# Ironing Service - How much to charge?



## Voyager

Hi,

I'm a stay at home mum of 2 and would like to boost the family's finances a bit. I was thinking of offering an ironing service. I could collect and drop off clothes or have them dropped to me and collected by the customer at an agreeable time. My only problem is that i don't have a clue what to charge. Should I charge by item/time spent/volume(e.g. bagload)?

Your thoughts and comments much appreciated.


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## laoisfan

my wife used to charge €30 euro for a large basket of laundry and would have it ready next day. if there was a little more than usual she would not charge extra.

however, the people she was doing it for started taking liberties and really increased the amount of clothes to be ironed i.e. between 2.5 - 3 large basket full.  my wife started to charge them €45 then.  they were not happy with that so my wife told them if they were not happy then they could always find an alternative.  i guess they found an alternative 

i'm not saying €30-€45 is the norm but in my experience (that of my wife's and some of her friends) this seems to be the going rate.  but again it depends on what you think you're worth 

you're worth a 100 bucks like my own wife i bet....lol....best of luck!!


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## amgd28

We have a cleaner that also does her ironing when she comes.
She cleans the whole house and also manages to iron 5-6 shirts plus a few pairs of trousers and some other tops. At 42 euro for three hours a week I think I'm getting a decent deal. I would say that the housework is harder work than ironing, so 14 per hour would be the max I would be looking to pay. Having said that I would pay the extra for the collection and drop-off if I was using your service


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## Voyager

Thanks for the replies,

You seem to be thinking along my lines. I want to be very clear about my pricing from the beginning as I don't want to set myself up for to be taken advantage of. I'm happy to provide a good service at a competitive rate so am glad of the feedback to what would be considered a reasonable rate. For example, simply saying a black bag full for €30 could lead to some customers finding the biggest black bag available and stuffing it to the brim iykwim! lol.

I also want to make it simple. I plan to target mostly families with both parents working. We were in that position until I gave up work earlier this year. I know how useful a service like this could be to some and don't want to complicate things further by asking them to count each item and calculate a rate for each, e.g. shirt v's kids t-shirt.

Thanks again for the replies and any further feedback, particularly from anyone who has used or would like to use a service like this would be very much appreciated.


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## fluffy47

One company I have used in the past (cant remember their name) do a pick up/drop off service and provide hangers and plastic sheeting (like the dry cleaners) over shirts etc... for 6euro a kilo as far as I recall. They weigh the bag before leaving your home and bring the clothes back to you two days later. It is a pricey service but a very professional service and one that I cant afford to use very often unfortunatly!

Wishing you all the best with your new venture-what part of the country will you be operating from?! I have a pile of ironing that is growing bigger and bigger every day!


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## angela59

Hi there,

I leave my bedlinen into an ironing shop to be ironed - I do rest of ironing myself.  For a super king duvet cover, super king fitted sheet, 2 king pillow slips, 2 normal pilllow slips - then 2 single duvet covers, 2 single fitted sheets, 4 single bed pillow slips - I get charged between E22 to E25.  I'm in southeast - hope this is of some value to you.  By the way if you are starting up from home a steam generator makes you fly through the ironing.   I got one in Argos last year about E100 -E125 well worth it.  Best of luck with your venture


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## elmo blatch

my tuppence is basically, figure out how much you would like to be paid an hour, say if its €15 an hour or something, figure out what weight you could iron in that hour or how many shirts etc you could do and charge accordingly.  just make sure its worth your while when you take account of distance travelled for collections etc.  Might be also worth considering provision of hangers/dust covers etc vs cost (pound shop!).  having done the maths just make sure you are getting more than the basic wage!! if you are only doing it as a nixer it'd defo be worth investing in a good steam iron and reflective ironing cover as it'll half the work load for you.  also good tip is if you have to do duvet covers etc, lay them over the ironing board while you are doin your normal load and you'll have them indirectly ironed in no time.  

Very best of luck with the venture, be delighted to see how it goes for you...

EB


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## laoisfan

angela59 said:


> Hi there,
> 
> I leave my bedlinen into an ironing shop to be ironed - I do rest of ironing myself.  For a super king duvet cover, super king fitted sheet, 2 king pillow slips, 2 normal pilllow slips - then 2 single duvet covers, 2 single fitted sheets, 4 single bed pillow slips - I get charged between E22 to E25.  I'm in southeast - hope this is of some value to you.  By the way if you are starting up from home a steam generator makes you fly through the ironing.   I got one in Argos last year about E100 -E125 well worth it.  Best of luck with your venture



just curious....

why do you do the rest of the ironing yourself but yet you leave some into a shop?  going on my experience the prices that you are being charged, €22-€25, i think you are throwing money away (just my opinion of course).

agree with the point about the steam generator, a must if you are starting up from home.


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## angela59

Hi laoisfan,

I had ironing bedlinen find it takes a lot of time and I sure hate trying to iron those fitted sheets.  In winter I change every second week, in summer ever week.  I find with two kids and activities and activities I do myself - I barely find time to iron clothes let alone bedlinen.


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## laoisfan

angela59 said:


> Hi laoisfan,
> 
> I had ironing bedlinen find it takes a lot of time and I sure hate trying to iron those fitted sheets.  In winter I change every second week, in summer ever week.  I find with two kids and activities and activities I do myself - I barely find time to iron clothes let alone bedlinen.



no worries - i was not having a go at ye - i too am married, have kid (2nd on the way) so i know trying to get everything done can be a challenge (i was going to say difficult but challenge sounds a lot better  )


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## beautfan

Have to say I find when I put my fitted sheets on the bed they are ironed enough for me - no way would I iron bedlinen, but thats just me.

I would love to get a cleaner in once a month and get her to do some ironing and going on the proces here it doesn't seem impossible..


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## Voyager

Well, thanks for all the useful advice. Glad to see that there at least seems to be a demand for my service, provided the price is right of course.

I'm pretty much ready to go. I called on my friendly dry cleaner and asked her advice. Thankfully she was very forthcoming and gave me some great advice. She's supplying me with hangers and polythene covers at cost price to help me get started. I've printed some flyers at home and will go about distributing these this weekend. I already have a great steam generator iron that hopefully will make light work of the ironing so my initial outlays have been minimal. My focus now is on generating a couple of customers. I'll be collecting, ironing and delivering back to them for a fixed price per garment (I may do an introductory discount). I'll also be able to get their dry cleaning done as my friendly advisor has offered to pay me 25% commission on all dry cleaning I bring to her.

Wish me luck. Hopefully this is the start of a profitable enterprise!


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## lukegriffen

If you live near any offices, it would be worth dropping a few flyers in there, especially if you can offer an ironing & dry-cleaning service.


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## fluffy47

Best of luck with your new venture Voyager-just a note-the ironing company that I mentioned using once provided the hangers but also requests that you return them with the next batch of ironing that you get done. That way you might not have to replace as many as you might think. Just a thought!

Any chance youre in North Kildare?????!


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## Marie

Voyager said:


> Well, thanks for all the useful advice. Glad to see that there at least seems to be a demand for my service, provided the price is right of course.
> 
> I'm pretty much ready to go. I called on my friendly dry cleaner and asked her advice. Thankfully she was very forthcoming and gave me some great advice. She's supplying me with hangers and polythene covers at cost price to help me get started. I've printed some flyers at home and will go about distributing these this weekend. I already have a great steam generator iron that hopefully will make light work of the ironing so my initial outlays have been minimal. My focus now is on generating a couple of customers. I'll be collecting, ironing and delivering back to them for a fixed price per garment (I may do an introductory discount). I'll also be able to get their dry cleaning done as my friendly advisor has offered to pay me 25% commission on all dry cleaning I bring to her.
> 
> Wish me luck. Hopefully this is the start of a profitable enterprise!


 
You are about to run a service which you advertise and charge for.  What you can charge will obviously depend on the market for your service and what people feel having their ironing done by someone else is worth.

Some things you need to keep in mind are that as this is income you are required to declare it to the Inland Revenue if it reaches a specified upper limit.  You will be using your home as a business-base.  You should examine your insurance documents to see how this affects your policy.  If - for example - your house goes up in flames because of an overloaded electrical circuit due to an iron/two tellies/p.c./washing-machine/central heating all going at once, destroying the Egyptian cotton bed-linen of four customers, total replacement value of E4,000, you will be in a fix if you're not covered.

Last - but not least - the disposable clothes-hangers and plastic coverings you plan to use are not only expensive and reducing your profit, but are environmentally damaging in the resources they require for production and disposal.  Given the targets for waste-reduction Ireland is expected to meet in the next decade you might want to dispense with these altogether or supply ecologically-sound, re-usable containers and wrapping.


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## Sheila123

Hi,

I am just wondering how your ironing service worked out. I have just been made redundant and I am thinking of starting up a similar service locally.  How did you do your pricing when you eventually got started and did it work out for you. I would really like to get started but got one 'bag' already and it weighed 13 kilos and as I had priced it @ €20 per 'bag' had to take the hit but it took me over 2 hours to do!!


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## ophelia

If I was doing this I would make up my own cotton laundry bags - Therefore controlling the amount of clothes that would fit in any old bag. The bag would be a little bigger than a pillow case maybe.  I would supply good quality hangers initially, on the basis that they were returned - otherwise I would add on a charge for lost hangers. E 30 for a bag seems about right.


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## caspermoo

Hi Sheila,
Good luck to you in your new venture. I'd say there'll be a good demand for your service.
My cleaner has always done my week's ironing but as we're having building done at the moment, she's now taking my ironing away to do. My ironing is shirts and trousers, no bed linen (life's too short!!). She wouldn't suggest a price so I ironed a shirt myself and timed it - it took less than 5 minutes so I figured if I pay €1 per item, that more than covers her hourly cleaning rate. I provide my own hangers cos I have all wooden hangers and wouldn't want to have to transfer clothes onto my own hangers. She cleans my neighbour's house too so she brings my ironing back the following week.
Best of luck, I hope you're very successful.
CM


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## AgathaC

Best of luck, I hope that your new venture will be successful. Have a look at small ads in your area, if there is a local newsletter or on noticeboards in local shops. This might help in deciding on a price. A friend of mine uses an ironing service and is provided with a bag, the bag is weighed on collection and the ironing is charged per kilo. There is no additional charge for collection and delivery. She is based in Kildare. Hope this helps, and once again, best of luck.


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## suemoo1

i do ironing also to try and make ends meet as only working partime.. if you like to pm i can advise what i charge. best of luck


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## Pope John 11

suemoo1 said:


> i do ironing also to try and make ends meet as only working partime.. if you like to pm i can advise what i charge. best of luck


Suemoo1, its no big deal to put it on display for everyone on AAM to see


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## mcaul

A lot of people hate ironing and it can take a lot of time up that can be spent doing more leisurely things (I work 10-12 hrs a day)

So its a service that is always in demand, even in slower times. 

I currently use a service in edenderry because the prices are excellent - its about 30 minutes drive, but we do our shopping there too and drop into friends enroute.

Their price works out an average of €1 per shirt which is excellent value and they always seem to have rows of shirts hanging.


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## Anne Therese

What's the current rate for domestic cleaners in Dublin? I am just about to hire one.


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## homebird

We get 20 items (always shirts for us) done for 30 E in Dublin 15. Its a dry cleaners. Looking enviously at the prices in Edenderry!


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## Annie81

Hi, Im very new to this and was hoping to get some advice and help. I am also starting an ironing service to make extra cash. I'm not really sure about what prices etc and from reading the forum I didnt take at all into consideration about the size of bags that people may have.
I would be really grateful if someone could tell me how they started, prices, bag size's etc. Thank you!


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## Sandals

Interesting concept, found these websites, [broken link removed] [broken link removed] http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=576177 http://www.extraincomeadvice.co.uk/start-ironing-service-from-home.html which may be of help.


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## Annie81

Thanks for the websites, all help is welcomed and appreciated!!


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