Linen hire versus buying your own
Owning your linen looks cheaper on paper and often is not, once laundering, replacement and the storage of enough sets are counted. Here is what each model really costs, and the point at which hiring stops being the expensive option and becomes the sensible one.
There are two ways to keep a short let in clean linen. You buy your own sets and launder them, on site or through a service, or you hire the stock and a laundered set arrives for every changeover with the used one taken away. The first looks cheaper because you only see the purchase price. The second bundles the real ongoing costs into one figure, which is why comparing them honestly means counting more than the sheets.
What owning really costs
The purchase is the small part. To own linen you buy enough sets to hold a proper par level, three or four a bed, then you launder every set after every stay, which is a machine, detergent, energy, drying space and the time to do it or the fee to have it done. Then you replace: guest linen wears and stains faster than domestic, so sets drop out of rotation and need buying again, quietly, all year.
What hire covers
Hire replaces all of that with a per-changeover charge. A laundered, pressed set is delivered for each turnover and the used one is collected, so you hold no stock, run no machines, and never buy a replacement sheet. The par level becomes the supplier's problem, and stains or wear are absorbed into the service rather than landing as a purchase you have to remember to make. What you pay for is a clean set ready on time, every time.
Owning your own linen is only cheaper if you value your laundering time at nothing. For most operators, that is the line item that changes the answer.
Where the maths tips
For a single property that turns over occasionally, owning can win, because the laundering burden is light and the sets last. The maths tips towards hiring as turnover rises and as you add properties. More changeovers means more laundering time and faster wear, and several properties means holding and moving stock between them, which is exactly the overhead hire removes. If linen is regularly the thing that slows a changeover, you are already past the tipping point.
Tell us your properties and turnover and we will give you a per-changeover linen figure to set against what owning and laundering actually costs you.
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