How much is a laundromat worth?

Most established laundromats sell for roughly 2 to 4 times EBITDA. Run your own numbers in two minutes, or read on for how the calculation works. The rest of this page explains what EBITDA means for your store, why the manager question matters more than owners expect, and what moves a store inside that range.

Start with EBITDA

EBITDA is what the store earns in a normal year after every operating cost: collections plus wash-and-fold and any other revenue, minus rent, utilities, payroll, supplies, insurance, and the rest. Buyers, lenders, and the capital partners behind them all price on this number. Know yours before anyone else tells you what it is.

The arithmetic from there is short. A store with $80,000 in EBITDA lands somewhere around $160,000 to $320,000. A store with $150,000 lands around $300,000 to $600,000. The work is in figuring out where in the range your store belongs.

If you run the store yourself, read this first

Here is the line owners miss. If you open, close, fix machines, and run the counter, your labor is a cost the store has been getting free. A buyer has to pay someone to replace you, and no one works free. That manager salary comes out before the multiple is applied. Owners who skip this line overprice their store by six figures and then wonder why offers come in under the number in their head. Put the replacement cost in, and the price you calculate is one a buyer can pay.

What moves a store up the range

The lease moves the number more than anything else. A laundromat cannot relocate the way an office can. A long lease at fair rent, or a landlord ready to sign one with a buyer, protects every dollar of the price. A lease with two years left does the opposite.

Equipment age comes second. Newer machines mean years of predictable service life and lower utility bills. A store full of 20-year-old washers still sells, and the buyer prices in the retooling.

The revenue mix matters. Wash-and-fold, delivery, and commercial accounts are growing, repeat revenue, and buyers pay for them. A store that is all coin has one engine. A store with a drop-off book has two.

Clean records close the gap between what you say and what you get. Tax returns, a P&L, and utility bills that line up with each other let a buyer pay for everything the store earns. Our document checklist covers what to gather.

Where the range comes from

The 2 to 4x range is where deals for established stores clear, across the market, year after year. Fading stores with old equipment and short leases trade below it. Stores with long leases, new machines, and real delivery revenue push the top of it. Your store is a specific answer, and the answer comes from the details.

Get a real number, in three steps

Step 1. Run your numbers. The calculator takes two minutes, shows the range and the arithmetic, and nothing leaves the page until you say so.

Step 2. Gather the five documents. The checklist is short, and the equipment spreadsheet does the machine list for you.

Step 3. Talk to us. We are Valemont Group. We buy laundromats, wash-and-fold operations, and dry cleaners, and we are direct about what we see in a store. The conversation is confidential and costs you nothing. Start it here, or read how selling works first.