How to start outsourcing your laundry

1Analyse your current process

Before you can compare anything, map what actually happens to laundry in your business today. Who collects it? Where is it washed, dried and folded? How often does it run, and what happens when the person who normally does it is sick or on leave?

Write it down as a simple list of steps. For most salons, gyms, clinics and accommodation businesses it looks something like: collect → sort → wash → dry → fold → restock — repeated several times a week, squeezed between the work your team was actually hired to do. That squeeze is the first hidden cost, and the rest of this guide puts numbers on it.

2Calculate the hours your team spends on laundry

Laundry time hides in small blocks — twenty minutes loading here, fifteen minutes folding there — so almost everyone underestimates it. Track it honestly for one normal week: every load, every fold, every restock, across everyone who touches it.

Then do the maths. If your team spends 10 hours a week on laundry at a fully-loaded staff cost of $35/hour, that is $350 a week — over $18,000 a year — before a single machine cost is counted. And it's usually your best people doing it, because they're the ones who care that the towels are right.

3Calculate machine hours — the hidden cost

Every cycle costs money even when nothing goes wrong: electricity, water, gas, detergent, and the slow wearing-out of the machine itself. Commercial-grade washers and dryers are five-figure purchases with a finite number of cycles in them — every load quietly consumes a slice of the replacement cost.

Add up your loads per week and multiply by a realistic all-in cost per cycle (power + water + chemicals + depreciation). For many businesses this alone adds hundreds of dollars a month that never appears on any single invoice — which is exactly why it gets missed.

4Calculate machine breakdown costs

Machines fail on the days you need them most. When a dryer dies mid-week, you're paying for an emergency technician, waiting days for parts, and meanwhile someone is driving loads to a laundromat at retail prices — or your linen simply isn't ready.

Look back at the last two years: repair invoices, call-out fees, replacement purchases, and the scramble each one caused. Average it out per year. A single major breakdown can cost more than a month of outsourced service — and unlike a subscription, it always arrives unbudgeted.

5Imagine that time going back into your business

Now take the hours from step 2 and picture them spent differently. Ten hours a week is 500 hours a year. That's 500 hours of serving customers, training staff, following up leads, or simply closing on time instead of staying back to fold towels.

This is the real comparison: not “outsourcing costs money and in-house is free”, but what your team could earn the business in the hours laundry currently eats. For most growing businesses, that number dwarfs the subscription cost.

6Let us handle the laundry while you grow

This is exactly what we do for Sydney businesses. A flat weekly subscription, scheduled pickup and delivery, everything washed, dried and folded to commercial standard — no machines to maintain, no staff hours lost, no breakdown surprises. From $2.15/kg effective on our larger plans, most businesses save well over half compared to the true in-house cost they calculated above.

Questions about your specific setup? Contact us — we respond within one business day.