I built a free quoting tool for mobile detailers in a weekend — here's why and what happened on day 1

I'm not a detailer. I'm a builder who noticed a gap.

I kept seeing the same question come up in auto detailing communities: "what do you use to send quotes to customers?" The answers were always some mix of Word docs, Google Sheets, texting a price, or a paid app people tolerated but didn't love.

The paid tools that exist — Urable, Jobber, QuoteIQ — are solid, but they're built for shops doing real volume. They're $30–$50/month and packed with features a solo operator working out of a van doesn't need. The guy texting quotes from a customer's driveway just needs a clean PDF he can send in 60 seconds.

So I built that. DetailQuote — a free, browser-based PDF quote generator built specifically for mobile detailers.

How it works: fill in your business info, pick your packages, add any extras, download a branded PDF. No account. No signup. No watermark. Everything runs client-side so nothing is saved on a server.

Stack: Next.js 14, TypeScript, Tailwind, pdf-lib, Vercel. Total infra cost: under $15/month.

Day 1 numbers:

• Posted a research question in r/AutoDetailing asking what detailers currently use

• 3,500 views, 6 comments — every answer was a different cobbled-together workaround

• Submitted sitemap to Google Search Console, all 3 pages discovered same day

• 0 revenue, 0 signups — but the problem is clearly real

What I'm watching at week 4:

• 200+ PDFs generated = strong signal, keep building

• 30+ early access signups = start building Pro tier

• Less than 30 generations = pivot the same codebase to pressure washing or lawn care

The whole bet is that distribution through detailing communities + one good SEO article can drive enough usage to validate the Pro tier before I write a line of paid code.

Happy to answer questions. If you're a mobile detailer reading this — mydetailquote.com — and let me know what's missing.