Machine and depreciation
Purchase price spread over the years it lasts, plus servicing, spare parts and the water connection a commercial machine needs.
Making the call
Wash it yourself, or send it out?
The machine in the basement is the smallest line on the bill. What makes it expensive is what nobody writes down: hours, floor space, and the Saturday it stands still. Here are the lines that belong in your calculation.
Count it honestly
What an in-house laundry actually costs
We deliberately put no numbers in here — your wages, your rent and your occupancy decide it, and only you know those. What we can give you is the list of lines that has to be complete before the comparison is worth anything.
Water, power, detergent
Small per cycle, not small across a year. Dryers are the bigger line here, not the washing machine.
Square metres
Wash room, drying area, storage for clean and for dirty. Cost it at your rent per square metre — it is floor space that would otherwise be doing something else.
Hours
Loading, moving, folding, sorting. Usually done by someone hired to do something else, at their full hourly rate.
The breakdown
The line almost nobody counts: what happens on a Saturday evening when the machine stops? How many days of reserve are in the building, and what does the emergency fix cost?
Holidays and sick days
Who washes when the person who normally does it is away? An in-house laundry always needs two people who can run it.
The other side
How a linen service bills
In Switzerland billing is per kilo or per piece — we always bill per piece. That is the unit to compare quotes in; two offers in different units simply cannot be compared.
What pushes the bill up
- More frequent deliveries than the operation actually needs.
- Non-standard sizes and colours instead of standard — the biggest lever on table linen.
- Volumes set too tight, so extra deliveries get triggered constantly.
- Extras: embroidery, repairs outside the norm, rush orders.
Both sides
What you give up
- Immediate availability — a single piece is not back in two hours.
- Full control over wash processes and the handling of individual pieces.
- Some flexibility: the rhythm is agreed, not re-decided daily.
What you get back
- The floor space the wash room occupies.
- The hours currently going into folding and sorting.
- No capital tied up and no breakdown risk on the machine.
- A bill that follows your volumes, instead of running costs you never see.
Where the crossover sits
We deliberately name no threshold in rooms or covers. It depends on your wages, your rent and how evenly your business is occupied — two houses of the same size can land far apart. Add up the list above, divide by your kilos or pieces per week, and compare it against a quote.
Already outsourcing?
Then this is not your question. Yours is about notice periods and the handover.
Switching supplierLet's work it through together
Tell us your volumes and your rhythm — you get a figure you can hold against your own.
*non-binding