Diagnostic — bathroom guest amenities
Not the price per bottle: the cost per occupied room, labour and waste included. Tick what you put in the room and the calculation runs on screen. Your figures are never sent anywhere, and there is nothing to hand over in exchange for the result.
Properties that move from single-dose to refillable often see 30 to 50% off their annual budget. That is a benchmark observed elsewhere, not a promise: your result below is worked out on your own figures, and it may well say the opposite.
Tick at least one product to run the calculation.
—
—
—
| Assumption | Other format / year | Gap | Gap % |
|---|
Your results are already complete on screen — the PDF repeats the same calculation, assumptions included, so you can circulate it internally.
Nothing to hand over: no email address, no form. Your figures never leave your browser, printing included.
In French 4- and 5-star hotels, the bathroom guest amenity budget most often sits between €0.40 and €1.40 excl. VAT per occupied room, labour included. Three things account for the spread: the format (single-dose or refillable), how many products go into the room, and the average length of stay — a one-night stay consumes a full set, a four-night stay rarely consumes four.
The price per bottle tells you almost nothing about that cost. A property that replaces a full set on every arrival pays four times what a property that refills pays, at an identical purchase price.
Once the gap is worked out, two things follow: compare suppliers on checkable facts with the comparison grid, and get the result onto one page for management with the internal business case.
The ranges below are French upscale (certified products, French manufacture). The entry level goes well below them, single-dose in particular.
| Product | 5 L refill | Which is € / L | Single-dose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shampoo | €39–41 | €7.80–8.20 | €0.20–0.30 |
| Conditioner | €70 | €14.00 | €0.25–0.35 |
| Shower gel / body wash | €39–41 | €7.80–8.20 | €0.20–0.30 |
| Body & hand lotion | €70 | €14.00 | €0.25–0.35 |
| Hand wash | €41 | €8.20 | €0.20–0.25 |
| Bar soap | — | — | €0.70 (30 g) |
| Bottle holder | — | — | €9 single · €16 triple · €15 anti-theft |
A point often missed: conditioner or body lotion costs close to double what shower gel does per litre (€14 against €8). What is in the set therefore weighs as much as the format. A four-product set works out at around €11 excl. VAT per litre on a weighted average; a bathroom limited to shampoo and shower gel comes down towards €8 / L.
The single-dose ranges above are for the standard hotel format. Premium miniatures meant as VIP gifts sit well above them — from €0.65 for a 30 ml to €1.10 for a 40 ml — and do not compare on the same use.
Annual cost excl. VAT for a four-product set in the room (shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, lotion), at 70% occupancy and a 1.8-night average stay, labour included.
| Rooms | Room nights / year | Single-dose | Refillable | Annual gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 rooms | 5,110 | €4,370 | €2,035 | €2,340 |
| 30 rooms | 7,665 | €6,560 | €3,055 | €3,505 |
| 50 rooms | 12,775 | €10,930 | €5,090 | €5,840 |
| 80 rooms | 20,440 | €17,490 | €8,140 | €9,350 |
| 100 rooms | 25,550 | €21,860 | €10,175 | €11,685 |
| 150 rooms | 38,325 | €32,790 | €15,265 | €17,525 |
| 200 rooms | 51,100 | €43,720 | €20,350 | €23,370 |
| 300 rooms | 76,650 | €65,580 | €30,525 | €35,055 |
| 500 rooms | 127,750 | €109,300 | €50,875 | €58,420 |
On these assumptions the cost comes out at €0.86 excl. VAT per occupied room single-dose against €0.40 refillable. The gap in percentage terms does not depend on size: a 20-room and a 500-room property save the same proportion. Only the absolute amount changes — and with it how much the subject is worth your time.
This is the variable that decides it, far more than size. Single-dose is handed out per arrival; refillable is consumed per night. The longer stays get, the more competitive single-dose becomes.
| Average stay | Single-dose | Refillable | Annual gap | Gap % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 night | €27,480 | €8,140 | €19,340 | 70% |
| 2 nights | €16,240 | €8,140 | €8,100 | 50% |
| 3 nights | €12,490 | €8,140 | €4,350 | 35% |
| 5 nights | €9,495 | €8,140 | €1,355 | 14% |
| 7 nights | €8,210 | €8,140 | €70 | 1% |
Read straight off: a city hotel at a one-night average stay has everything to gain from moving to refillable; a resort at seven nights has no budget argument left at all. On long stays the decision turns on guest experience and waste, not on budget. It is also why a single savings figure quoted by a supplier means nothing without the length of stay that goes with it.
Not yet, anywhere in the EU-27: no national law in force bans them today. Regulation (EU) 2025/40 does stop the placing on the market from 1 January 2030, whatever the packaging is made of — card and paper do not take it out of scope. The 2026 and 2027 dates in circulation come from a French private member's bill that was never adopted.
None of that changes the calculation above, which stands as it is. It does set a horizon: see what the text says, with its sources →
Refillable is generally cheaper per occupied room, because you only buy the volume actually consumed. With single-dose, a 30 ml bottle used a third of the way through and then thrown out at check-out is product bought and lost two-thirds over. Refillable removes that loss, at the price of capital in holders and refill time in housekeeping.
The comparison tips the other way when single-dose is bought very cheaply, when stays are long, or when the set contains a lot of products that are expensive per litre.
A 30 to 50% saving on the annual budget is an order of magnitude regularly observed at properties that switch, but it is not a constant. The real saving depends on what single-dose currently costs you, on average length of stay, and on the volume actually consumed per night.
At properties that already negotiate single-dose well and run long stays, the gap can fall to a few points, or reverse.
Three lines never appear on the supplier invoice: product bought and then thrown away unused, the daily time spent laying it out in the room, and the volume of plastic waste to be dealt with. At an 80-room property at 70% occupancy, the discarded product alone runs to hundreds of litres a year.
The up-front capital is in the holders, not the bottles: the 500 ml bottle arrives full with the first order and is already in the product price. Budget €5 to €15 per bottle depending on the bracket — single, triple, or anti-theft. For a room fitted with three bottles, that is between €16 and €45 per room, usually amortised over three years.
That amortisation closes before 1 January 2030, the date on which placing single-dose on the market stops across the EU. Capital committed today therefore runs over a period entirely covered: there is no residual value exposed to a change of rule. The reverse reasoning is worth putting to any multi-year contract signed on single-dose.
No. The refillable-against-single-dose question only arises on the liquids. A 30 g small bar soap costs around €0.70 excl. VAT and has no refillable equivalent; it compares to other welcome gestures, not to a bottle.
One point that is regulatory rather than economic: bar soap in an individual sachet is named in the EU text taking effect in 2030 (“sachets around bar soap”), whereas soap presented with no disposable packaging falls outside it by construction. Bar soap is therefore not a way out in itself — the absence of packaging is. See bar soap vs liquid →
Not on its own. Changing only the cosmetic in an otherwise identical room will not support a rate increase. A different range in the suites or for VIP guests, though, or an extra product in high season, does help justify a price gap already carried by the rest of the offer.
What that gap actually costs, category by category: range by room type →
Cost is only one of the questions to ask. The other seven are about fit, the supplier, certification and the exit cost. Take the eight-question diagnostic →
The calculator compares two formats on the same service delivered: the same number of products in the room, the same volume actually consumed by the guest. For each format it adds product cost, labour cost and, for refillable, the amortisation of the holders.
Last updated: