What does a room turn actually cost you?
Most operators know their wage bill and their room count. Far fewer can say what one departure clean costs, or how far the hours they pay drift from the hours the work should take. Put your own numbers in below.
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Your numbers, your cost per room.
Change anything on the left and every figure on the right moves with it.
Hours allowed against hours paid
The allowance is the rooms you did, at your own standard minutes, plus the paid breaks.Where the time goes
One day, at your standard minutes.| Work | Hours | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Departure cleans | — | — |
| Stay-over services | — | — |
| Paid breaks | — | — |
| Total allowance | — | — |
No clever maths, and nothing hidden.
The allowance for a day is your departures at your departure minutes, plus your stay-overs at your stay-over minutes, plus one paid break per housekeeper on shift. That total, at your hourly rate with employer on-costs added, is what the day should cost in wages.
The cost per room turn spreads the breaks across every room done, which is why it comes out a little above the bare per-room figure in the tiles. Both are useful: the tile number is what an extra room costs you at the margin, the headline number is what a room costs once you have paid for the shift around it.
What it leaves out: laundry and linen, amenities and chemicals, equipment, supervisor and manager time, recruitment, and the cost of a room going back out for a re-clean. In our own properties, wages are roughly two thirds of the true cost of housekeeping. Treat this as the floor, not the whole number.
The annual figures assume every day looks like the one you entered, which no year does. They are there to show the scale of a small daily gap, not to be put in a budget.
What people ask about these numbers.
How many minutes should a departure clean take?
Most standard rooms sit between 25 and 35 minutes for a departure, and 12 to 18 for a stay-over service. Suites, family rooms and anything with a kitchen run longer. The number that matters is not the industry average but your own — time the same room type across a week and use the middle of that range.
What does it cost to clean a hotel room?
In wages alone, a 30-minute departure costs half of one loaded hour — the pay rate plus whatever your employer on-costs add. That second part is what moves the answer between countries: employer social charges are far heavier in France, for instance, than in the UK or Ireland, so the same hourly pay buys a more expensive room turn. Put your own on-cost percentage in above. Once laundry, amenities and supervision are counted, the full cost of a turn is usually half again as much.
Does this include laundry and cleaning supplies?
No — housekeeping wages only, including employer on-costs and paid breaks. Everything else is on top.
Why is there a gap between the hours I allow and the hours I pay?
Usually three things at once: rooms that ran over standard, time between rooms that nobody measures, and paid time at each end of the shift before the first room and after the last. A gap is normal. A gap that grows, or one nobody can explain, is the one to look at.
Is a bigger variance always bad?
No. A heavy arrivals day, a run of rooms left in poor condition, or a new starter being shown the ropes will all push hours over, and all of them are legitimate. The point of the number is to turn a month-end surprise into a question you can ask on the day.
Getting them without a clipboard.
Everything above depends on knowing your real minutes per room and your real hours paid. Most operators are estimating both. BedsReady records them as the work happens — the housekeeper taps start and finish, and the gap between allowance and clocked time arrives on Monday morning without anyone building a spreadsheet.
Stop estimating these numbers.
We're opening BedsReady to a small number of operators outside our own group. Leave your details and we'll be in touch with a date and a price before anyone else sees it. No obligation, and we won't pass your details on.
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