Laundry Costing

Costing and Quoting Industrial Laundry and Uniform Rental Work

How to build a defensible quote for laundry and uniform rental work, what actually drives cost per unit, and the estimating errors that erode margin.

Cost per processed pound is the quoting currency for flat goods, and direct labor is usually the biggest slice, running 45 to 60 percent of the variable cost. Utilities (water, sewer, gas, electric) land around 15 to 25 percent, chemical near 3 to 6 percent, and linen replacement the rest. A plant at 0.30 to 0.45 dollars per pound all-in is typical for healthcare linen; hospitality flat goods run leaner. Before you quote a price per pound, run the Cost Per Processed Pound calculator on real utility submeter data so labor and utility buckets are separated rather than buried in a blended rate.

Uniform rental is a different animal because you are financing the garment, not selling wash cycles. The garment is a capital asset amortized across its service life. A cotton-poly work shirt costs 9 to 14 dollars, lasts roughly 18 to 30 wash cycles before retirement, and gets rented weekly. If a shirt costs 11 dollars and survives 24 weeks, garment amortization alone is 0.46 dollars per week before any processing. Add processing, delivery, and shrinkage, and a per-garment weekly rate of 0.90 to 1.40 dollars has to cover it. Underestimating garment life is the single fastest way to quote yourself into a loss.

Linen loss and shrinkage are where rental quotes quietly bleed. Loss rate is lost or condemned pieces divided by pieces in circulation. At a 6 percent annual loss on a 20,000-garment account with 11 dollar garments, that is 13,200 dollars a year in replacement the customer may or may not pay for, depending on your loss-charge clause. Run the Linen Loss Rate calculator per account, not plant-wide, because one careless customer can carry a 12 percent loss while your book average looks like a healthy 4 percent, hiding the account that is actually unprofitable.

Route and delivery cost is overhead that estimators bury and then forget. A stop costs the same 18 to 28 dollars in driver time and fuel whether it is a 40-dollar or a 400-dollar stop, so small accounts carry brutal cost-to-serve. Delivery accuracy matters too: a shorted or misloaded stop triggers a redelivery that can wipe out the margin on that stop entirely. Use the Route Pack Accuracy calculator to price the redelivery risk into thin, low-density routes rather than discovering it after the contract is signed.

Rewash is a margin leak most quotes ignore entirely. Every rewashed pound consumes a full second pass of water, chemical, gas, and labor, so a 3 percent rewash rate adds roughly 3 percent to your variable cost, not a rounding error at scale. On a plant spending 2,200 dollars a shift in variable cost, 3 percent rewash is 66 dollars a shift, near 20,000 dollars a year. Build a rewash allowance into the quote using your actual Rewash Rate rather than assuming zero defects, because assuming zero is how bids come in 4 to 6 percent light.

Where estimates go wrong most often: quoting on nameplate throughput instead of realistic fill ratio, so budgeted labor per pound is understated by 10 to 20 percent. Second, using catalog water use instead of submetered gallons, which can be off by a full gallon per pound once you count reclaim flushing. Third, ignoring soiled sort labor because it happens before the pretty clean-side numbers. Price sort using the Soil Sort Labor calculator, because 900 lb per sorter hour versus 700 changes your labor line by more than 25 percent on the dirty end.

Overhead and burden are the last defensible layer. Fully burdened labor is not the 15 dollar wage, it is 20 to 24 dollars once you load payroll tax, workers comp (high for wet, hot floors), benefits, and supervision. Facility overhead, boiler maintenance, wastewater pretreatment, and financing on linen inventory add another layer that many small bidders leave out. A defensible quote states cost per pound or per garment, adds a stated margin (12 to 20 percent is common), and shows the customer the loss-charge and rewash assumptions so a low competitor cannot undercut on hidden risk you priced honestly.

Published 2026-07-01.