The verdict
This is a genuine economic question, not a matter of principle, and the honest answer depends on scale. Work out your true in-house cost per kilo — utilities, chemicals, labour, machine depreciation and the space the plant occupies — and compare it with outsourced per-piece rates including transport and the extra linen par you will need to cover the turnaround. Most hotels never calculate the first number properly, which is why the decision usually gets made on habit instead.
In-house
The hotel runs its own laundry — machines, chemicals, labour and space on the property.
Outsourced
A third-party laundry collects, processes and returns linen, billed on a per-piece basis.
Laundry sits inside housekeeping, which is typically the largest operational cost in the rooms division and the line that responds fastest to management. It also hides its real cost more effectively than almost anything else in the hotel, because the in-house option spreads that cost across utilities, payroll, chemicals, depreciation and floor area, and none of those lines says laundry on it.
The comparison only becomes honest once both sides are stated the same way. An outsourced quote arrives as a clean per-piece rate; an in-house operation has to be reconstructed. Until it is, any argument about which is cheaper is an argument about which one feels cheaper.
Side by side
| Dimension | In-house | Outsourced |
|---|---|---|
| What is in the cost | Utilities, chemicals, labour, machine depreciation, maintenance and the value of the space the plant occupies. | The per-piece rate, plus transport, plus the additional linen par needed to cover turnaround time. |
| Control over quality | Direct. You set the wash standards, chemical dosing and rejection criteria, and you see the result the same day. | Contractual. Quality depends on the vendor's standards and on how tightly your agreement specifies them. |
| Effect on linen life | Controllable — dosing control and correct cycles protect the linen you own. | Harder to govern. Aggressive processing shortens linen life, and the cost of that lands on you, not the vendor. |
| Par stock required | Around three par is the working standard — one in the room, one in the wash, one on the shelf. | Higher, because the turnaround includes collection and delivery, and the float has to cover it. |
| Flexibility at peak | You control the schedule and can run extra shifts through a wedding weekend or a full house. | You are in the vendor's queue, which is hardest exactly when banquet and full-occupancy volume spikes. |
| Capital and space | Significant up front, plus back-of-house area that could have earned revenue another way. | None. It converts a capital decision into an operating cost. |
Keep it in-house when
- Your calculated cost per kilo genuinely beats the outsourced per-piece rate at your volume.
- You already have the plant and the space, so the capital is sunk and only the running cost is in question.
- Volume is high and steady enough to keep the machines loaded — an under-utilised laundry is an expensive one.
- Peak flexibility matters, because banquet and full-house weekends are when an external queue hurts most.
- Linen life is a live concern and you want dosing and cycle control in your own hands.
Outsource when
- Your scale cannot keep an in-house plant loaded, so fixed cost is spread across too few kilos.
- The space the plant occupies has a better use, or you are planning the hotel and can design it out.
- You would otherwise be funding machines, utilities upgrades and skilled labour you do not have.
- You can contract quality specifications and turnaround tightly, and hold the vendor to them.
- You budget the extra linen par honestly — a thin float is how an outsourced model turns into a shortage.
The hybrid most hotels end up with
In practice many hotels split the work: in-house for the high-volume, fast-turnaround items where control matters most and the machines stay loaded, and outsourced for guest laundry, heavy items, banquet linen in peak season, or anything the in-house plant handles badly.
Whichever shape you land on, the discipline is the same. Reconstruct your true in-house cost per kilo, hold the outsourced quote to the same basis including transport and par, track linen discards monthly and investigate any spike, and revisit the decision when volume or tariffs move. The answer is not permanent, and it is not the same for a 40-room property as for a 200-room one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Utilities, chemicals, labour, machine depreciation and maintenance, and the value of the space the plant occupies. Leaving out depreciation and space is what makes in-house look artificially cheap.
Transport, and the extra linen par you need to cover the collection-and-delivery turnaround. Both belong in the comparison before the rates are set side by side.
Roughly three par as a working standard — one set in the room, one in the wash, one on the shelf. Less than that and the hotel over-washes and shortens linen life chasing shortages.
Not inherently, but linen condition is part of cleanliness, which is the single most unforgiving driver of guest reviews. If outsourcing weakens your control over wash quality, that risk has to be managed contractually.