Pickup and Delivery (PUD)
Pickup and delivery, or PUD, is laundry service collected from and returned to a customer's home or business, usually built on top of wash-dry-fold and priced at a premium to drop-off. Route density determines whether it is profitable.
Why Pickup and Delivery Matters in a Laundromat Sale
PUD adds vehicle, driver, software, bag, claims, and rewash costs to WDF's labor, and it only works when stops per route hour are high enough to absorb them. The CLA's 2024 survey reported 38% of respondents offering pickup and delivery and a $1.90 per pound median price where delivery was included, against $1.50 for drop-off (Source: CLA 2024 Laundry Industry Survey) — a premium that has to cover the whole route cost, not just the driving.
Example
A route running 9 stops in 4 hours at an average order of 22 pounds produces about $376 of revenue against roughly 4 hours of driver time, vehicle cost, and the same wash-dry-fold labor the store would incur anyway. Push it to 14 stops and the economics change entirely.
What to Check
- Get stops per route hour and average order size, not just total delivery revenue.
- Price the vehicle, driver, software, bags, claims, and rewash separately from the wash labor.
- Ask which accounts would leave if the route operator changed.
Where This Comes Up
- Adding Pickup and Delivery: Route Density Decides Everything
- Valuing Pickup and Delivery Revenue: Route, Retention, Transferability
- Wash-and-Fold and Pickup-Delivery Economics: Pounds, Labor, Routes
Related Terms
- Wash-Dry-Fold (WDF) — Wash-dry-fold
- Roll-Up — A roll-up is an acquisition strategy that assembles multiple small businesses in the same industry into one larger operation
- Breakeven — Breakeven is the revenue level at which a laundromat covers all of its costs
- Payback Period — Payback period is the time required for cumulative cash flow to return the cash a buyer invested
See the full laundromat glossary for all 78 terms.
The Next Step
Sources
- Coin Laundry Association, 2024 Laundry Industry Survey — https://member.laundryassociation.org/hubfs/IndustrySurvey24.pdf
This page is general information about laundromat transactions, not legal, tax, or investment advice, and not a guarantee of sale price, timing, or financing approval. Verify current rules with your own CPA, attorney, lender, and the relevant state or municipal agency before acting.