127,148 Google reviews across 1,480 car washes in 5 Austin counties. Format mix, operator rank, county breakdown, rating vs. income, aspect-level customer signals.
Snapshot
Locations
1,480
86% independent
Chains
47
lead: Shell (33 sites)
Avg rating
4.43★
near national MSA median
Damage rate
1.8%
near national MSA norm
Cancel friction
12.7%
Top format
detail shop
50% of classified inventory
Median single wash
$11
range $7–$50
Median unlimited
$22.99/mo
cheapest $14/mo at Mister Car Wash
Market Quality snapshot
Population
2,357,497
ACS 2023 5-year
Households
948,649
ACS 2023 5-year
Residents per wash
1,593
1.2× denser than the national MSA median
Express tunnels per 10K households
1.0
in the 0.5–1.0 filling band · classified sites
Key findings
1,480 car wash locations operated by 47 chains and 1,277 independents across 5 counties.
Weighted Google rating 4.43★ across the market; structural concentration and format mix sit near US-metro norms.
Built from 127,148 Google reviews, 51,544 of them AI-extracted across 55 dimensions.
1,480 car wash locations across 5 counties · dots colored by format · sized by review volume
Locations
1,480
Chains
47
+ 1,277 independents
Reviews
127K
Avg Rating
4.43
Damage Rate
1.76%
Median AGI/return
$87K
location-weighted
Executive Read
No single structural signal jumps out for Austin — it's a mid-shape car wash market. 1,480 locations across 47 chains and 1,277 independents, distributed across 5 counties. Customer-experience signals across 51,544 AI-extracted reviews produce the distinct read on this market.
Average rating across the 1,480-location market weighs in at 4.43★; damage rate 1.8%; cancel friction 12.7%. Equipment reliability runs as the sharpest friction (-0.41). 127,148 Google reviews drive the analysis, 51,544 of them processed through the WashIndex LLM extractor.
Published pricing across the 101 of 1502 Austin locations with menus available: median single car wash $11 (range $7–$50), median unlimited membership $22.99/month (range $14–$100/mo). The cheapest unlimited membership in the metro is $14/mo at Mister Car Wash (Base Plus).
Published menu pricing for car washes in the Austin metropolitan area, captured from operator websites and the WashIndex AI calling agent. 101 of 1502
tracked locations have usable published pricing
(7% coverage).
Single Wash
$11
median · range $7–$50 · 82 locations tracked
Unlimited Membership
$22.99 per month
median · range $14–$100 per month · 81 programs tracked
Cheapest unlimited memberships in Austin
1
Mister Car Wash Base Plus
$14 per mo
2
Mister Car Wash Base Plus
$14 per mo
3
Mister Car Wash Base Plus
$14 per mo
4
Waves Express Car Wash BIG KAHUNA
$14.95 per mo
5
Soapy Falls Express Car Wash Hutto Wheels & Tires
$14.99 per mo
Cheapest single car washes in Austin
1
Kwik Kar of Georgetown Basic
$7
2
Kwik Kar Automotive Center of Round Rock Basic
$7
3
Jurassic Car Wash - South Congress Basic Wash
$8
4
Mister Car Wash Base
$8
5
Mister Car Wash Base
$8
Pricing scraped from operator websites where published; the WashIndex AI calling agent rings up locations
that don’t publish menus online to capture pricing directly.
Official industry footprint · BLS QCEW 2024
The car wash industry in the Austin metro, officially
the Austin metro has 126 car-wash employer establishments employing about 1,222 people, at a $31,005 average annual wage.
Employer establishments
126
NAICS 811192 · 2024
Industry jobs
1,222
private, annual avg
Avg annual wage
$31,005
per employee
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, QCEW (private, NAICS 811192). Counts car-wash employer
establishments, a narrower universe than all physical wash locations — see methodology.
SBA Lending · FY2010–present
Car wash financing in the Austin metro
Build-out market
Since 2010, the U.S. Small Business Administration has backed 42 car-wash loans in the Austin metro worth $51.5M, at a $749,500 median per car wash and a 0.0% charge-off rate. The mix tilts toward new construction — 45% of loans funded brand-new washes, above the 33% national norm — pointing to a market where operators are still adding supply.
SBA loans
42
FY2010–2026
Total approved
$51.5M
7(a) + 504
Median loan
$750K
per car wash
Charge-off rate
0.0%
of 15 resolved
SBA car-wash loans approved per fiscal year
FY2026 annualized from its first 6 months.
Loans by county
Travis18
Williamson17
Hays5
Bastrop1
Caldwell1
What the loans fund · estimated from loan terms
New build / open45% · $1.5M
Acquisition2% · $1.6M
Expansion / improvement45% · $675K
Working capital7% · $10K
Source: U.S. Small Business Administration 7(a) & 504 FOIA datasets (NAICS 811192), data through 2026-03-31.
See the Car Wash Lending Tracker for national figures and methodology.
Frequently Asked Questions
About the Austin car wash market
How many car washes are in the Austin metro?
+
There are 1,480 car wash locations across the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX CBSA, spanning 5 counties.
What is the best-rated car wash in the Austin metro?
+
Huracán Nero Auto Spa in Austin, TX is the highest-rated car wash in the Austin metro at 5.0★ across 749 Google reviews (filtering to locations with at least 100 reviews).
Which car wash chain has the most locations in Austin?
+
Shell has the most locations in the Austin metro with 33 sites, followed by H-E-B Fuel (25 sites). The metro has 47 multi-location operators in total, alongside 1,277 independent or single-location sites.
What is the average customer rating in the Austin car wash market?
+
The review-weighted average rating across all 1,480 car washes in the Austin metro is 4.43★, based on 127,148 Google reviews processed through WashIndex's customer-experience pipeline.
What is the typical household income near car washes in Austin?
+
Across the ZIP codes containing the Austin metro's car washes, the location-weighted median IRS-reported AGI per tax return is $87K (tax year 2022) — a rough proxy for trade-area household income.
How much does a car wash cost in Austin?
+
Single-wash prices across the Austin car wash market range from $7 to $50, with a median of $11 across 82 locations that publish their pricing. The cheapest single car wash in the metro is $7 at Kwik Kar of Georgetown (Basic). Pricing data is captured from operator websites and the WashIndex AI calling agent.
How much does an unlimited car wash membership cost in Austin?
+
Unlimited car wash memberships in the Austin metro range from $14/month to $100/month, with a median of $22.99/month across 81 programs tracked. The cheapest unlimited membership is $14/month at Mister Car Wash (Base Plus); the most expensive tracked is $100/month at H2O Hand Car Wash & Detail (North Bell Boulevard).
What is the cheapest car wash in Austin?
+
The cheapest single car wash in the Austin metro is $7 at Kwik Kar of Georgetown (Basic tier). For ongoing customers, the cheapest unlimited membership is $14/month at Mister Car Wash (Base Plus) — a break-even of roughly 1.3 washes per month at the metro's median single-wash price of $11.
01Format Mix
What kinds of car washes does Austin have?
The table below lists every operating format we classify, with locations, reviews, average rating, damage rate, and membership-cancel friction broken out per format. Austin's mix sits close to the US-metro median shape.
Highest-rated format: Detail Shop at 4.87★ across 133 locations.
Lowest-rated: Self-Serve Bay at 4.00★ (7 locations).
1,213 (82.0%)
of 1,480 locations are unclassified — small independents whose websites don't surface enough signal for format assignment. Format-level statistics describe the classified subset only.
Format
Locations
% of MSA
Reviews
Avg Rating
Damage Rate
Cancel Friction
Unclassified
1,213
82.0%
33,122
4.25
1.13%
12.3%
Detail Shop
133
9.0%
15,524
4.87
0.50%
0.0%
Express Tunnel
91
6.1%
59,911
4.50
2.21%
13.6%
Full Service
28
1.9%
13,540
4.18
3.34%
7.3%
In-Bay Automatic
8
0.5%
3,157
4.04
2.37%
12.5%
Self-Serve Bay
7
0.5%
1,894
4.00
1.55%
—
02Income & Demographics
What is the household income near Austin car washes?
Read together with the format mix above, the income scatter below tells you whether car wash quality in Austin tracks neighborhood income, format mix, or neither. Operating quality usually dominates this picture.
Pearson r between ZIP income and Google rating across 514 qualifying locations: 0.05 — effectively zero. Operating quality dominates over neighborhood income.
Scatter mean: $122K AGI/return, 4.21★.
Detail Shop Express Tunnel Full Service In-Bay Automatic Self-Serve Bay
Car wash count and quality by income tier
Blue bars: location count per tier. Orange tick marks: average Google rating (same y-axis).
Income tier (mean AGI/return)
ZIPs
Locations
Reviews
Avg Rating
Top Format
Under $50K
3
11
133
4.21
Detail Shop (1)
$50K – $75K
19
242
33,589
4.51
Detail Shop (38)
$75K – $100K
14
198
38,012
4.36
Detail Shop (33)
$100K – $150K
17
170
27,211
4.42
Detail Shop (38)
$150K+
19
152
21,483
4.30
Detail Shop (23)
Income band spread: 152/4.30★ at the highest tier; 11/4.21★ at the lowest. In a balanced market, the per-tier read is most useful as a sanity check on whether the operating quality is income-uniform or income-stratified.
03Dominant Chains
Who operates the most Austin car washes?
47 chains alongside 1,277 independents make up Austin's car wash supply. The chain rank below shows the multi-location operators' position; the per-location detail near the bottom of the page captures the independent layer.
Which counties have the most car washes in Austin?
Counties of the Austin CBSA are listed below by car wash count. Travis County is the most density-concentrated. Reading the rating column tells you whether quality is uniform across the metro or whether specific counties pull in either direction.
Cross-county rating dispersion: 0.45★ between the highest- and lowest-rated counties with meaningful sample size.
What do customers love and complain about in Austin?
Reading the aspect grid: numbers above 0.3 are strong positives; numbers below -0.1 indicate meaningful friction; in between is mixed signal. staff is the brightest spot here. equipment reliability is the pain point.
Staff+0.86
Wash Quality+0.76
Facility Cleanliness+0.69
Wait Time+0.65
Per-Wash Price+0.37
Membership Value+0.21
Equipment Working-0.41
06All Locations
Where are all the car washes in the Austin metro?
1,480 car washes are tracked in Austin; below is the top of the list by Google review count. Locations with fewer than 10 reviews are excluded from the rating column.
Data as of 2026-09-26.
Pick a format and click Copy.
APA
WashIndex. (2026, September 26). Austin car wash market analysis. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/austin
Chicago
WashIndex. "Austin car wash market analysis." WashIndex. Last modified September 26, 2026. https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/austin.
MLA
"Austin car wash market analysis." WashIndex, Sep. 26, 2026, https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/austin.
BibTeX
@misc{washindex_car_wash_markets_austin_2026,
title = {{Austin car wash market analysis}},
author = {{WashIndex}},
year = {2026},
month = {Sep},
url = {https://washindex.com/car-wash-markets/austin},
urldate = {2026-09-26},
}
About this analysis
Car wash inventory for the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX CBSA is determined by point-in-polygon test against the
official US Census county boundaries (TIGER/Line, 2024) for the 5 counties that
make up the MSA. Each location was verified to fall inside one of those county polygons; lat/lng comes from
Google Maps metadata.
Operating-quality signals are derived from 51,544 customer reviews
processed through WashIndex's 55-field LLM extraction pipeline. Format classification comes from a separate per-location
website-reading classifier. ZIP-level income data is from the IRS Statistics of Income (tax year 2022) — mean Adjusted Gross
Income per tax return, which is directionally aligned with ACS median household income but available without authentication.
See our full methodology
for the extraction pipeline, validation samples, and aggregation logic. Term definitions in the glossary.
The free WashIndex platform shows every Austin car wash on an interactive map, with the same review-derived
signals and demographic overlays that power this analysis. Filter by format, drive-time, or operator and compare any
location head-to-head with its true competitive set.