What If Your Best Marketing Day Was the Day You Charged Nothing?

By Tam Goldsmith

LaundroLab franchisees washed around 85,768 pounds of laundry free for local families.

LaundroLab makes money when people use its washing machines. On National Laundry Day, franchisees across the US opened those machines to families for free. Tam Goldsmith looks at why the idea works for the community and the local operator.

Most companies looking to do something for their community start by choosing a charity. LaundroLab started with washing machines. On National Laundry Day this April, 18 LaundroLab locations across the US offered free washing and drying to local families. The company says around 85,768 pounds of laundry went through its machines during the campaign, with some events also providing detergent, children's books and food.

It is an unusually practical way for a franchise to help because laundry does not disappear when money is tight. Children still need clean clothes for school and adults need them for work. For families watching every dollar, a few free loads of washing can take care of an expense they would otherwise have to find the money for.

The Washing Machines Are the Donation

LaundroLab could have asked its franchisees to raise money for a national charity. Instead, it uses something every location already has. For the franchisee, free laundry is not actually free because the machines are occupied, water and electricity are being used and employees are working. On a normal day, those same machines would be taking money from customers.

That makes the contribution easy for everyone to understand. The franchisee knows what it costs, while the family receiving the help gets something they can use immediately. The programme has grown as LaundroLab has expanded, with the company saying 18 locations took part in the 2026 National Laundry Day campaign compared with 15 the previous year.

Give the Children Something to Do Too

Anyone who has taken children to a laundromat knows that waiting for clothes to wash and dry can be a long afternoon. LaundroLab stores include Family Read, Play & Learn areas developed with LaundryCares, providing books and activities for children while their parents get on with the washing. Children's books have also been handed out during the free laundry events.

It is a sensible addition because families can spend a fair amount of time in a laundromat, and parents often have children with them. Making that time easier gives people another reason to prefer one store over another and makes the free laundry days more useful for the whole family.

Some of Those Families Will Come Back

There is a business benefit to a free laundry day, and LaundroLab does not need to pretend otherwise. People who have never visited the store get to try it, use the machines, meet the staff and see whether the place is clean and comfortable. Some of them will need to do laundry again the following week and may decide to return as paying customers.

LaundroLab includes Free Laundry Day among the marketing support available to franchisees, including around new store openings. The company clearly sees community events as a way to introduce a location to the neighbourhood as well as help people. The family still gets its washing done without paying, while the franchisee gets the chance to show a potential customer what the business is like.

Laundromats Depend on Local Customers

LaundroLab grew out of 2ULaundry, the Charlotte laundry pickup and delivery company founded in 2016. The first physical laundromat opened in 2018, with franchising following later. The company now says it has around 30 franchise laundromats across 15 states.

The stores have staff, lounge areas, children's spaces, surveillance and digital payment technology, with the aim of making them somewhere customers are comfortable spending the time it takes to get several loads of washing done. That matters because laundromats are intensely local businesses. People generally do not drive across a city every week to wash their clothes if there is a good option close to home, so franchisees have a strong reason to become known by people living nearby.

Free laundry days put operators directly in front of those people and give stores a reason to work with local organisations that already know which families could use some help. For a business that depends heavily on repeat customers from the surrounding neighbourhood, those relationships can matter long after the free event has finished.

Other Franchise Brands Could Do the Same

There is a useful idea here for franchise brands that want to do more locally. Before choosing another national fundraising campaign, they could look at what the business already sells and whether that service could help somebody nearby.

A tutoring franchise could provide lessons to children whose families cannot afford them, while a gym could run free exercise sessions for people who would not normally join. Home-services franchisees could give some of their time to repairs for elderly or vulnerable residents, and pet-care businesses could work with local shelters using the facilities and skills they already have.

For LaundroLab, the answer is opening the washing machines. It costs the franchisee something, helps families with a job that genuinely needs doing and brings local people into the business. For a laundromat trying to become part of its neighbourhood, that is a pretty good use of the equipment already sitting on the floor.

What We Can Learn From This

Franchisors planning community programmes should look first at what their franchisees already sell and who nearby might need it. That gives local operators a straightforward way to help without creating an entirely separate charity programme, while also introducing the business to potential future customers. LaundroLab's approach works because the idea is easy for franchisees and customers to understand: people need clean clothes, and its franchisees have washing machines.

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