How Much Bulk Shampoo Does a Hotel Need?

A hotel needs occupied room-nights × millilitres used per night, for each product, plus a small allowance for spillage. Room count on its own tells you very little. A 120-key hotel at 70% occupancy burns through bulk liquid at the rate of 84 full rooms, not 120.

That’s the whole method. The rest of this guide is how to get the inputs right, how to turn litres into jugs and dispenser refills, and how to avoid the two mistakes that leave a storeroom either empty or full of the wrong size.

We make the bulk liquids and the wall dispensers they feed, so this is the sizing conversation we have with buyers before a quote.

The formula

Monthly litres per product = keys × occupancy × 30 × ml per room-night ÷ 1,000 × (1 + allowance)

Run it once per product. Shampoo, conditioner and body wash won’t draw the same, so don’t reuse one number for all three.

Buying tip: size on your busiest quarter, not the annual average. Averages hide the month you run out.

A worked example (with placeholder numbers)

We don’t publish a per-guest millilitre figure, because it moves with the formula’s thickness, the pump’s dose per press, hair length and length of stay. So the inputs below are placeholders. Swap in your own.

Assume: 120 keys, 70% occupancy, 30-day month, 20 ml per occupied room-night per product (a placeholder, not a UMYAN figure), 10% allowance.

1. Occupied room-nights: 120 × 0.7 × 30 = 2,520
2. Per product: 2,520 × 20 ml = 50,400 ml = 50.4 L
3. With 10% allowance: about 55.4 L per product per month
4. In 5L jugs: roughly 11 jugs per product, so about 33 jugs a month across shampoo, conditioner and body wash

The same 55.4 L is about 15 jugs per product if you buy 3.78L. Same liquid, more handling.

How to measure your real ml per room-night

Don’t trust a supplier’s average, ours included. A fortnight of measuring gives you a number that is actually yours:

1. Pick 10 occupied rooms that represent your mix: single-night and longer stays, different floors.
2. Fill each chamber to the line and note the volume.
3. After 14 days, measure what’s left and count the occupied room-nights each room had.
4. Divide: (ml used) ÷ (occupied room-nights). Average across the rooms.

Short-stay properties will read higher per night, because most shampoo gets used on arrival. A resort with week-long stays will read lower. That’s exactly why a borrowed average goes wrong.

Which refill size: 1L, 3.78L or 5L?

Bulk comes in 1L, 3.78L and 5L. The 3.78L is the US gallon. The right size is mostly about how the jug divides into your dispenser chambers, because a half-used jug left on a trolley is where spills and mix-ups happen.

Our wall dispensers come in 300, 380, 400 and 500 ml chambers. Here’s how many chambers one jug fills:

Two things worth noticing. A 5L jug fills ten 500 ml chambers with nothing left over, and a 1L jug fills exactly two. If you run 500 ml units, those sizes tidy up the routine.

On weight: a full 5L jug is roughly 5 kg. Fine on a trolley; harder if your housekeepers carry it up stairs. Small properties and spas often do better with 1L, even though 5L is cheaper per litre of handling for a larger hotel.

How often will housekeeping refill the dispensers?

This is the number that changes labour, and it comes from chamber size, not jug size:

Calendar days per refill = chamber ml ÷ ml per room-night ÷ occupancy

Using the same placeholders (20 ml, 70% occupancy), refilling each chamber when it runs low:

The refill counts assume 120 rooms with three chambers each, so 360 chambers.

That’s roughly 17 refills a day against 10, or about 200 fewer refill visits a month. It’s why we’d steer a busy 120-key hotel toward 500 ml, and a small low-occupancy property toward 300 ml.

For lower-touch refilling, the magnetic dispenser has removable bottles you can take back-of-house to refill, rather than pouring in the guest bathroom.

When to reorder

Bulk is made to order, so your reorder point has to cover the wait. The same logic as in our par levels guide applies:

Par level = monthly litres × (lead time in months + safety buffer)

Our standard production time is 25 working days from deposit, about 1.2 months, and that covers production only. Shipping to you is on top. See what drives lead time.

Carrying on the example, and assuming one month of transit and a half-month buffer: 166 L a month × (1.2 + 1 + 0.5) ≈ 450 L, or about 90 jugs of 5L. Check your own transit time with your forwarder, because it varies by destination.

Mistakes buyers make

1. Sizing on room count. A hotel at 60% occupancy that orders per key holds roughly 1.6× what it needs.
2. Using one average for every product. Shampoo, conditioner and body wash draw differently. Calculate each.
3. Skipping the measured number. A vendor’s “per guest” figure is for their average guest, not yours.
4. Planning for the annual average. Your peak quarter sets the par level.
5. Changing the formula when you switch to bulk. Keep the formula and fragrance the same in the jug as in your bottles, so guests see less plastic and not a different product. If you’re writing the spec, what to put in a toiletry formula spec covers it, and if the current product is being replaced, how to match a replacement shampoo or bath gel covers that.
6. Branding the jug. It lives in a storeroom and nobody sees it. Your logo earns more on the dispenser and in the scent than on a back-of-house container.

What this means for your first order

Custom-branded production starts at 5,000 units per item, per reference, with free design and sampling beforehand. Stock lines and 1L–5L bulk liquids ship in smaller quantities.

Do the sum before you decide. In the example above, one hotel uses about 11 jugs of 5L per product per month, so roughly 130 a year. A 5,000-unit run of a single branded reference would be decades of supply for one property. Single properties usually do better with stock-line bulk, or by pooling one order across a group.

Request a quote with your room count, occupancy and chamber size, and we’ll size the bulk against it. If you’re still choosing between formats, start with refillable dispensers vs bottles, and for the hardware side see hotel soap dispensers.

Frequently asked questions

How much shampoo does a hotel use per guest? It depends on the formula’s thickness, the pump’s dose per press, hair length and length of stay, so there’s no honest single figure. Measure a sample of occupied rooms over two weeks and use your own number. The worked example uses 20 ml per occupied room-night as a placeholder.

How many 5L refills does a hotel need per month? Occupied room-nights × ml per night ÷ 5,000, per product. For a 120-key hotel at 70% occupancy and a placeholder 20 ml, that’s roughly 11 jugs per product per month with a 10% allowance.

Should I order bulk by room count or occupied nights? Occupied nights. Room count overstates need whenever occupancy is below 100%, which is nearly always.

How often do hotel shower dispensers need refilling? Chamber ml ÷ ml per room-night ÷ occupancy gives the days between refills. On the placeholder numbers, a 500 ml chamber lasts about 36 days and a 300 ml chamber about 21.

Which bulk size is best, 1L, 3.78L or 5L? Match it to your chambers. A 5L jug fills ten 500 ml chambers exactly. Small properties and spas often prefer 1L for weight. The 3.78L is the US gallon.

Can the bulk liquid match the shampoo in our bottles? Yes. We make the bulk in the same formula and fragrance as the bottles, so moving to refillable changes the packaging, not the product.

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Planning a switch to refillable and want the quantities checked? Send your keys, occupancy and the dispenser you have in mind and we’ll size the order. Browse dispensers and bulk liquids or get in touch.