Built from 3,123 price points across 195 chains, the index shows express tunnels up 23% since 2020 and the average unlimited plan now $34/month.

DALLAS, TX, UNITED STATES, August 12, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- WashIndex, the geospatial market intelligence platform for the car wash industry, today announced the WashIndex Membership Price Index, a benchmark tracking what unlimited car wash memberships have cost in the United States since 2015. Built from 3,123 archived price points across 195 chains - drawn from a tracked universe of 373 chains, including defunct and acquired operators - the index gives investors, lenders and operators the industry’s first continuous view of membership list-price trends over more than a decade.

Key findings include:
• Membership list prices are up 16% since 2020. Across all wash formats, the national index rose from a 2020 base of 100.0 to 116.1 in 2026, and approximately 31% since 2015. Express-tunnel memberships climbed faster, up 23% since 2020.
• The average unlimited membership now lists at $34.00 per month. In 2026, base tiers average $24.16 and premium tiers $43.29 per month.
• Regional pricing has sharply diverged. Since 2020, list prices rose 29% in the Midwest and 21% in the Northeast, against 9% in the South and –1% in the West — a roughly thirty-point spread between the fastest- and slowest-moving regions.
• The index checks out against public-company disclosures. From 2021 to 2025, the express index rose approximately 11%, closely matching the roughly 10% increase in Unlimited Wash Club revenue per member that Mister Car Wash reported in SEC filings over the same period.
• Built on a same-store methodology. Year-over-year changes are measured only across chains priced in both years being compared, using location-weighted geometric means with statistical trimming — so the index reflects true price movement rather than shifts in which chains happen to be in the data.

“Membership pricing is the single biggest revenue lever in this industry, and until now there has been no benchmark for it - every operator repriced in the dark, and every investor underwrote pricing assumptions on anecdote,” said Justin Kuo, founder of WashIndex. “The regional story is the one to watch: a Midwest operator has taken nearly thirty points more list-price growth since 2020 than one in the West. That gap is a repricing roadmap for acquirers, and a warning about how much headroom is left in the markets that already moved.”

The index is constructed from archived operator pricing pages supplemented by SEC filings from publicly traded operators and store-locator data for location weighting. Each chain’s annual price is the midpoint of its cheapest and most expensive unlimited monthly tiers. The index measures advertised list prices rather than realized revenue after promotions, and should be read as an upper bound on realized price growth; full methodology and limitations are published with the index.

The full index, including methodology, regional breakdowns and historical data, is available at washindex.com/research/car-wash-membership-price-index.

About WashIndex

WashIndex is a geospatial market intelligence platform for the car wash industry, measuring market quality, site quality and operating quality for more than 80,000 tracked locations across the United States and Canada, built on AI analysis of more than 14 million customer reviews alongside real-time pricing intelligence. WashIndex serves private equity investors, site selectors, lenders and multi-site operators. WashIndex is built by Sparkle Technologies and is based in Dallas, Texas. Learn more at washindex.com.

Justin Kuo
Sparkle Technologies
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