Laundromat Profit Calculator

How much can a Laundromat business earn per month or per year? Use our easy to use Laundromat profit calculator to find out the profitability potential and cost to help you get a better understanding before making the decision to get, or buy your own Laundromat.

Our laundromat profit calculator was created to give you with a detailed and comprehensive understanding of your business’s profitability. It takes into account various factors that influence your bottom line, from revenue generated through services and vending machines to operational costs like water, power, and lease or mortgage expenses. Here’s how it works and the formula we put together using national averages:

How To Use The Laundromat Profit Calculator

1. Average Customers Per Day: This number can vary greatly and is hard to predict, add the average number of customers visiting your laundromat daily. This number is important for estimating both service and vending machine revenues.
2. Monthly Lease or Mortgage Cost: Enter the monthly payment for your business’s physical location. This cost is a significant part of your fixed expenses.
3. Laundry & Vending Revenue: The calculator estimates the revenue from laundry services by multiplying the average number of customers by the average revenue per customer (considering both washing and drying costs at a national average of $4 per wash and $4 per dry). It also adds income from vending machines, assuming an average spend of $2 per customer.
4. Operational Costs: Water and power expenses are calculated based on the average usage per load and the cost per unit of water and electricity. These variables are important for understanding the variable costs associated with each service.
5. Profit Calculation: The tool sums up the total revenue (laundry services plus vending machine income) and subtracts the total operational costs (water, power, and lease/mortgage) to estimate your monthly and yearly profit.

The Formula Behind It

Let’s break down the formula used in the calculator:

1. Laundry Revenue Per Month = Average Customers Per Day × (Cost Per Washing Load + Cost Per Drying Load) × Operating Days Per Month
2. Vending Revenue Per Month = Average Customers Per Day × Average Vending Spend Per Customer × Operating Days Per Month
3. Total Revenue Per Month = Laundry Revenue Per Month + Vending Revenue Per Month
4. Water Cost Per Month = Average Customers Per Day × Gallons Per Load × Cost Per Gallon × Operating Days Per Month
5. Power Cost Per Month = Average Customers Per Day × (kWh Per Wash Cycle + kWh Per Dry Cycle) × Cost Per kWh × Operating Days Per Month
6. Total Operating Costs Per Month = Monthly Lease or Mortgage Cost + Water Cost Per Month + Power Cost Per Month
7. Profit Per Month = Total Revenue Per Month – Total Operating Costs Per Month
8. Profit Per Year = Profit Per Month × 12

By adding your specific data into the calculator, you get an accurate analysis of your laundromat’s profitability. This tool is invaluable for financial planning, helping you identify areas for growth and improvement to maximize your business’s financial performance.

Should You Get Into The Laundromat Business?

Laundromat profit margins can be huge at times because there’s almost no need to have anyone there working full time, you can chose your own hours and work whenever you want leaving you little overhead in wages.

This type of business can be attractive to people who work hard all their lives and want to sit back and relax for a bit while earning money, especially older folks who are closer to retirement.

Something people fail to realize is the startup cost for a Laundromat because they only look at the potential profit and forget to look at expenses, this depends on your location and if the business is already established.

You can expect to pay around $200,000 for an established Laundromat business with or without the lot included, sometimes the lot is leased and sometimes it’s known as a free hold title, meaning the owner owns the land.

If the lot is leased this could range anywhere from $500 to $5000 depending on the location, higher traffic locations inside inner-cities will come at higher cost while small towns can have lot leases as low as $500 a month. If you have the chance to own the land however, this could be more beneficial in the long run as you could always sell it, similar to buying or renting a house.

Another item that’s overlooked is startup costs for new Laundromats, modern commercial washing machines can cost anywhere from $500 and all the way up to $12,000 each. You would want at least 10 washing machines and 10 dryers to start at least, and depending on how many customers you will have you might need up to 50 of each eventually.

Other expenses include insurance, water and electricity costs which can cost around $2000-$3000 a month depending on the location and customers.

Another big factor is demographics, most people these days have washing machines in their homes. Usually big Laundromat traffic areas are older apartment buildings, industrial area, hotel areas and truck stop area. Before you look into getting your Laundromat business up and running be sure to check the location and do your own research.

People spend an average of $10 per load of laundry for a single person, if there is mostly families using your laundromat then they could be washing up to 4-5 loads at a time on a weekly basis in which case you could earn $40 to $50 per customer every week. In our calculator above we only assumed 1 load per customer because that’s what the national average says, giving you bonus money if there’s more than 1 load per customer.

This could be surprising to you but industrial areas could use some washing machines too to wash work gear, you can charge more to wash oil-based coveralls and gear from workers. And in many cases workers in industrial areas aren’t local, so they have no place to wash their clothes. You’d be surprised how many workers and truckers need their clothes washed at least once a week and sometimes more.

Another secret tip to making money with Laundromats is to check the coins people put into your washing machines. Most people bring change from home and some of that change can be valuable. For example some circulated Canadian quarters can be worth as much as $25 each. If you’re like me and look at every quarter you come across you could easily find high value coins that people leave behind.

Final Thoughts

I would argue that you should only buy a Laundromat business if you can afford the expenses for at least a few years. In reality it could take a couple years for your laundromat business to be lucrative enough for you to do this full time and quit your day job.

It is defiantly a good idea to start a Laundromat business if you’re not afraid to pull the trigger, after several years it could be a retirement gig or side-hustle of sorts. Do your own research and talk to other laundromat owner to get an idea of their experience. You could learn a lot from them.