Laundromat earnings: €5,441 revenue is not profit

Starting a laundromat: €5,441 monthly revenue is not the same as earning it

A five-machine laundromat took in €5,441 in March. Its owner, a content creator with two businesses, shows it on screen and boasts of having doubled the €3,000 benchmark for a normal month in the sector. The franchise worker was caught off guard by the figure and called it a very rare case, because, he said, most self-service locations with five machines don't reach those levels.

That's where the problem starts. The video's protagonist himself urges distrust: seek information from all possible sources and don't believe anyone trying to sell you their product, including himself. The question, then, is not how much comes in, but how much of that survives the month.

How much does a self-service laundromat take?

The figures range from the €3,000 benchmark to the €5,441 in this specific case. Watch out for the average: some argue that with five machines most locations don't even reach €3,000.

A family case points to €2,000-2,200 per month in a very touristy village on the Mediterranean coast, with one added condition: it's only profitable if the premises are owned by the person running the laundromat. Another testimony gives a higher threshold, with six washing machines and three dryers, and describes an owner who hasn't repaired a broken dryer for a year because, he says, it's not worth it. Draw your own conclusions.

Revenue is not profit: rent, machines and maintenance

The breakdown is relentless. Rent, taxes, depreciation and maintenance of industrial machines that, due to intensive use, require specialised technicians. The business never rests and neither do the machines: water, electricity, chemicals and breakdowns.

Hence the high profitability threshold attributed to the sector: below a certain number of washes per month, the location runs at a loss even if the open sign never goes off. Customer rates aren't elastic either: between €3 and €5 per 30-minute wash and €2-3 per 15 minutes of drying.

You also have to factor in the cost of setting up the business. As one forum user sums up, the franchise seller charges for the machines, the renovation of the premises and the use of their brand; the landlord charges rent. The entrepreneur bears the rest.

The shadow of money laundering: the recurring accusation

No conversation about laundromats ends without someone mentioning money laundering. The suspicion rests on two arguments: the absence of card terminals in many locations, as argued in the debate, and the idea that a business with few staff and lots of cash is a convenient vehicle for moving money.

Let's be precise. These are claims made without evidence, not verified conclusions, and none of them make a specific location guilty of anything. What is a fact is that the very mechanics of the business — cash collection without staff and little card terminal presence in some locations — fuels the suspicion and keeps it circulating.

Owning the premises: the only lever that changes the equation

Here the analyses converge more than it seems. Those who own the premises don't pay rent and can afford modest revenues. Those who rent bear a cost that, according to one forum user's calculation, can be around €1,000 per month in non-central areas, and much more if the location is good. The real business, some joke, is the landlord's: fixed rent with no machines to repair or customers to serve.

Where does a self-service laundromat actually work?

The cases defended as profitable share a pattern: very dense neighbourhoods, transit areas, industrial estates with companies that wash work clothes, and tourist towns. The user profile also matters: foreign visitors want to wash and dry at the same time, and can't imagine hanging clothes in a courtyard.

There's one extreme that almost nobody disputes. The industrial segment, with hospitals and large clients, operates with providers that have institutional backing, and competing against them is described as mission impossible. That's not a game you play with five neighbourhood machines.

---

And a reminder that the ending isn't always known. The case is told of a former worker who left his job, with severance, to set up a rental laundromat in a shopping centre in the province of Málaga. It was never known how it ended. Whether he got it right, or whether the place is still open.

With five machines and a good month, revenue is €5,441; the headline, however, is still not profit. What exactly does the person who opens the sixth one live on?