What the maker puts in writing
- “Formulated to be used on industrial sites, commercial equipment, construction machinery, fleet vehicles and more; Non-butyl degreaser quickly cuts through tough oil and grease; Eliminates the need to use several other products”
- “Can be used in equipment such as pressure washers, automatic scrubbers, and steam cleaners; or use it for manual applications by spraying, mopping and wiping”
- “Use directly from the bottle or effective at dilutions as great as half-ounce per gallon of water; providing up to 256 gallons of cleaning solution per bottle”
- “Use with pressure washers, directly on surface or with soap injection. Always consult your machine’s owner’s manual”
- Title: “1 Gallon, 88282” · Reference 88282 · Catalog: 4082 g (144 oz)
The price of the bottle tells you nothing. Every item on this shelf is a concentrate, so what you are buying is gallons of ready-to-use solution — and the dilution ratio is what converts one into the other.
Worked out at the best figure each listing publishes for itself:
this — $13.85 / 256 gal = 5.4¢ a gallon
Simpson Green Formula — $15.18 / 256 = 5.9¢
Simpson Multi-Purpose — $19.43 / 256 = 7.6¢
Kärcher Vehicle Wash & Wax — $14.39 / 40 = 36¢
Kärcher Multi Purpose — $18.99 / 40 = 47¢
Zep — $59.99 / 104 = 58¢, if its 26 gallons is per bottle; $2.31 if it is for the case of four
Krud Kutter — $15.98 / 20 = 80¢
Briggs & Stratton 1-gallon — $19.90 / 16 = $1.24
Briggs & Stratton 32 oz — $14.25 / 4 = $3.56
Sun Joe — not calculable, no ratio published
Simple Green — not calculable in gallons, it publishes square footage instead
A spread of roughly one to sixty-five. And the three Simpson bottles are the cheapest three on the shelf by a factor of about seven.
The honest qualification, which the bullet makes itself: 256:1 is the maximum — “dilutions as great as half-ounce per gallon”. At that strength it is a light solution for light soil, and the same bullet offers the other end, “use directly from the bottle”. So the real range is 1:1 to 256:1 and you choose.
Every figure in that table is each maker’s own best case. This one’s best case is simply far more dilute than anybody else’s.
And the arithmetic verifies, which nothing else here does
A US gallon is 128 fluid ounces. At half an ounce per gallon of water: 128 ÷ 0.5 = 256. Exactly the figure claimed.
Two numbers that corroborate each other. Now the rest of the shelf:
Kärcher Multi Purpose — bullet three: “up to 40 gallons from a single gallon”. Description: “makes up to 20 gallons.”
Kärcher Vehicle Wash & Wax — bullet three: “up to 40 gallons”. Description: “makes up to 20 gallons.” The same discrepancy, same brand, on both products.
Krud Kutter — bullet four: “makes up to 20 gallons”. Description: “makes up to 11 gallons.”
Zep — “Makes up to 26 gallons” on a case of four, without saying whether that is per bottle or for the case. A factor of four on the most expensive item here.
Sun Joe — “Dilute this pressure washer soap as recommended.” No ratio at all.
Briggs & Stratton — both bottles are consistent with each other at 16:1, and neither contradicts itself.
So of eleven listings, four publish two different ratios for themselves or leave the question open, one publishes none, and this is the only one whose claim can be derived from its own stated dilution.
Non-butyl, which names what is absent
“Non-butyl degreaser.”
Butyl here means butyl cellosolve — 2-butoxyethanol, a glycol ether that has been the workhorse solvent of heavy degreasers for decades because it dissolves oil and grease extremely well. It is also a skin and eye irritant, it is absorbed through skin, and it has been restricted or discouraged in a number of applications.
So this is telling you its cutting power comes from a different solvent system. All three Simpson bottles here say it.
What the rest of the shelf declares:
Simple Green, $23.99 — “peroxide-powered”, “without harsh chemicals”, plus EPA Safer Choice certification in the title
Simpson Green Formula, $15.18 — “non-toxic, biodegradable”, “meets or exceeds OSHA, USDA, EPA, DNR requirements”
Krud Kutter, $15.98 — “bleach free”, “biodegrabable”, and uniquely “anti-corrosive agents to help safeguard pressure washer components”
Sun Joe, $25.97 — “bleach-free”
Zep, $59.99 and both Briggs bottles — claim mold stains and name no chemistry at all, which is the hardest promise on this shelf to make without bleach or peroxide
It is a degreaser for plant, and the page says so
“Formulated to be used on industrial sites, commercial equipment, construction machinery, fleet vehicles and more.”
That is specific, and it is the whole character of this bottle. Nothing on the page lists a domestic surface or says what it is safe on.
Compare the siblings, both of which are the same 256:1 concentrate for a few cents more:
Simpson Multi-Purpose, $19.43 — “washing cars, RVs, siding, grills, lawn furniture”
Simpson Green Formula, $15.18 — “vehicles, siding, decking, lawn furniture, garage floors, sidewalks, driveways”, and non-toxic, biodegradable, no harsh chemicals
And the rest of the shelf is explicit where this is not. Krud Kutter names roofing shingles, gutters, stucco, masonry, concrete, decks, pool areas, RVs, boats and engines. Simple Green names wood, vinyl, concrete, brick and composite, and says “peace of mind around children and pets”. Sun Joe names vinyl, aluminum, wood and brick.
So the division is clean. For oil and grease on concrete, machinery and fleet vehicles, this is the cheapest effective answer on the shelf by a wide margin. For a cedar deck, a painted car, or anything you would not hose down at a depot, spend the extra $1.33 on the Green Formula.
The one surface clue in its favor: “Eliminates the need to use several other products”, and a non-butyl formulation is generally gentler on paint and plastics than a butyl one would be at the same strength.
Three machines, not one
“Can be used in equipment such as pressure washers, automatic scrubbers, and steam cleaners; or use it for manual applications by spraying, mopping and wiping.”
Four application routes, which is the widest on this shelf — and all three Simpson bottles share this bullet.
The steam-cleaner line is the unusual one. The steam shelf on this site is built on the opposite argument: the McCulloch leads with “CHEMICAL-FREE CLEANING… uses ordinary water”, and four machines there sell the absence of a consumable as the point. So a detergent that names steam cleaners is addressing the commercial end of that market, where a pre-spray before steaming is normal practice.
“Automatic scrubbers” are the walk-behind floor machines of a warehouse or a supermarket, which is consistent with everything else on this page.
And bullet four gives the practical warning that every listing here should: “Always consult your machine’s owner’s manual for specific instructions regarding use of detergent.”
That matters more than it sounds, and the Sun Joe listing is the only one on this shelf that explains why: “this power-washing detergent may require the use of a soap nozzle. Other models may need to use a soap-sprayer attachment.” A pressure washer will not draw detergent through a high-pressure tip — the siphon only works at low pressure, which is what the wide black soap nozzle on the lance shelf of this site is for. Fit the wrong tip and nothing comes through, and most people conclude the detergent is at fault.
What is not published
No dwell time, and this is the one omission with a real cost. Krud Kutter is the only listing on this shelf that publishes a method: “allow product to remain on the surface for 3–5 minutes to penetrate, then rinse clean”, “work in small sections”, and “rinse thoroughly without allowing it to dry on the surface”. That is how a detergent works at all — it needs contact time, and letting it dry leaves a film that is worse than the dirt. Briggs & Stratton gives the other half: “apply detergent to the dry surface then switch to a high pressure spray tip to rinse.”
No surface coverage. Only two listings publish a square-footage figure: Krud Kutter 5,800 sq ft at $15.98 — about 0.276 cents a square foot — and Simple Green 6,400 sq ft at $23.99, about 0.375 cents. On a concentrate this dilute, coverage would be the more meaningful figure of the two.
No certification. Simple Green carries EPA Safer Choice in its title, which is the only third-party program named on this shelf. The Simpson Green Formula claims to “meet or exceed OSHA, USDA, EPA, DNR requirements” — four agencies named, no standard cited, and more than this page offers.
No anti-corrosive claim. Only Krud Kutter mentions protecting the machine: “contains anti-corrosive agents to help safeguard pressure washer components.” Worth taking seriously, because detergent passes through your pump, and a pump contains aluminum and brass.
No mold or algae claim, where Zep leads with “algae, mold and mildew”, Simple Green brings peroxide to the same job, and both Briggs bottles claim mold stains. This bottle is for oil and grease, and it says so.
No bleach-free statement, which Krud Kutter and Sun Joe both make.
Availability
Read on the day this page was built: $14 at the American Amazon shop.
Read from Keepa on the day this page was last revised; stock and price both move without notice.
Prices quoted in this text were read on 2026-10-05. The live price is at the top of the page.
