How to Price a Wash-and-Fold Laundry Service

Price a per-kilo laundry service too low and you are busy but barely profitable. Price it too high and customers go elsewhere. The middle path is to calculate your cost per kilo honestly, then add a sensible margin.

The costs you need to count

New owners often count only detergent and electricity. There is more to it:

• Rent or loan repayments, per month.
• Utilities: electricity, gas and water, including dryers and irons.
• Detergent, softener, fragrance and other supplies.
• Wages for staff, and your own pay if you work in the business.
• Bags, hangers, labels and packaging.
• Machine maintenance and depreciation, since machines eventually need replacing.
• Delivery and marketing, if you offer them.

The cost-per-kilo formula

Cost per kilo = total monthly costs ÷ total kilos washed per month

An example, purely for illustration and not market data. Say monthly costs are 9,000, made up of rent 2,500, utilities 1,500, supplies 1,200, wages 3,000, and the rest maintenance and miscellaneous. In a month you wash 1,800 kg. Your cost is 9,000 ÷ 1,800 = 5 per kilo.

Add a margin

The margin is your profit. If you want a 30% markup on cost, the price is 5 × 1.3 = 6.5 per kilo. Rounding up to an easy figure such as 7 keeps bookkeeping simple.

Notice also that cost per kilo falls as volume rises, because rent and wages stay fixed. That is why keeping your machines full matters more than nudging prices up bit by bit.

Check prices nearby

Visit two or three laundries near you and note their prices, turnaround time and services. Your calculated price should be reasonable next to theirs. If it is far higher, look for costs you can trim, or offer something extra such as better fragrance, neat folding or pickup and delivery.

Pricing different services

• Regular (say 2 to 3 days): the base price.
• Express (same day or next day): usually costs more because it jumps the queue and takes extra labor. Many businesses add roughly half to double the regular price, depending on how fast it is.
• Wash only, iron only, or both: price them separately because the labor differs.
• Bulky items: blankets, duvets, curtains and rugs are better priced per piece, since their weight, drying time and machine space are out of proportion to ordinary clothes.

Set a minimum weight too, such as 2 or 3 kg, so small loads still cover machine time and labor.

Common mistakes

• Leaving out your own wage, then wondering why net profit feels small.
• Giving big discounts to attract customers until the price falls below cost.
• Not recording tickets and weights, so the real cost per kilo cannot be worked out.
• Forgetting machine depreciation.
• Not reviewing prices after electricity, rent or supply costs rise.

Review it every month

Cost per kilo is not a one-off number. Recalculate every few months with fresh data: total costs, total kilos and the share of express orders. This simple habit tells you when prices need adjusting before profit is eaten away.