The two failure modes for consumables are equally bad:
- Stockout. Guest finds an empty toilet paper roll on day 2 of a 5-night stay. One-star line in an otherwise 5-star review.
- Overstock. Closet stuffed with three years of paper towels, capital tied up, expired coffee pods, and a vague feeling the property is being run by a doomsday prepper.
Both come from running on vibes instead of math. Consumables are the easiest line item in your operation to get right, because the inputs are exact: stays per month, average party size, length of stay.
What guests actually use
Per-stay consumption rates that have held up across thousands of properties (your mileage varies a little; not as much as you’d think):
| Item | Unit | Per stay (2 guests, 3 nights) |
|---|---|---|
| Toilet paper | rolls | 2 |
| Paper towels | rolls | 0.5 |
| Tissues | boxes | 0.25 |
| Hand soap | refills (16oz) | 0.1 |
| Body wash | refills (16oz) | 0.15 |
| Shampoo | refills (16oz) | 0.15 |
| Conditioner | refills (16oz) | 0.1 |
| Dish soap | refills (16oz) | 0.1 |
| Dishwasher pods | pods | 1.5 |
| Laundry detergent | refills (50oz) | 0.05 |
| Trash bags (kitchen) | bags | 1.5 |
| Trash bags (bath) | bags | 1.5 |
| Coffee (drip) | cups | 4–8 |
| Coffee (Keurig pods) | pods | 4–6 |
| Sponges | each | 0.2 |
| Salt + pepper / spice top-up | small | varies |
Scale linearly with party size and length of stay, with a soft cap — a 6-guest 7-night stay doesn’t use 7× the dish soap of a 2-guest 3-night, because the kitchen has a usage ceiling.
Two adjustments most hosts forget:
- First-night surge for paper goods. Guests are settling in, kitchen-using, bath-using; day 1 consumption is roughly 1.5× day-3.
- Coffee is bimodal. A property near a hiking trail goes through 2× the coffee of a downtown property. Bias your stock to the use case.
The par + buffer system
Every consumable has two numbers:
- Par. The amount that should be in the property’s closet at the start of every turn.
- Buffer. The amount in your external supply (your bulk closet, your garage, your supply room) that the cleaner restocks from.
Par feeds the next stay. Buffer feeds par. When buffer drops below the reorder point, you place a bulk order.
Worked example: toilet paper
- Par per property: 12 rolls (2 baths × 6 rolls — covers a 5-night stay with margin).
- Buffer per property: 2 packs of 12 = 24 rolls.
- Reorder point: 1 pack remaining.
- Reorder quantity: 30-pack from Costco / Sam’s / Amazon Business.
- Cost per roll at bulk: $0.50–$0.70. Cost at retail emergency: $1.50+. Par-and-buffer is roughly 60% cheaper per roll over a year.
The whole system runs without thought once par and buffer are set. The mistake is to skip par (and have the cleaner guess) or to skip buffer (and order one pack at a time).
When bulk isn’t worth it
Two consumables where bulk frequently isn’t the right call:
- Branded toiletries. Trial-size shampoo bottles look generous and feel premium for one stay; they cost 5–8× per ounce vs. refillable dispensers. Dispensers also reduce single-use plastic and cleaning time. Switch to wall-mounted refillable dispensers (Aviano, Better Living, Dispenser Amenities) and bulk-buy the refills.
- Coffee. Pre-ground bagged coffee goes stale in 3–4 weeks. Buying a 5-pound bag for a single property means most of it tastes like cardboard by stay 6. Buy smaller bags more often, or use sealed pods.
How occupancy changes the math
A property at 70% occupancy (~21 nights/month) at average 3-night stays runs ~7 turns/month. A property at 50% occupancy runs ~5. The ratio is more than 7:5 in consumable terms because shorter, more frequent stays each have a “first-night surge.”
Rule of thumb: turns matter more than total nights for consumables. If you’re tracking only nights, you’re under-stocking the high-turn months.
Run the math
The restock calculator takes your booking volume, average stay length, and average party size, then outputs a monthly buy list with par + buffer for each consumable. The supply par-level sheet is the printable version your cleaner takes to the closet.
The point of the par + buffer system isn’t to be cheap. It’s to make sure the closet is always stocked, the cleaner always knows what “stocked” means, and the Costco run happens once a quarter — not every other Saturday at 9 p.m. because somebody texted that the building ran out of paper towels.