How a coin laundrette makes money with nobody behind the counter

A coin laundrette makes money by swapping wages for one very large machine bill up front, then hoping enough people turn up to pay it off. So I'd call it a small finance deal with a water connection. The washing is the easy part.

Almost every number below comes from somebody selling outlets, or units in a scheme, so hold them loosely. I couldn't find an independent margin for Malaysian laundrettes, and I looked.

The empty room is the sales pitch

"There is no need for labour in a self-service outlet," Cleanpro's corporate communication director told The Star in 2014. At most, he said, someone comes by now and then to collect the money.¹

That's a seller's description, and a 2017 Free Malaysia Today report has the manager of one laundromat going in and out to check the machines.³ Still, I can't think of many shops that open all night without a single person on shift.

The price of that empty room shows up on day one.

What people say an outlet costs to open, in ringgit

It's really a machine loan

Most of that money turns into machines. The Edge reported in 2020 on a scheme raising money for the group behind LaundryBar, and its founder said about 70% would go on laundry equipment and the rest on renovation.²

The parent company had about RM20 million in bank borrowings, used to buy equipment that it leased to its own subsidiary.² That's one operator, but when I read that, I stopped thinking of this as a laundry story.

I couldn't find a published figure for how long these machines last here. Say ten years, which is my guess, and borrow that founder's split for a dobiQueen-priced outlet. That's about a quarter of the yearly cash in the next section, set aside to replace the machines one day, and over a third if they last seven.²⁴

What comes in

dobiQueen's franchise page forecasts RM283,576 of annual revenue, or about RM24,000 a month.⁴ It doesn't say what size of outlet that means.

I wanted a check on that from anyone not selling a franchise, and the closest I got is rough. That Kota Kinabalu manager said about 2,000 people a month came through.³ A customer in the same report paid RM4.50 to wash and the same to dry, in a different town.³

If every one of those people did both at that price, it's RM18,000 a month.³ So the forecast isn't mad, though my sum mixes two towns, leaves 2017 prices standing, and he only said most of them use both.

Here's my rough picture of where that money goes, using the same forecast.

Where a laundrette's takings go, my rough guess

Those are forecasts, and the operators' own figures don't line up with each other. Cleanpro's director talked of margins of about 60% in 2014, and LaundryBar's founder gave 42% for one big outlet over most of 2019.¹² Neither says quite what that margin leaves out, so I wouldn't rank them.

Utilities are the small worry, until they aren't

The Kota Kinabalu manager put water and electricity at around RM2,000 a month.³ That's one person's estimate from 2017, and I'd assume tariffs have moved since, but it's under a tenth of the forecast revenue.

Gas is where the news was. RinggitPlus reported that from May 2025, laundry businesses lost their gas subsidy.⁵ A cylinder went to RM65 to RM70, more than double the old price.⁵

It said drying cycles at coin laundries were likely to go from RM5 to RM8, and that's a report of what was expected.⁵ I don't know how many operators did it, or whether their customers stayed.

How long until it pays back?

Everyone's answer sits close together. Cleanpro's was about three years, and LaundryBar's founder said under four for that one outlet.¹²

dobiQueen's page says its outlets average a 35% return.⁴ Divide its forecast cash by its RM380,000 entry price and I get 28%.⁴ That's about three and a half years, though the page gives the 35% as an average across its own outlets and the forecast as a separate block, so they needn't match.

I wanted to know how fragile that is, so I broke it. Lose a quarter of the revenue, keep everything outside cost of goods fixed, and the forecast cash roughly halves. Payback goes to about seven years.⁴

And losing a quarter isn't exotic, because nothing much stops the next one opening. That same 2020 report has the founder saying there were 16 other launderettes around one outlet, and that four folded within six months.² Free Malaysia Today's report describes five within 50 metres in Sunway Mentari.³

The founder's own start is the part I'd read twice. He says he put RM300,000 into his first outlet in 2013 and took RM5,000 in the first month.²