Self-service (coin) laundry in Bali vs pickup laundry service
Self-service laundries have arrived in Bali: rows of machines in Canggu, Seminyak and Denpasar where you feed a coin or scan a code and wait. For some people they are perfect. For most, the maths of time, transport and drying in humidity tips towards having the bag picked up. Here is the honest comparison.
Where the coin laundries are
Self-service laundries are a recent addition to Bali and still concentrated where the expats and nomads are: around Canggu and Berawa, along the Seminyak and Kerobokan strip, and in Denpasar where they serve students and families. In Ubud, Uluwatu, Sanur and the south there are very few. If you are not within a short scooter ride of one, the option barely exists.
They tend to be clean, air-conditioned and open long hours. Machines are commercial front loaders and gas dryers, better than most villa machines.
What a coin laundry costs, honestly
A wash is typically 25,000–40,000 IDR depending on the machine size. A dryer cycle is similar. In Bali's humidity a full load of towels or jeans often needs two dryer cycles. Add detergent (bring your own or buy a sachet) and the scooter trip.
A realistic evening: one large load washed and dried, 60,000–90,000 IDR. Two loads, because you separated whites and darks like you should, 120,000–180,000 IDR. That is still cheaper than a full-service laundry per kilogram. The question is what your evening is worth.
The time nobody counts
Self-service is sold as "an hour". It is not.
- Ride there with a bag on the scooter: 10–20 minutes.
- Wait for a free machine on a busy evening: 0–30 minutes.
- Wash: 40–60 minutes.
- Dry: 30–40 minutes, then check, then usually another 30 because the towels are still damp.
- Fold, bag, ride home: 20–30 minutes.
Two and a half to three hours is normal. If you are the sort of person who brings a laptop and works, that is fine. If you are on holiday, or you bill by the hour, it is a full evening spent in a room of machines for the sake of saving 200,000 IDR.
Ironing is not part of the deal either. What comes out of a commercial dryer is dry and creased. Linen shirts in particular come out looking slept in.
What a coin laundry does not do
A commercial machine washes well. It does not look at your clothes. Nobody checks a pocket for a pen, reads a "cold wash only" label, or notices the sunscreen mark on a collar before the hot dryer sets it. Whites and darks are separated only if you pay for two machines. Nothing is ironed. And the dryer question is yours to judge: stop one cycle early and the towels smell by Thursday; run one too many and the elastic in the swimwear is gone.
None of that is a criticism of laundromats. They are machines for rent. The care, or the lack of it, is entirely your own evening's work.
When self-service genuinely makes sense
- You have one urgent load and live next door. A wet swimsuit and a sandy towel at 9 pm, machine ten minutes away: the coin laundry is unbeatable.
- You are on a tight budget for a long stay and happy to spend a few evenings a month there.
- You want control over detergent, temperature and what goes in with what. Some people with allergies value this.
- You need a dryer for a villa that has a machine but no way to dry anything in the wet season.
In those cases, go. Separate whites from darks, use half the detergent the sachet suggests, run the dryer until things are actually dry, and fold immediately.
When pickup wins
For a week's laundry for one or two people, the comparison changes.
A pickup service sends someone to your gate, and the bag comes back the next day washed, ironed and folded. At TRAST that costs 100,000 IDR per kg, so a typical week of 4–5 kg is 400,000–500,000 IDR. The coin laundry evening for the same laundry is 120,000–180,000 IDR plus three hours plus ironing you will not do.
Beyond time, there is what happens to the clothes. A pickup laundry that inspects and sorts every item treats stains before the wash, washes delicates cool and dries them in the air, and irons with steam. At a coin laundry you do all of that yourself or it does not happen. Sunscreen on a collar goes through a hot dryer and stays forever; see the Bali stains guide.
And the drying problem is solved. Nothing comes back damp, so nothing smells musty two days later.
The decision
Live next to a laundromat, one load, no ironing needed: self-service. Everything else, especially a week's worth, sheets and towels, or anything with a care label: have it picked up. The money difference is a couple of evenings out; the time difference is a couple of evenings back.
If you searched "laundry near me" from a villa in the hills with no laundromat for ten kilometres, the answer is simpler still: our laundry near me page explains how free pickup covers every area of Bali.
Read next: hotel laundry vs street laundry vs pickup service and how much laundry costs in Bali in 2026.