Should I hire someone just to do my laundry?

Q: Is it cheaper to do laundry at home?

Usually yes, especially washing cold. About 90% of a machine's energy goes to heating water, so a cold wash costs cents in energy plus a little detergent. That is far below the per-kilo cost of a full-service wash for everyday loads.

By Catherine Spiteri in Jul 8, 2026

Should I hire someone just to do my laundry?

If the basket never seems to empty, the thought has crossed your mind: what if someone else just did this. It is not lazy to ask. Laundry is real work, it falls hard on one person in most homes, and your time has a value. The honest answer is that for some households a wash and fold service is money well spent, and for others a good system at home does the same job for far less. Here is how to tell which one you are.

[

In short. Hiring a wash and fold service is worth it when your time is genuinely scarce and worth more than the cost, commonly around $5.50 to $8.90 per kilo in Australia, or roughly $4 to $8 a load at a self-serve laundromat. For most households, a good system at home does the same job for the cost of a cold wash, since about 90% of a machine's energy goes to heating water. Either way, keep the shoes and delicates in-house.

This is a money and time question dressed up as a lifestyle one. The right answer depends on three things: what the service actually costs, what your own time is worth, and what still makes sense to keep at home no matter what you decide. So here is the honest version, with real Australian numbers, so you can do the sum for your own household rather than guess.

What a wash and fold service actually costs in Australia

Start with the real figures, because the decision lives or dies on them. In Australia, a wash, dry and fold service commonly runs around $5.50 to $8.90 per kilogram, and a self-serve laundromat load lands roughly between $4 and $8 (Source: The Laundry Lady, pricing). A typical household load is around five to seven kilos, so a full-service wash of one load sits somewhere near $30 to $60 once you fold in the per-kilo rate, where a self-serve load or a wash at home is a fraction of that. If you run one load a day, the full-service route is a meaningful monthly line item. If you run two, it is a serious one.

Against that, the cost of doing it yourself is mostly energy, and most of that energy is heating water you do not need to heat. CHOICE puts it plainly: about 90% of a washing machine's energy goes to heating the water, which makes a cold wash the cheapest way to run the machine (Source: CHOICE, how green is your laundry routine). The Australian Government's YourHome guidance adds the figure: a warm or hot wash can cost 80 to 90% more to run than a cold one (Source: YourHome, Australian Government). A moderate spin of 600 to 800rpm keeps the running cost low and is gentler on clothes than the 1600rpm some machines reach, so they last longer too (Source: Miele Australia, laundry care guide). Done cold at home, a load costs you cents in energy plus a little detergent. That is the gap the service has to justify.

What your time is actually worth

The service is not really selling clean clothes. It is selling you back the time you would have spent on them, and that time is not trivial. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show women average about four hours and fifty-three minutes a day on unpaid work, and that 70% of women do daily housework compared with 42% of men (Source: ABS, how Australians use their time). If laundry is eating a real slice of that, and the time freed is worth more to you than the per-kilo cost, the service makes sense. The honest test is whether the freed time goes to something that genuinely matters more, paid work, rest, family, rather than simply being absorbed elsewhere.

There is a fairness angle too. Outsourcing the wash can be a way to stop one person carrying the whole load, but so can a system the whole house can run. Before you pay to remove the work, it is worth asking whether the work can be shared instead.

The cheaper alternative: a system that does most of the work

Before you commit to a recurring cost, it is worth seeing how much a good home system removes. CHOICE makes the point that the biggest laundry savings come from a better routine and gentler habits, washing less often, in cold water, treating delicates gently, rather than from spending more (Source: CHOICE, laundry tips to save your clothes). A zoned laundry with sorting baskets, a clear folding surface and a fixed routine turns the chore from a daily scramble into a short, predictable job. For many households the friction that made hiring out tempting is the disorganisation, not the washing itself, and the disorganisation is the cheaper of the two to fix.

Join the Waitlist. getmudroom.com.au

What to keep in-house no matter what you decide

Even if you do hire out the everyday wash, two jobs are worth keeping at home: delicates and shoes. Delicates because a service handling volume cannot give every strap and fine fabric the gentle, individual care it needs. Shoes because most services will not touch them, and the ones that might are not set up to do it safely, even though shoes are the item that most needs the wash: a University of Arizona study led by microbiologist Charles Gerba found an average of 421,000 units of bacteria on the outside of a shoe, with coliform bacteria present on 96% of the shoes tested (Source: CIRI, study reveals high bacteria levels on footwear). Shoes need to be washed in a structured bag, never loose, with a few towels to soften the load, on a cold gentle cycle (Source: Whirlpool, how to wash shoes in the washing machine). Keep the wash cold, too, because most athletic-footwear adhesives soften above 40°C, which is how soles begin to peel (Source: Nike, how to clean your shoes). Doing it at home also lets you keep to a sensible rhythm: Nike suggests cleaning shoes about every two weeks or whenever they look dirty, which is easy to fit around the rest of the wash but awkward to outsource (Source: Nike, how to clean your shoes). These are the jobs where doing it yourself, with the right tool, beats handing it over.

How to decide whether to hire someone for your laundry

Work through these five questions in order. By the end you will have your answer.

Do the sum on the real numbers. Weigh your loads in kilos, multiply by the $5.50 to $8.90 per-kilo rate for full service, or $4 to $8 a load for self-serve, and compare that to the cost of a cold wash at home, which is cents in energy plus detergent.
Value the time honestly. Work out how many hours a week laundry takes you, and what that time is genuinely worth, against the best alternative use. If the freed time goes to something that matters more than the cost, that points to hiring out.
Try fixing the system first. Zone the laundry, add sorting baskets and a clear folding surface, switch to a cold default cycle, and run it for two weeks. If the friction was the disorganisation, this solves it for almost nothing.
Decide what stays in-house. Keep delicates and shoes at home regardless. They need individual, gentle, careful handling that a volume service cannot give, and the shoes most services will not take at all.
Choose, then commit to the routine. Whether you hire out or keep it in, build the routine around the decision so it actually sticks, rather than drifting back to the basket on the couch.

The full cold-wash and shoe-wash method, including settings, is on our Care Guide.

Where the Shoe Wash Kit fits

Shoes are the one laundry job almost no service will take, which makes them the clearest case for a good tool at home. The Shoe Wash Kit is a three-compartment bag plus a pair of adjustable shoe trees. One outer compartment takes each shoe so the pair never touches mid-cycle, and a centre compartment holds the laces and insoles, the small things that otherwise vanish. More than 3,000 soft chenille fingers line the inside and hold each shoe off the drum wall, and a 3D mesh panel at each end lets the water move through. On the Chalk Kit there is no dye anywhere in the bag, so there is nothing to transfer onto your white runners. It is tested to ISO 105-C06 grade 4 colour fastness and stress tested to 50 cycles at 60°C and 1400rpm, which is the durability test, not a usage instruction. Recommended use is a cold wash, on a delicate or gentle cycle, with the spin set to 600 to 800rpm, air dry only. Designed for canvas, mesh and synthetic shoes. Not designed for leather or suede.

[ IMAGE TO INSERT ] Upload The Shoe Wash Kit.png here. Alt text: "The Mudroom Co Shoe Wash Kit, a three-compartment chenille bag with adjustable shoe trees."

Hire it out or do it yourself, at a glance

Factor	Wash and fold service	A good system at home
Cost per load	~$30 to $60 full service, $4 to $8 self-serve	Cents in energy plus detergent, cold wash
Time it gives back	Most of it, for everyday loads	Most of it, once the routine is set
Best for	Genuinely scarce time, high volume	Most households, ongoing savings
Delicates	Limited individual care	Keep in-house, gentle cycle
Shoes	Most services will not take them	Keep in-house in a structured bag
Ongoing commitment	A recurring monthly cost	A one-off setup, then nearly free

Join the Waitlist. getmudroom.com.au

About Mudroom Co

Mudroom Co is a small Australian premium brand making home care tools for active families. We build for the way people actually use their homes, not the way the catalogue says they do. We launch in July 2026 with one product, the Shoe Wash Kit: a three-compartment bag plus a pair of adjustable shoe trees, built chalk cream inside and out, with a eucalyptus zip, piping and tag the only colour you see. It is tested to ISO 105-C06 grade 4 colour fastness and stress tested to 50 cycles at 60°C and 1400rpm. We are based in Melbourne and we sell direct. The machine washes the shoes. The bag protects them. That is the whole brand in one line.

Frequently asked questions

Should I hire someone just to do my laundry?

It is worth it when your time is genuinely scarce and worth more than the cost, commonly $5.50 to $8.90 per kilo for full service in Australia. For most households a good home system does the same job for the cost of a cold wash. Try fixing the system first, and keep shoes and delicates in-house either way.

How much does a wash and fold service cost in Australia?

A wash, dry and fold service commonly runs around $5.50 to $8.90 per kilogram, and a self-serve laundromat load is roughly $4 to $8. At a typical five to seven kilos a load, full service sits near $30 to $60 a load once folded in.

Is it cheaper to do laundry at home?

Usually, yes, especially washing cold. About 90% of a machine's energy goes to heating water, so a cold wash costs cents in energy plus a little detergent. That is far below the per-kilo cost of a full-service wash for everyday loads.

Can I hire someone just for the laundry and nothing else?

Yes. Many Australian services offer laundry on its own, charged by the kilo or per load, separate from any broader cleaning. Weigh that recurring cost against your own time and the near-free cost of washing cold at home.

Will a laundry service wash my shoes?

Most will not, and the few that might are not set up to do it safely. Shoes need a structured bag, never a loose drum, washed cold and air dried. This is the clearest job to keep in-house with the right tool.

What should I keep doing myself even if I hire out the laundry?

Delicates and shoes. A volume service cannot give every strap and fine fabric the individual gentle care it needs, and most will not touch shoes at all. Both are worth keeping at home with a mesh bag and a structured shoe wash bag.

About the author

Catherine Spiteri is the founder of Mudroom Co. With two teenage kids, an overflowing mudroom and a washing machine running twice a day, she noticed how few quality tools existed to make busy home life easier, and to protect the things we use every day so they last.

She started Mudroom Co because, while the tools existed, she could not find any made properly for the lives people actually lead. She has thirty years in development and construction, working with global corporates on projects of every scale and complexity, and now applies that skillset to household products with proper manufacturing and quality control behind them. Mudroom Co is based in Melbourne, Australia.