Pricing for professional exterior cleaning in the Columbus area is project-specific, but the local market gives us a reliable planning range. This guide covers typical 2026 pricing for the services we provide most often, broken out by home size and surface so you can estimate your own property before anyone visits.
Important: These are typical Greater Columbus market ranges for planning — not a quote. Your actual price depends on the size and condition of the surfaces, access, and whether multiple services are bundled. The only number that means anything is a written estimate for your specific property.
Typical price ranges (single-family homes)
- House soft washing (standard 2-story): $350–$700
- House + roof soft washing: $600–$1,200
- Driveway / sidewalk cleaning: $150–$400
- Deck or patio cleaning: $150–$500 (depending on size and material)
- Full property package (house + roof + driveway + patio): $900–$2,000+
The sections below break each of these down further.
House soft washing cost by home size
Siding cleaning is priced primarily on the surface area of the walls and how many stories the crew has to reach, not on the interior square footage of the home — but interior size is the easiest proxy for a homeowner to use.
| Home size | Typical Central Ohio range |
|---|---|
| Ranch or single-story, up to about 1,500 sq ft | $300–$500 |
| Two-story, about 1,500–2,500 sq ft (most common) | $350–$700 |
| Large or three-story, 2,500+ sq ft | $600–$900 |
Roof soft washing cost
Roof cleaning is the one service on this page that genuinely needs its own guide, so we will not duplicate it here. Standard asphalt shingle roofs on Columbus-area homes typically land in the $300–$700 window, with steep, complex, metal, or tile roofs running higher. Pricing turns on roof area, pitch, stories, and material — steeper and more complex roof lines cost more because access and safety rigging take longer, not because the cleaning itself is different.
The full breakdown — cost by roof type and height, a per-square-foot sanity check, what a roof wash does and does not include, annualized cost per year rather than per visit, and why cleaning costs a fraction of replacement — is in our roof cleaning Columbus, OH cost guide. If you want the method rather than the money, roof soft washing covers the PSI, the chemistry, and what changes on metal, tile, cedar, and slate.
Concrete, deck & hardscape cleaning cost
| Surface | Typical Central Ohio range |
|---|---|
| Two-car driveway (roughly 600 sq ft) | $150–$400 |
| Three-car or extended driveway plus front walk | $250–$400 |
| Patio, pool deck, or paver area | $150–$400 |
| Wood or composite deck, cleaning only | $150–$500 |
Note that most companies in this market carry a minimum charge, commonly somewhere in the $150–$200 range. Mobilizing a truck, water, and crew costs about the same whether the job is a single walkway or a full driveway, which is why very small standalone jobs are usually quoted at the minimum rather than by area.
Bundled package pricing
Bundling is where the real savings are, because the largest fixed cost in this trade is getting the truck and crew to your address. Once they are on site, adding a surface is mostly labor and product.
| Package | Typical Central Ohio range |
|---|---|
| House soft wash + driveway | $450–$900 |
| House + roof soft wash | $600–$1,200 |
| House + roof + driveway | $750–$1,500 |
| Full property (house, roof, driveway, patio or deck) | $900–$2,000+ |
What changes the price, and why
| Factor | Typical effect | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Each additional story | Moderate increase | Reach equipment, more setup, slower going |
| Heavy algae or years of neglect | Moderate increase | Second application and longer dwell time |
| Steep or complex roof lines | Significant increase | Access time and safety rigging |
| Difficult access, tight lots, dense landscaping | Moderate increase | Hand-carried hose runs and extra masking |
| Metal, tile, cedar, stucco, or EIFS | Varies | Different products, pressures, and methods |
| Bundling several surfaces | Lowers cost per service | One mobilization covers multiple jobs |
| Distance well outside the core metro | Small increase | Travel time on the schedule |
Why online averages look lower than these numbers
National home-services averages you find online often quote figures well below the ranges above. Two things explain most of that gap. First, those averages blend in small single-surface jobs — a walkway here, a small patio there — alongside full house washes. Second, they average across the whole country, including markets with materially lower labor costs than Central Ohio. Use them for orientation, not for budgeting a specific Columbus-area property.
Soft washing vs pressure washing pricing
Soft washing (house, roof, deck) is generally priced per surface or package. Driveway and hardscape pressure washing is often priced by the square foot or as an add-on. A good quote will clearly separate the services and explain what method will be used on each surface — the two are not interchangeable, as our soft washing vs pressure washing guide explains.
Power washing services cost: does the wording change the price?
Almost every homeowner searching for this says power washing, and almost every contractor's website says pressure washing or soft washing. It is worth knowing whether the words carry a price difference, because the search results imply they might.
Strictly, power washing means heated water and pressure washing means unheated. In practice, most residential exterior work in Central Ohio is quoted as one service and the phrases are used interchangeably, so power washing services cost and pressure washing services prices describe the same job on the same ranges above. Two places the distinction does become real money:
- Grease and gum on commercial flatwork. Heat genuinely matters here — restaurant entrances, drive-thru lanes, and dumpster pads. This is where you should expect hot-water work and a commercial rate rather than a residential one.
- Anything on a roof or on siding. Heat and pressure are both the wrong tools, and a quote that prices those surfaces as "power washing" is a signal to ask exactly what method and what pressure will be used before you sign anything.
So the wording does not move the price on a normal house or driveway. What it can tell you is whether the contractor is thinking in terms of method or just in terms of a machine.
How to compare two pressure washing prices properly
The most common reason two Columbus-area quotes differ by hundreds of dollars is not margin — it is that they cover different work. A written estimate worth comparing names each of these:
- Every surface, listed separately, with its method. "House wash" is not a scope. Does it include soffits, gutter exteriors, shutters, downspouts, the garage doors, the front porch ceiling?
- The pressure or method per surface. Soft wash on siding and roof, controlled pressure with a surface cleaner on concrete. If a quote does not distinguish, the crew may not either.
- Gutter faces — brightening or just rinsing. Removing the black vertical "tiger stripes" from gutter faces is a separate hand-applied process that many quotes silently exclude, and it is the single most common cause of a finished job looking unfinished.
- Prep and protection. Pre-wetting landscaping, covering fixtures, and where the rinse water goes.
- Whether a second application is included if heavy growth does not release on the first pass.
- Proof of insurance, offered rather than promised on request.
A lower number that omits three of those is not cheaper — it is a smaller job. Get both quotes onto the same scope before you compare them at all.
What a typical price does not include
Cleaning and restoring are different services, and the gap between them is where most disappointment lives. Expect these to be quoted separately, if they are offered at all:
- Sealing. Concrete or paver sealing is a separate job on a separate visit, since the surface has to dry fully first — see whether sealing is worth it in Central Ohio.
- Deck staining or sealing. Cleaning prepares the wood; the finish is its own line item and its own weather window.
- Gutter interiors. Cleaning the outside of a gutter is exterior washing; clearing the inside is gutter cleaning, and they are not the same price.
- Window cleaning. Windows get rinsed during a house wash but are not left spot-free unless window cleaning is quoted.
- Repairs the wash reveals. Failing caulk, soft trim, loose siding, and peeling paint are frequently found by a wash rather than caused by one.
- Permanent staining and material damage. Oxidized siding, etched or spalling concrete, and roofs that have already lost granules will improve, not reset.
Does the time of year change what you pay?
Less than people expect, but scheduling is genuinely tighter at some points in the year, and that is worth planning around in Central Ohio:
| When | What it means for booking |
|---|---|
| Late March – May | The busiest window of the year. Rates hold, but the calendar fills, and a specific date is much harder to get on short notice. |
| June – August | Best conditions for concrete, decks, and patios, since hardscape dries quickly. Availability is generally better than spring. |
| September – November | Often the easiest window to book, and a good time to go into winter clean — leaf tannin will otherwise sit on concrete for months. |
| December – February | Residential work largely pauses. Rinsing hardscape below freezing is a slip hazard and drives water into concrete right before it expands. |
The best time to pressure wash a house in Ohio goes into the timing in more depth, and how often you should soft wash covers how many of these visits a property actually needs.
Commercial and multi-family pricing works differently
Everything above is residential. Commercial work is quoted per property rather than per surface, because the variables are different ones — square footage of flatwork, whether the work has to happen outside business hours, water access on site, and how wash water is contained and disposed of on greasy surfaces. Recurring maintenance contracts are usually priced below one-off visits per cleaning. See commercial pressure washing, apartment and condo pressure washing, or storefront and restaurant pressure washing for how each is scoped.
How to get the best value
Focus on the company's process, chemicals, insurance, and experience rather than the lowest price. A slightly higher price for proper soft washing and good prep almost always beats a cheap pressure-wash job that damages surfaces or fails to remove growth at the root.
Get a free, written estimate that spells out exactly what will be done on each surface. That's the best way to compare apples to apples.
Working against an HOA cleaning notice with a deadline? That guide covers how to respond and how quickly the work can realistically be scheduled. Managing an apartment community or condo association instead of a single home? Multi-family properties are priced building by building — see our apartment and condo pressure washing page. Running a restaurant or retail storefront instead? Sidewalks, drive-thru lanes, and dumpster pads are quoted per property — see storefront & restaurant pressure washing.