In-house or outsourced laundry? How a hotel can decide

In-house and outsourced laundry are not two prices for the same service. Compare them on linen ownership, par stock, turnaround in peak weeks, quality control, floor space, people, and who carries the risk when something fails. Decide with twelve months of your own records, not with a rate per kilo.

The quote arrives as a single number per kilo. Your own laundry shows up instead as a line in the gas bill, two people on the roster and a ground-floor room that could be something else. Neither number tells you which is cheaper, because they are not counting the same things. This article on hotel laundry outsourcing lays out what you are actually comparing, how peak weeks change the answer, how to control linen loss, which records to pull and what belongs in the contract, so you can decide on your own numbers.

What are you actually comparing when you weigh in-house laundry against outsourcing?#

You are comparing five things at once: a washing service, a linen stock, a room, a team and a transfer of risk. A price per kilo covers only the first.

The unit of sale differs, which is why the two figures never meet on their own. An outside laundry charges by weight or by piece. Your in-house cost sits in utilities, chemicals, maintenance, depreciation, floor space and payroll. Until you rebuild both into a common unit, per occupied room-night, any comparison is an opinion.

Linen ownership is the second hidden item. Someone buys the stock, replaces worn pieces and holds the reserve. In-house, the hotel owns all of it and sees the cost directly. Outsourced, the contract decides who owns what and who pays when a sheet reaches the end of its life.

Par stock and buffer follow from the cycle. The number of sets in circulation sets how long a room can stay out of service while its linen travels. A longer cycle needs more stock, whoever does the washing. Floor space matters too: a laundry needs area with water, drainage, steam or hot water, ventilation and chemical storage, and that area has an alternative use. People and risk complete the picture. In-house laundry is a shift pattern with absence cover and a supervisor; outsourced it becomes a supplier relationship someone at the hotel still manages. Machine breakdown, a water cut, staff absence or a supplier that fails in the busiest week: each lands somewhere, and the decision is partly about where.

How do peak weeks change the answer?#

Peak weeks decide the question, because the binding constraint is turnaround time and par stock, not the average cost across the year.

The cycle has steps: soiled linen leaves the room, is collected and sorted, washed, dried, ironed, folded, returned and put away. Each step adds time, and the total is what the room waits for. How the housekeeping department works day to day, and the room cleaning order that sets when linen leaves the floor, both shape that cycle.

Par is derived, not guessed. Take the pieces used per occupied room-night, multiply by the rooms you fill at peak, multiply by the days in the cycle, and add a margin for rejects and accidents. For example, a hotel that fills 120 rooms on a three-day cycle needs a different stock from one that fills 80 rooms on the same cycle, and the same hotel on a two-day cycle needs less again.

In-house capacity is fixed by machines and shifts. A full house on a Saturday does not wait for Monday, so the laundry either runs extra hours or the par stock absorbs the peak. An outside laundry serves several hotels, and its peak is your peak, so ask what happens in the busiest week of the year, not in an average week. Put the peak commitment in writing: collection and delivery windows, weekend cover, and what counts as a missed delivery. Have a failure plan too. One machine and no backup is not a plan; a second supplier or a small in-house finishing room is.

How do you control quality and linen loss?#

By counting, marking and reconciling every cycle, and by agreeing in advance what counts as stained, worn or lost.

Linen has a finite life. Every wash removes a little fibre, and the question is who notices the end and who pays for the replacement. Loss happens in several places: chutes, trolleys, restaurant side stations, guest rooms and the laundry itself. In-house, you see the loss in your own counts. Outsourced, you have to contract for it.

Counting works better than trusting. Run piece counts at dispatch and at return, with weight as a cross-check, and use marked linen so a set can be followed through the cycle. Write the reject criteria down: stained, torn, greyed, frayed edges, missing buttons. Both sides then judge the same towel by the same rule. Keep categories apart: rooms linen, food and beverage linen, and spa or pool towels travel separately, because cross-contamination is a hygiene question before it is a quality question. Ask for a monthly reconciliation statement: sent, returned, rejected, written off, with a running balance both sides sign.

Which costs should you collect from your own records?#

Collect twelve months of your own figures on the same scope for both options, including a peak month, and express them per occupied room-night.

Note the shape of each cost before you compare totals. In-house laundry is mostly fixed: machines, space, staff. An outside service is mostly variable per kilo, which behaves differently in a flat year. The same logic applies across the business day, as one hotel business day fits together from many small cost lines.

Do not leave out management time, or the cost of a missed delivery: rooms held out of service and guests who notice. Match the scope carefully. If the outside price includes transport and replacement, your in-house figure must include them too, or the comparison flatters one side. Use cost per kilo only as a cross-check between the two, never as the decision itself.

What belongs in a laundry service contract?#

Counts, turnaround, quality standards, liability for loss, hygiene, continuity and an exit route. Everything else is price.

Start with the unit of charge and how it is verified: weighed at the plant or at the hotel, who witnesses it, and whether wet weight or packaging is excluded. Add count reconciliation and a credit mechanism for shortfalls, so a missing set has a consequence rather than an argument. Turnaround windows and peak commitments belong in writing, with a stated remedy when a delivery is late.

Loss and damage need their own clause: who is liable, up to what limit, and to what replacement standard. Hygiene terms should require separate handling of rooms, food and beverage, and spa linen, name the wash programs used, and give you a right to inspect the plant. Continuity and exit close the list: backup capacity, notice periods, how prices are reviewed, and how the linen stock is handed over if the relationship ends. These are commercial and legal terms, so confirm liability caps, remedies and termination with your legal adviser before signing.

Can a hotel split the job between in-house and outsourced?#

Yes. A mixed model keeps the base load in-house and sends the peak, or the difficult items, outside.

Possible splits include rooms linen outside while uniforms and restaurant linen stay in, or the reverse where pressing quality matters more than volume. The base-load-and-peak split runs the in-house laundry at a steady level all year and buys the difference in high season, which keeps the machines and the team productive without building capacity for four weeks. Guest personal laundry and valeting can stay in-house, because speed and contact with the guest matter more than cost per piece.

Two standards is the trap. A guest does not know which towel came from where, so write one quality standard and apply it to both sources. Cost accounting gets harder in a mixed model: allocate the fixed in-house cost to what it actually does, or the comparison will flatter the outside option. For a group running one laundry across several properties, the transfer price and the service level need their own governance, along the lines of an owner's multi-property governance checklist.

A decision sheet for the owner#

Decide in six steps, in this order, and write the reasoning down so the next review starts from evidence rather than memory.

First, define the scope: which linen, which outlets, which seasons, and whether guest personal laundry is included. Second, collect twelve months of records on the cost lines above, including one peak month. Third, set the par stock and the turnaround requirement from your own booking pattern, not from a supplier's promise. Fourth, run both options on the same scope and the same basis, per occupied room-night. Fifth, list the risks, name who carries each one, and say what the failure plan is. Sixth, decide, write the contract or the staffing plan, and set a review date before the next high season.

Where to start tomorrow morning#

Start with the records, not the quotes. Pull twelve months of utility, chemical, maintenance, payroll, space and linen purchase figures and turn them into one number per occupied room-night. Then set your par stock and peak turnaround requirement, and only after that ask a laundry for a price. The parts of this article fit in that order: what is being compared, what peak weeks demand, how loss is controlled, what the records say, what the contract must hold, and whether a mixed model suits you better.