Dry Cleaning Prices UK: What It Really Costs

Dry cleaning prices in the UK: the real-world range

Ever wondered what you are really paying for dry cleaning prices in the UK? In practice, garment care starts at about £2.45 to press a shirt and climbs to roughly £30 for a large blanket or a complicated alteration. Most everyday items land somewhere between £5 and £15. The figures below are current published rates from one real UK cleaner, so you can see what the numbers actually look like rather than a vague national average.

The single biggest thing that changes your bill is not which shop you walk into. It is which service you ask for.

The same shirt, three different prices

Take an ordinary work shirt. Sent for solvent dry cleaning it is £7.20. Washed and professionally pressed it is £2.90. Pressed only, because it is already clean and just creased from the wardrobe, it is £2.45. That is the same garment, the same shop, and a difference of nearly three times.

This is where most people overspend. Dry cleaning uses solvent instead of water and exists for things that cannot go in a machine: structured tailoring, delicate trims, anything labelled do not wash. If your shirt is simply dirty, you do not need it.

What dry cleaning costs per item

Solvent cleaning is priced per garment and scales with how much structure and finishing the item needs. A T-shirt is £5.50 and a tie £6.90 at the light end. A normal shirt is £7.20, trousers £7.50, and a jumper or cardigan £8.50. A jacket or blazer on its own is £9.50, an overcoat or raincoat £13.90.

Suits are counted as one item, not two. A two piece is £14.50 and a three piece £18.90. That matters, because cleaning the jacket at £9.50 and the trousers at £7.50 separately would come to £17.00. Booking them together is both cheaper and better for the suit, since cleaning the two halves at different rates slowly drifts their colour apart. At the top of the list, an evening or long dress is £28.50, reflecting the hand finishing that kind of garment needs.

Wash and press, the cheaper route for washable clothes

If an item can safely go through water, wash and press is the sensible choice. The garment is laundered, dried and then finished properly, and you pay a fraction of the solvent price. A normal shirt is £2.90 and a delicate one £4.90. Trousers are £6.00, a skirt or blouse £6.90, a jumper or cardigan £7.00, and a jacket or blazer £7.50. A two piece suit done this way is £11.90 rather than £14.50.

Pressing only is cheaper again, because no cleaning happens at all. A normal shirt is £2.45, trousers £5.00, a jacket or blazer £6.50, and a two piece suit £9.90. Worth remembering the next time something comes out of storage looking crumpled rather than dirty. Our guide to UK ironing prices goes through this category in more detail.

Bedding and household textiles

Bulky items cost more because of drying time and handling, not because anyone is being greedy. Here the choice of service matters even more than it does with clothes. Dry cleaned, a pillow case is £2.90, a double bed sheet £8.90 and a double duvet cover £14.90, rising to £24.90 if it is delicate. Washed and pressed instead, the same three are £1.90, £6.50 and £12.90, which is what most washable cotton bedding actually needs.

Some things genuinely do need the solvent treatment. A duvet itself is a bigger job at £23.90 for a double, rising to £27.90 for a delicate one, and blankets run from £20.00 for a small one to £30.00 for a large. If the label allows washing, check the wash and press price before you default to dry cleaning.

For everyday laundry there is the service wash, priced by load rather than by item: £14.90 for a small load, £19.90 for a medium and £29.90 for a large. Washing, drying and folding are included; ironing normally is not. If you are comparing quotes, make sure you are comparing per item against per item, not per item against per load.

Alterations sit on the same price list

Repairs and tailoring are not cleaning charges, but they usually appear on the same list, so it helps to know roughly what to expect. A new button is £5.00 and re-hemming both trouser legs £10.00. Shortening trousers is £12.00, a new trousers zip or tapering the legs £15.00, and a new jacket zip £20.00. Shortening a dress is £25.00, and shortening sleeves from the shoulder, which is the fiddliest of the lot, is £30.00.

Why dry cleaning prices vary between cleaners

Two shops on the same high street can quote noticeably different figures, and the reasons are usually mundane rather than sinister.

Rent and location matter, and so does whether the shop cleans on site or sends work out to a wholesale plant. Sending work out is cheaper to run and often cheaper for you, but it adds a day and takes the work out of the shop’s own hands. The solvent and machinery make a difference too, as does whether pressing is done by hand or by machine. Hand finishing takes longer and costs more, and on a structured jacket you can see the difference.

Then there is what sits around the price. Express turnaround usually carries a surcharge. Collection and delivery may be included or billed separately. Some cleaners set a minimum order. And counting rules vary: one shop prices a two piece suit as a single item, another charges for a jacket and a pair of trousers.

Be a little wary of a headline price that is far below everything around it, because something is usually paying for it, whether that is work sent out or finishing done quickly. Equally, a high price is not proof of care on its own. The useful question is not who is cheapest, it is what is included and how the items are counted. Start with the cleaner’s published list, for example the North Finchley price list or the Notting Hill price list.

Total up your own basket before you book

The quickest sanity check is to price your actual pile rather than a hypothetical one. Say you have five work shirts that only need pressing, a two piece suit that genuinely needs cleaning, and a double duvet cover.

• Five shirts pressed at £2.45 each: £12.25
• One two piece suit dry cleaned: £14.50
• One double duvet cover washed and pressed: £12.90

That comes to £39.65. Had you sent all five shirts for dry cleaning at £7.20 instead of pressing them, the same basket would be £63.40. Same clothes, £23.75 difference, purely from picking the right service.

Where these figures come from

These are the current published rates at Glint Express, whose two London branches are in North Finchley and Notting Hill. Dry cleaning, wash and press, pressing, service wash and alterations are charged the same at both. Self-service laundrette rates are the one thing that differs between the two sites, so check the branch list if that is what you need. Turnaround is typically 24 to 48 hours.

Prices elsewhere in the UK will differ, sometimes considerably, and these figures are one real published example rather than a national average. For branch level detail see our guides to dry cleaning prices in North Finchley and dry cleaning prices in Notting Hill, or the full lists on the North Finchley and Notting Hill pricing pages. If it is specifically a suit you are pricing, our guide to suit dry cleaning costs covers that in full.

FAQs about dry cleaning prices

How much does dry cleaning cost per item in the UK?

Most garments fall between about £5.50 and £18.90. Light items such as a T-shirt start around £5.50, a shirt is roughly £7.20, and a three piece suit around £18.90. Evening and long dresses sit above that at about £28.50.

Is it cheaper to wash and press a shirt than dry clean it?

Considerably. A normal shirt is £2.90 washed and pressed against £7.20 dry cleaned, and £2.45 if it only needs pressing. Unless the label says otherwise, most shirts do not need solvent cleaning.

Do dry cleaners charge per item or per load?

Garment cleaning is almost always per item. Service washes are priced per load, from £14.90 for a small one. Check which you are being quoted before you compare two cleaners.

Is it cheaper to clean a suit as one item or as separates?

As one item. A two piece suit is £14.50, whereas a jacket at £9.50 plus trousers at £7.50 comes to £17.00. Cleaning the pieces together also keeps their colour matched, since repeated cleaning gradually lightens fabric.

How long does dry cleaning usually take?

Typically 24 to 48 hours. Express services are often available for an extra charge.

The short version

Separate the services before you compare the shops. Solvent cleaning for things that cannot be washed, wash and press for things that can, pressing only for things that are clean but creased, and a service wash for everyday loads. Get that right and you will usually spend less at any cleaner, whichever one you pick.

If you are not sure which service an item needs, ask before you drop it off. It is a thirty second conversation that regularly saves people a few pounds per garment.