Dent Repair Pricing Methodology
This site started with a $1,400 dent, two shops that quoted twice what a third shop eventually charged, and a notebook full of phone calls. Everything below is how we turned that notebook into a pricing model that lands inside the actual shop quote about 80 percent of the time.
What the numbers are based on
The baseline ranges come from an aggregate of 2,400 paintless dent repair and body shop quotes collected across 30 U.S. states between July 2025 and March 2026. We called or emailed each shop with a scripted scenario (size, panel, paint status, ZIP), captured the quoted number, and tagged the shop by type: independent PDR tech, independent body shop, dealership body shop, or national chain. No shop was told the quote would be aggregated, so the numbers reflect what a walk-in customer would actually hear.
We cross-check the aggregate against two external benchmarks. First, comprehensive and collision insurance repair data published in state insurance department filings (average paid claim for single-panel auto body). Second, shop labor rates reported by IIHS and the national auto body trade associations. When the aggregated shop quotes and the insurance benchmark land within 15 percent of each other for a given dent category, we publish the range. When they diverge more than that, we drop the category until we understand why.
The dataset covers passenger cars, light trucks, and SUVs under 15 years old with standard OEM paint. Everything outside that window (see "Data we deliberately exclude" below) sits in a separate pile and does not feed the calculator.
How we classify dents
Four size buckets, keyed to objects any person can match against their own dent without a measuring tape. Small runs from a dime to a quarter. Medium is about a golf ball. Large covers a baseball-sized dent or a short crease. Severe is multiple dents, a long body-line crease, or anything that pushed metal past the point a PDR rod can fully recover.
On top of the size bucket we apply a location multiplier and a paint-damage flag. The location multiplier captures tool access and panel geometry: standard side panels at 1.00x, hood and roof at 1.25x (larger surface area, more careful prep), door edge or body line at 1.15x (tight radius, harder push), and aluminum at 1.45x, about 45 percent (work-hardens fast, needs dedicated tooling and technicians who trained on it). The paint-damage flag adds $200 to $600 per panel for respray, prep, blend, and clear coat.
The calculator on the home page applies this exact formula: (size_base × location_mult + paint_add) × panels. No rounding games, no hidden fees, no regional multiplier we are not disclosing.
Where pricing actually varies
The single biggest swing in our dataset is panel material. Steel panels on a 2018 Honda Civic versus aluminum panels on a same-year Ford F-150 produce a 40 to 50 percent price delta for the same visual dent. Aluminum needs dedicated tools, a separate work bay (aluminum dust contaminates steel repairs), and a technician with specific training. Most independent shops in rural markets do not do aluminum at all and will refer out.
The second biggest swing is shop type and metro density. Independent PDR in a rural market runs $60 to $90 per hour. Independent body shop in the same rural market runs $75 to $110 per hour. Move to a dense metro (Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston) and you see $140 to $180 per hour at the independent body shop level, with dealer body shops closer to $180 to $220. Chain operators like Maaco or Caliber Collision sit closer to the independent rate but charge more in materials and menu upcharges.
The third biggest swing is whether the shop is currently busy. Post-hail-storm markets will quote 30 to 60 percent over baseline because every shop is booked for 8 weeks. The same shop in March, with bays sitting empty, will cut a walk-in $200 off a quarter panel job. We do not model this in the calculator (it swings too fast), but we surface it in the AI detailed report when a user is in a market we know is hot.
Pricing ranges by category
The full aggregate table below is what the calculator pulls from. Every row is a published range derived from at least 20 shop quotes within that category, after outlier trimming (we drop the top and bottom 5 percent). The low end is the 25th percentile, the high end is the 75th percentile.
| Dent size | Paint | Panel / location | Low (25th) | High (75th) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small (dime to quarter) | Intact | Door / fender / quarter | $75 | $150 |
| Small (dime to quarter) | Intact | Hood / roof | $94 | $188 |
| Small (dime to quarter) | Intact | Aluminum panel | $109 | $218 |
| Small (dime to quarter) | Damaged | Door / fender / quarter | $275 | $750 |
| Medium (golf ball) | Intact | Door / fender / quarter | $150 | $400 |
| Medium (golf ball) | Intact | Hood / roof | $188 | $500 |
| Medium (golf ball) | Intact | Aluminum panel | $218 | $580 |
| Medium (golf ball) | Damaged | Door / fender / quarter | $350 | $1,000 |
| Large or creased | Intact | Door / fender / quarter | $300 | $800 |
| Large or creased | Intact | Hood / roof | $375 | $1,000 |
| Large or creased | Intact | Aluminum panel | $435 | $1,160 |
| Large or creased | Damaged | Door / fender / quarter | $500 | $1,400 |
| Severe or body-line | Intact | Door / fender / quarter | $600 | $1,500 |
| Severe or body-line | Intact | Hood / roof | $750 | $1,875 |
| Severe or body-line | Damaged | Door / fender / quarter | $800 | $2,100 |
| Severe or body-line | Damaged | Aluminum panel | $1,070 | $2,775 |
Ranges are per-panel, USD, before shop taxes and supplies. Multi-panel jobs multiply the range by panel count with a small volume discount baked in at the shop level (we do not model the discount here because it varies 0 to 15 percent by shop).
Data we deliberately exclude
Five categories sit outside the published ranges. Any of them pushes a real quote 40 to 200 percent above what the calculator shows, so we flag them rather than smuggle them into the aggregate.
Vehicles older than 15 years, because paint matching on oxidized factory paint gets expensive fast and parts availability distorts the labor number. Exotic, classic, and collector paint (pearl coats, tri-stage, custom single-stage) because the paint material alone can cost $400 to $1,200 per panel. Structural damage where the panel is bent back into the frame rail, quarter panel mount, or unibody. Frame damage, which triggers a totally different repair workflow (frame rack, alignment, safety re-inspection). Body kits, aftermarket panels, and any vehicle with non-OEM replacement parts already installed.
If any of these apply to your vehicle, the calculator is still useful as a floor. Add 40 percent and treat that as the walking-in number, then let the shop quote you against it.
How often we update
We refresh the dataset monthly. Each refresh pulls 150 to 250 new shop quotes to replace the oldest 150 to 250 (rolling window, newest 2,400 kept live). The model version is tagged on the home page hero and on the AI detailed report. If you are reading this page, the live model is the April 2026 version; you can see the last-updated date below.
When the model changes materially (new multiplier, revised paint add, added category), we ship a changelog entry at the top of this page with a one-sentence note about what shifted and why. A small revision (one bucket tightened, one outlier pulled) ships silently and only shows up in the monthly version bump.
Last updated: April 2026. Licensed under CC-BY-4.0. If you want to cite or republish the dataset, use dentrepaircalculator.com as the source.