Hotel laundry cost calculator
Put every line of an on-premise laundry — burdened labor, water and sewer, energy, chemicals, linen replacement and equipment — into one cost per pound, one laundry cost per occupied room, and the vendor rate at which outsourcing breaks even.
Volume and labor
Weigh a week of carts to get your own PPOR
Cost per pound inputs
Wash-related loss, rejects and rag-out
per pound processed in house
- Pounds per day
- 1,776 lb
- Laundry cost per occupied room
- $6.07
- Labor per pound
- $0.192
- Utilities per pound
- $0.150
- Chemicals and linen per pound
- $0.130
- Equipment per pound
- $0.034
- Pounds per operator hour (PPOH)
- 111 lb
- In-house cost for the period
- $26,966
- Outsourced cost for the period
- $33,034
At $0.62 per pound, outsourcing is $6,067 more expensive than your own laundry over the period. Break-even vendor rate: $0.506 per pound.
What a hotel laundry cost calculator should include
An on-premise laundry (OPL) cost per pound is the sum of burdened labor, water and sewer, gas and electric, chemicals, linen replacement and equipment cost, divided by pounds processed. Vendor quotes are all-in per pound, so a comparison that leaves out linen replacement or payroll burden will always flatter the in-house option.
Volume comes from occupancy, not from the laundry
Poundage is driven by pounds per occupied room (PPOR) and the number of occupied rooms, so the same laundry has a different cost per pound in a soft month. Model the rooms side first with the housekeeping staffing calculator and set stock levels with the linen PAR calculator, because a thin PAR forces rush cycles that raise both labor and linen replacement.
How this calculator works
| Output | Formula |
|---|---|
| Pounds per day | Occupied rooms × pounds per occupied room |
| Burdened labor per day | Operator hours × wage × (1 + benefit load %) |
| Labor per pound | Burdened labor per day ÷ pounds per day |
| Equipment per pound | Equipment cost for the period ÷ pounds for the period |
| Cost per pound | Labor + utilities + chemicals + linen replacement + equipment, all per pound |
| Laundry cost per occupied room | Cost per pound × pounds per occupied room |
| Break-even vendor rate | Equal to your in-house cost per pound |
Assumptions and limits
- No default utility or chemical rates are supplied. The starting figures are placeholders to show the shape of the math. Replace them with your own invoices before you make a decision.
- Rent, space and management overhead are excluded. They usually do not disappear when you outsource. Add them only if you would genuinely recover the space or the salary.
- Outsourcing is not only a price question. Turnaround time, linen quality, loss policies, delivery frequency and PAR requirements all change when the laundry leaves the building — a thinner PAR is rarely viable with an outside vendor.
- Verify PPOR by weighing. Weigh soiled carts for a full week across departure-heavy and stayover-heavy days rather than using a published average.
Hotel laundry cost questions
Related hotel operations calculators
Hotel laundry capacity calculator
Pounds per day into required throughput and the washer and dryer count that clears a peak day inside your staffed hours.
Hotel linen PAR calculator
Sheets, towels and mats to own at 3 or 4 PAR, item by item, with the purchase value of the whole inventory.
Housekeeping cost per occupied room calculator
Price attendants, inspectors, housemen, overtime and benefit load into cost per occupied room and labor as a percent of rooms revenue.