2024-25 State of the Industry Survey (Part 1)

CHICAGO — Based on results from this year’s American Coin-Op annual State of the Industry survey, nearly 70% of self-service laundry owners and operators saw their total business improve last year.

How did your operation stack up?

The State of the Industry Survey report provides many statistics valuable to store owners and investors who wish to compare their operations to the industry average. This year’s polling focused on 2024-25 business conditions, vend pricing, equipment, turns per day and more.

The annual survey is an unscientific, online poll of American Coin-Op readers who operate stores. Some percentages may not equal 100% due to rounding or other factors.

VITAL STATISTICS

Just shy of 64% of respondents polled this year own one self-service laundry, while the remaining 36.5% are multi-store owners (24.7% own two or three stores, 11.8% own four or more).

Roughly 14% either opened new locations or closed existing ones in 2024. Nearly 11% have opened new stores, or will be opening them, in 2025.

Again this year, we asked respondents if they considered their involvement in their laundry business to be “full-time” or “part-time.” Just over 57% say their contributions are full-time, 41.7% see their involvement as part-time, and 1.2% say it’s something else.

Regarding store size, 33.8% say their largest location covers 3,000 square feet or more, 31.4% say it’s between 2,000 and 2,999 square feet, and the remaining 34.9% say it measures 1,999 square feet or less.

Roughly 35% of respondents own their store space, 55.8% rent their store space, and the remaining 9.3% say the arrangement varies by property.

And as for their real estate costs, an average of 18.6% of their 2024 gross revenue was spent on rent or mortgage payments. Individually, the lowest percentage reported was 4%, and the highest was 60%.

Fully attended stores among the American Coin-Op audience polled account for 33.7%. A little more than 38% are partially attended, and 22.1% are unattended. Among the remaining 5.8%, the arrangement varies by store.

For the first time, store owners were asked about their competition. We wanted to know how many competing vended laundries were located within a 3-mile radius of their primary store.

On average, respondents to this year’s survey have 2.9 competitors within that 3-mile service area. The highest number of competitors any individual store owner listed was 15.

Roughly 15% of store owners polled say they have no competition that close.

Approximately 72% of self-service laundry owners surveyed employ either part-time or full-time workers in their stores. Within this group, 49.4% have four or more employees, 24.7% employ two or three people, and 18.8% have only one employee. Roughly 7% of owners don’t employ anyone beyond those involved in ownership.

The averages are 1.6 full-time employees and 4.7 part-time employees (it should be noted that this calculation reflects averages by respondent, not by store).

About compensation for their non-management level attendants, American Coin-Op will be updating this question to address a higher pay scale moving forward. Owners who were surveyed pay the following average hourly wages today:

$9.00 to $9.49 — 1.7%
$10.00 to $10.49 — 1.7%
$11.00 to $11.49 — 5.1%
$12.00 to $14.99 — 20.3%
$15.00 or more — 71.2%
All are at management level — 5.1%
Less than $7.50; $7.50 to $7.99; $8 to $8.49; $8.50 to $8.99; $9.50 to $9.99; $10.50 to $10.99; $11.50 to $11.99 — 0%

We asked laundry owners how their vended washers and dryers are operated, and they identified every payment type that applied (respondents could choose any or all from among five types, plus identify “other” options they make available).

The vast majority—87.1%—accept payment by quarters. Payment by credit card or mobile app each are offered by 36.5%. Laundry (store) card is next in popularity, offered by 27.1%, followed by payment by dollar coin (17.6%) and other options, including tokens (4.7%).

Roughly 62% of respondents offer customers more than one type of payment option, compared to 45% last year.

In addition to their laundry services, many laundromat owners also offer ancillary services to their customers. Respondents could choose any or all from a list of 21 choices, plus they were given the option to identify others. Soap vending was clearly a popular choice, offered by 82.4%. Other popular offerings included soft drinks and/or snack vending (68.2%), Wi-Fi access (65.9%), laundry bag sales (61.2%) and drop-off wash-dry-fold service (60.0%).

In terms of popularity, those five choices were also the leading choices in last year’s survey … and in exactly the same order!

We were curious about how self-service laundry owners had advertised their store(s) in the last 12 months. They were provided a list of 15 choices plus given the option to identify others. The top five choices were social media (45.7%), store website (35.8%), in-store promotions (27.2%), digital ads (22.2%) and signs/banners (22.2%). Those choices also topped our list one year ago, albeit in a slightly different order.

Roughly 27% of store owners said they had not advertised their business in the prior 12 months.

Small businesses, including self-service laundries, face their fair share of challenges. We asked respondents to choose their biggest operational challenges from a list of nine, plus gave them the option to write in “other” choices; operators were directed to select all that apply. Here are the results: