Dent repair has two price lists, and which one you're on depends on a test you can do with your eyes. Paint intact? Paintless dent repair runs $75–$500 by size, $100–$200 for a quarter-size ding. Paint cracked, creased sharp, or metal stretched? Body-shop pricing: $150–$400 to fill and blend, $400–$900 to repair and respray a door, and up to $4,000 to replace a welded quarter panel. Here's both lists, the size-by-size table, and the insurance math that decides whether you file or pay.
Look at the dent in raking light, angled sunlight or a flashlight held flat against the panel. You're checking the paint film, not the metal:
| Dent size | Think | Per dent | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 0.5 in | Dime | $75 – $150 | Door dings, most common PDR job |
| About 1 in | Quarter | $100 – $200 | Shopping-cart class |
| 1.5 – 2 in | Half dollar | $150 – $275 | Softball-hit class |
| 2 – 3 in | Card deck | $200 – $350 | Depth and location start to matter |
| 3 – 4 in | Softball | $275 – $450 | Shallow dents stay in range |
| 4 – 6 in | Large shallow | $350 – $500 | Bigger only if metal isn't stretched |
Steel, easy-access panels. Add roughly 30% for aluminum, which resists the tooling, and about 20% for tight spots like quarter-panel edges, roof rails, and dents over structural braces. Second and third dents on the same panel usually price about a third off, mobile techs sell the trip either way, which is why "how many dents" is the first question they ask.
Pick size, count, material and access for PDR, or panel and depth for the body shop, with your deductible checked against the estimate.
Dent Repair Cost Calculator →| Panel | Fill + blend | Repair + respray | Replace |
|---|---|---|---|
| Door | $150 – $400 | $400 – $900 | $800 – $1,800 |
| Fender | $150 – $400 | $400 – $850 | $700 – $1,600 |
| Hood | $150 – $400 | $450 – $950 | $800 – $1,900 |
| Roof | $200 – $500 | $600 – $1,200 | $1,200 – $2,500 |
| Quarter panel | $200 – $500 | $500 – $1,200 | $2,000 – $4,000 |
The pattern to notice: doors, fenders, and hoods unbolt, so replacing one is a parts-and-paint job. Quarter panels and roofs are welded into the unibody, so "replace" means cutting the old panel out, welding the new one in, and blending paint into the neighbors, triple the price of the same dent one panel forward. J.D. Power's quarter-panel guidance ($100 for trivial fixes up past $3,000) matches the shape of this table.
Dents fall under comprehensive coverage (or collision, if you hit something). The typical comprehensive deductible runs $250 to $1,000. Run the numbers on a $200–$384 two-ding PDR job against a $500 deductible: the claim pays nothing until the estimate clears $500, and even a $900 door respray against a $1,000 deductible pays $0. Meanwhile a claim can nudge your rates for years, check what a surcharge actually costs with the rate increase calculator before filing anything marginal.
When claiming makes sense: damage that clears the deductible by a wide margin, especially multi-panel hail. Hail is its own insurance-claim process, insurers increasingly push PDR for it because it's cheaper than conventional repair, so the same size table above drives the estimate.
Rough rule: on cars under about five years old, visible unrepaired dents cost more in trade-in value than the repair would have, appraisers deduct for every visible flaw, and a dented panel invites the buyer's diminished-value arithmetic. On an older commuter, a cheap PDR fix ($100–$200) before listing is worth it; a $900 respray on a $4,000 car usually isn't. If a dent came from someone else's mistake, the diminished value calculator prices what the repair never recovers.
With intact paint, a paintless repair runs $75-$500 depending on size, $100-$200 for a quarter-size ding. With cracked or creased paint, body-shop pricing takes over: $150-$400 to fill and blend, $400-$900 to repair and respray a door, and $2,000-$4,000 to cut out and replace a welded quarter panel.
Dramatically, when the paint is intact. PDR on a 2-3 inch door dent runs $200-$350 versus $400-$900 for conventional repair and respray on the same panel, roughly a 40-70% saving published across the PDR industry. The catch is eligibility: PDR needs undamaged paint, reachable metal, and a dent that isn't sharply creased.
Almost never for a single dent. PDR bands of $100-$500 sit below typical comprehensive deductibles of $250-$1,000, so the claim would pay little or nothing while a comprehensive claim can nudge future rates. Claim when damage clearly clears the deductible, multi-panel hail being the classic case, and get a PDR hail estimate first since many insurers prefer it to conventional repair.
Small unrepaired dents show up at trade-in: appraisers price visible body damage into the offer, and on newer cars a dented panel starts the diminished-value conversation. On a 10-year-old commuter, a $150 ding you leave alone costs less than fixing it. On a 3-year-old car, a $200 PDR fix usually protects more than $200 of resale value.