one, and the return is the largest in the business.
Google profile optimization and the photo habit, if you will not do it weekly yourself. You will not, most owners do not, and it decays.
AI search and site content, which is writing work that takes a specific kind of attention.
What a fair price looks like
Ranges for a single-market pressure washing company, monthly management fees, not counting ad spend:
- Google Ads management: $400 to $900, or 10% to 15% of spend once spend exceeds about $5,000 a month
- Meta ads management: $400 to $800
- Local SEO and Google profile management: $300 to $700
- Website build: $1,500 to $4,000 one time, or $75 to $200 a month managed
- Review generation system: $150 to $400
- Missed-call text-back setup: $300 to $800 one time, then $30 to $100 a month
- Full stack, several services bundled: $1,200 to $2,500
Ad spend is separate and it should sit in your own account, in your name, on your card.
If a quote is dramatically above these numbers, ask exactly what the extra buys. If it is dramatically below, someone is spending eleven minutes a month on your account.
The red flags
A guarantee of ranking or lead volume. Nobody controls Google's results. A guarantee is either meaningless or it is being met by counting junk. "40 leads a month guaranteed" from a lead seller usually means 40 shared inquiries sent to four washers at once.
A twelve-month contract before anything runs. The only reason to require a year up front is that the first ninety days will not justify the next nine.
Ad accounts they own. If the Google Ads or Meta account is in the agency's name, you cannot see the real spend, you cannot see the search terms, and you leave with nothing. Insist your accounts stay yours. This is the most common way washers get quietly overcharged.
Reporting that only shows impressions, clicks and "reach." For a service business the report has three lines that matter: calls, form leads, booked jobs. Everything else is decoration.
Shared or resold leads. If the same inquiry goes to three other companies, you are in a five-minute race to the bottom on price. Pay for a campaign that generates your own leads instead.
Reviews they offer to write or "manage." Any vendor offering to post reviews for you is offering to get your profile suspended, which in April ends your season. Google's policy is explicit about incentivized and fake reviews.
No questions about your operation. A vendor who does not ask your service radius, your average ticket, your minimum, your crew size and what surfaces you will not touch is going to sell you leads you cannot serve.
Questions to ask before you sign
- Whose name is on the ad account, and can I log in today?
- What are the first three things you will change in my Google profile, specifically?
- How will I know whether a call came from you? Show me the tracking.
- What happens in month one, and what will you show me at day 30?
- Who is actually doing the work, and how many other pressure washing companies do you run in my metro?
That last one matters. If they run three other washers in your county, you are competing against your own agency in the same auction.
What you can genuinely do yourself
If you have five hours a week and no budget, in this order:
- Fix the Google profile. Categories, services, real hours including Saturday, two photos a week. Free, and 63.4% of listings have not even set hours. The profile guide is the checklist.
- Ask for a review at every job. Free.
- Turn on missed-call text-back. About $30 a month.
- Shoot one clip a week and post it in the neighborhood group where you worked. Free.
- Put a yard sign out and drop 20 door hangers on each job. About $2 a job.
That list, done consistently for one season, outperforms most paid packages, and it costs almost nothing. The point of hiring someone is to buy back the hours and add the technical pieces you will not do, not to replace the fundamentals.
Why a trial is the only fair way to start
You would never sell a homeowner a twelve-month exterior cleaning contract sight unseen. You wash one surface and let them look at it.
The same standard applies in the other direction. Any marketing service can be run for two weeks, shown to you inside your own accounts, and judged on whether the phone rang more. If a vendor will not do that, the reason is worth thinking about.
Frequently asked
Should I buy leads from a lead marketplace? As a stopgap in a dead month, maybe. As a strategy, no. You are renting access to customers who will be re-sold to your competitor next month, and you build no asset of your own.
Is SEO worth it for a pressure washer? Local SEO is, meaning the Google profile, reviews and service-area pages. National-style content SEO is not. Your customers are within 20 miles.
Can I run Google Ads myself? Yes, if you will check the search terms report weekly for the first two months. If you will not, hire it out or do not run it. Unattended broad match is how washers lose money on Google.
Every service we run is offered as a free 14-day trial for exactly the reason above. Pick one, watch it for two weeks in your own accounts, then decide. Start here or text or call (385) 832-6175.