Performance Under Pressure: Operators Post Another Strong Year (Part 1)

CHICAGO — For an industry that has navigated inflationary pressures, labor challenges and evolving consumer expectations, the latest data suggests a resilient core.

According to results from this year’s American Coin-Op State of the Industry survey, more than 70% of self-service laundry owners and operators report that their business improved in 2025 — a notable signal of momentum as the industry moves through 2026.

The annual report offers a detailed snapshot of operating conditions across the United States, providing benchmarks that store owners and investors can use to measure their own performance against peers. This year’s polling examines business conditions, vend pricing strategies, equipment profiles, turns per day and other key operating metrics that shape profitability and long-term value.

While the survey is an unscientific online poll of American Coin-Op readers who operate stores — and some totals may not equal 100% due to rounding — the results nonetheless paint a revealing portrait of an industry that continues to adapt, invest and grow.

OWNER SNAPSHOT

Just shy of 51% of respondents polled this year own a single self-service laundry, while the remaining 49.2% are multi-store owners (27.0% own two or three stores, 22.2% own four or more).

Nearly 13% either opened new locations or closed existing ones in 2025. A little more than 11% have opened, or will be opening new stores, in 2026.

What’s your involvement in your laundry business? Among this year’s respondents, 63.5% consider their involvement to be full-time, while the remaining 36.5% described theirs as being part-time.

As far as store size, 28.6% say their largest covers 3,000 square feet or more, 36.5% say it’s between 2,000 and 2,999 square feet, and the remaining 34.8% say it measures less than 2,000 square feet.

One-third of respondents report they own their store space, 58.7% rent their store space, and the remaining 7.9% say their arrangement varies by property.

Looking at their real estate costs, respondents averaged 18.4% of their 2025 gross revenue being spent on rent or mortgage payments, compared to 18.6% the previous year. Individually, the lowest 2025 percentage reported was 5%, and the highest was 52%.

Fully attended stores among the audience polled account for 27.0%. Nearly 35% are partially attended, and 27.0% are unattended. Among the remaining 11.1% of store owners, the arrangement varies by store.

American Coin-Op wanted to know about the competition, so we asked how many competing vended laundries were located within a 3-mile radius of their primary store.

There are 3.3 competitors, on average, within that 3-mile service area. The highest number of competitors any individual store owner listed was 11.

Roughly 8% of store owners polled say they have no competition that close.

Nearly 86% of self-service laundry owners surveyed this year employ either part-time or full-time workers in their stores. Within this group, 59.4% have four or more employees, 15.6% employ two or three people, and 10.9% have only one employee. Roughly 13% of owners don’t employ anyone beyond those involved in ownership.

Among respondents, the average laundry owner has 5.5 full-time employees and 6.5 part-time employees (this calculation reflects averages by respondent, not by store).

As for how these workers are compensated, owners who were surveyed pay the following average hourly wages today:

$13 or less — 5.1%
$13.01 - $13.99 — 3.4%
$14.00 – $14.99 — 5.1%
$15.00 - $15.99 — 18.6%
$16.00 - $16.99 — 16.9%
$17.00 - $17.99 — 13.6%
$18.00 or more — 25.4%

The remaining 11.9% say all of their employees are management-level.

Store owners polled say they spent an average of 20.5% of their 2025 gross revenue on labor or payroll. The lowest individual amount reported was 7%, while the highest was 42%.

We asked laundry owners how customers pay to use their vended washers and dryers. They identified every payment type that applied from among five choices plus “other” options they make available.

The vast majority — 88.9% — accept payment by quarters. Payment by mobile app is offered by 46.0%. Credit or debit card is next in popularity, offered by 36.5%, followed by payment using laundry (store) card (22.2%), dollar coin (19.0%), and other options, including cash bills or tokens (3.2%).

Roughly 64% of respondents offer their customers more than one payment option, compared to 62% last year.

Beyond self-service, many laundromat owners also offer additional services or amenities to their customers. In this year’s poll, respondents could choose any or all from a list of 21 common choices, plus they were given the option to identify others.

Soap vending continues to be the most popular choice, offered by 87.3% (growing from 82.4% last year). Other popular choices include soft drinks and/or snack vending (76.2%), Wi-Fi access (65.1%), laundry bag sales (55.6%) and drop-off wash-dry-fold (WDF) service (55.6%). Those five choices matched the leading choices in last year’s survey.

A very small minority — 1.6% — reported they don’t offer anything additional.

We asked self-service laundry owners how they 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 choices were:

Store website (43.3%)
Social media (41.7%)
Digital ads, in-store promotions, and signs/banners (30.0%, tie)

These choices also topped the list one year ago, albeit in a slight different order.

Roughly 27% of store owners polled said they had not promoted their business in the last 12 months, which matches the share of non-advertisers from the 2024-25 survey.

Every small business faces trials, so we asked respondents to choose what they consider to be 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:

High cost: utilities (65.1%)
High cost: new equipment (44.4%)
High cost: labor (39.7%)
Finding/keeping reliable employees (36.5%)
High cost: rent (33.3%)
High cost: maintenance (27.0%)
Too much competition (17.5%)
Other (9.5%)
Equipment abuse/vandalism (4.8%)
Poor industry image (3.2%)

Coming in Part 2 on Thursday: Year-over-year total business, plus breakdowns for wash-dry-fold service, commercial laundry service and vending sales