We get one question more than any other from prospective franchise partners: does this actually work? The honest answer is, it works at a specific scale, in a specific kind of neighbourhood, with a specific operator. Outside that envelope, it does not. This post is a careful walk through the envelope.
Setup capex is roughly ₹14 lakh — eight industrial washers, four dryers, finishing line, conveyor, fit-out, and three months of working capital. We have negotiated equipment pricing centrally, so a partner pays roughly 15% less than going direct.
At month 18, a typical hub serves around 1,800 active homes plus a small B2B contract or two. Revenue lands at ₹6.2 lakh / month. Variable costs — chemistry, energy, packaging, drivers — run 38%. Fixed costs — rent, salaries, software (free to franchisees), platform fees — run 40%. Net margin sits at 22%, or roughly ₹1.4 lakh / month.
Payback range is 10–14 months in our 42 live hubs. The fastest paybacks are in dense apartment clusters with one premium B2B contract. The slowest are in low-density independent-house areas where pickup density is not there. We pre-screen for this — not every neighbourhood gets a hub.
What does not work: trying to run a hub part-time. Hubs that fail in our network are universally hubs where the owner-operator was absent in months 1–6. The numbers above assume a full-time operator on the floor.