What sandblasting costs in the Jackson metro
The mobile rig runs $150 to $250 per hour, equipment pieces run $800 to $3,000, commercial surface prep runs $4 to $8 per square foot and masonry cleaning $3 to $6, all on the sheet below. What moves a job inside its range is mostly what is coming off: surface rust blasts fast, three coats of old industrial enamel does not, and delicate substrates trade speed for care. Photos of the surface turn the range into a firm written number, usually the same day.
Every rate includes the operator, the equipment, standard media and cleanup, with no travel charge anywhere in the metro. Payment follows the work: nothing due before the rig arrives, balance on completion, and the invoice reconciles against this sheet line by line.
The published sheet
| Job | Typical range | What moves the price |
|---|---|---|
| Photo quote or site walk | Free | Nothing moves it. Photos with scale answer most jobs the same day. |
| Mobile rig, hourly (operator + equipment) | $150 - $250/hr | Coating thickness and access; heavy multi-coat work runs the top of the band. |
| Half-day mobile rate | $600 - $900 | The batch-work sweet spot for a few pieces or a section of structure. |
| Full-day mobile rate | $1,100 - $1,700 | Best per-piece value; fleets and yards stack their candidates for one visit. |
| Light rust or paint, flat steel, per sq ft | $2 - $4 | Single coats on accessible surfaces; the friendly end of surface work. |
| Commercial surface prep, per sq ft | $4 - $8 | Multi-coat removal or profile-spec work; the coating spec drives the number. |
| Masonry or brick cleaning, per sq ft | $3 - $6 | Substrate softness; delicate brick takes gentler media and more time. |
| Graffiti removal, single tag | $300 - $800 | Surface type and paint layers; multi-tag walls price by the square foot. |
| Car body, frame or chassis | $1,200 - $2,500 | Size and how much filler or undercoating hides underneath. |
| Wheels, parts and small pieces, each | $75 - $250 | Batch pricing applies; a pallet of parts beats one-at-a-time every time. |
| Equipment or machinery piece | $800 - $3,000 | Size and coating history; attachments batch onto day rates. |
| Structural steel or tank sections, project | $5,000 - $25,000 | Scope, access and containment; quoted against the coating spec in writing. |
| Containment or occupied-site add-on | $500 - $2,000 | Sheeting, dust control and recovery where the site demands it. |
| Rush: on site within 48 hours | +$300 - $700 | Bumps the schedule for deadlines and tagged storefronts; the honest cost of the bump. |
Rates cover dry abrasive and dustless wet methods; the quote names which method and which media the job gets and why. Method choice follows the site, never the upsell.
The three questions that price your job
What is coming off? Coating history is the biggest lever on the sheet. A skim of surface rust and a single coat of paint move fast; decades of industrial enamel, undercoating or elastomeric layers multiply the hours. Photos usually tell us which story your surface is, which is why the photo quote works.
What is the surface, and what happens to it next? Steel headed for a specified coating needs a named anchor profile, and surface preparation standards from AMPP, the coatings industry association whose specs define exactly how clean and how textured the steel must be for your coating to hold, are published at ampp.org. Soft brick and historic masonry sit at the other end, where gentler media and lower pressure protect the substrate and the price reflects care rather than speed.
What does the site tolerate? An open yard takes dry blasting at the friendly end of the sheet. An occupied strip mall, a working plant or anything near parked cars calls for wet methods and containment, the published add-on. And where coatings might predate 1978, lead-safe practice applies: test first, contain and collect if positive, following the EPA’s lead guidance at epa.gov/lead. Pretending old paint is always harmless is not a service anyone should sell you.
Where the money actually goes
Roughly half of an hourly rate is the rig itself: compressor, pot, media and the maintenance that keeps a blast system safe. The rest is a skilled operator, because the difference between a clean profile and a warped panel is entirely in the hands holding the nozzle. Cheap blasting saves money on exactly those two things, and the surface shows it when the coating fails early.
Capital City Sandblasting publishes this sheet so the first number you hear is also the last one. Start with the method page if you are weighing wet against dry, or send photos through the form and we will price the job against the sheet.