Paper Towels vs Hand Dryers for a Business Restroom: Cost Per Dry, Payback, and the Two Things the Dryer Brochure Leaves Out

The short answer: on energy alone a modern high-speed hand dryer costs a fraction of a cent per dry and paper towels cost about a cent, so the dryer wins on running cost; what decides the purchase is the installed price, the traffic through the restroom, and the two things the dryer brochure does not mention. This post works the numbers from primary sources only: the manufacturer’s own spec sheet for energy per dry, the US Energy Information Administration for Florida electricity prices, and published case counts for towels. Every dollar figure for towels is an example you should replace with your own invoice, and BNRS sells the towels and dispensers, not the dryers, so read the recommendation with that in mind.

What the dryer spec sheet actually says

Excel Dryer’s XLERATOR product sheet, dated May 2026, states an 8-second dry time and 3.7 watt-hours of energy per use, with a footnote that both figures were measured by SGS International on the standard 0.8-inch nozzle to 0.25 grams or less of residual moisture, under the UL Environment product category rules for hand dryers. The same sheet lists the unit at 1,213 to 1,450 watts on 110 to 120 volts, drawing 11.3 to 12.2 amps, which is why installation normally means an electrician and a dedicated circuit rather than a plug. The optional noise-reduction nozzle adds about 3 seconds to the dry, and heat can be set to high, medium, low or off; heat off drops the draw to roughly 500 watts. The sheet also carries a 7-year limited warranty and a headline claim of 95 percent cost savings versus paper towels. The number to keep is 3.7 watt-hours, because it lets you price a dry in your own building.

The electricity cost per dry, priced for Florida

EIA’s Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A, puts the average commercial price of electricity in Florida at 11.47 cents per kilowatt-hour for June 2026, against a US commercial average of 14.19 cents. Multiply: 3.7 watt-hours is 0.0037 kilowatt-hours, and 0.0037 times 11.47 cents is 0.042 cents per dry. Ten thousand dries cost about 4.24 dollars in electricity; a hundred thousand cost about 42 dollars. If your dryer is an older heated model with a 30-second cycle at 2,300 watts, the same arithmetic gives about 19 watt-hours and 0.22 cents per dry, five times the XLERATOR figure but still well under a cent. Standby draw is not on the spec sheet and is small, but a dryer with a sensor is never fully off; add a few dollars a year for it.

The paper towel cost per dry, from case counts

Paper is priced by the case and used by the towel, so the conversion is case price divided by case count, times towels per dry. A case of multifold towels packed 250 to a pack and 16 packs to the case holds 4,000 towels; the Kimberly-Clark 01804 count we used in the per-employee cost post is the same 4,000. At an example price of 30 dollars a case, one towel is 0.75 cents. Towels per dry is the number nobody measures and everybody should: count the towels in the bin against the people through the door for a week. One and a half is a fair working assumption for multifold; hardwound roll dispensers that meter a fixed sheet length usually run lower, which is why multifold versus roll is a cost decision in its own right. At 1.5 towels per dry and 0.75 cents a towel, a dry costs about 1.1 cents in paper, or 112 dollars per 10,000 dries. On top of that sit two costs the dryer does not carry: the minutes spent refilling dispensers and emptying the bin, and the liner and trash pickup that the towels fill.

The payback worksheet

Put the two figures side by side and the saving per dry in the example is about 1.1 cents minus 0.04 cents, call it 1 cent per dry. Now the question is how many dries it takes to recover the installed price of the dryer, which is the unit plus the electrician plus any wall repair where the towel dispenser came off. Excel does not print a price on the sheet and neither do we, so use your quote. At an illustrative 1,500 dollars installed, the break-even is 150,000 dries. A restroom that sees 300 dries per working day reaches that in 500 working days, about two years; one that sees 100 a day takes six. A busy restaurant or gym restroom with 1,000 dries a day pays back in about seven months. The rule that falls out of this is simple: the dryer is a traffic investment. Below roughly 150 dries a day it rarely beats towels within its warranty once you add the labour to install it; above 500 it almost always does.

Assumptions: 250 working days a year; 1.5 towels per dry at 0.75 cents a towel; 3.7 Wh per dry at 11.47 cents per kWh; installed price illustrative. Substitute your own case price, towel count and quote.

The two things the brochure leaves out

The first is throughput. Eight seconds is fast for a dryer, but a towel takes two, and a dryer serves one pair of hands at a time. When twenty people leave a meeting or a shift break ends, one dryer is 160 seconds of queue and people walk out with wet hands or wipe them on their clothes. Restrooms with break-time surges need either two dryers or a dryer plus a towel dispenser, which changes the payback arithmetic because the towels do not go away. The second is what a dryer cannot do. It does not wipe a counter, dry a face, clean glasses, mop a spill or give a parent something to hand a child, and it is useless in a kitchen hand-wash station where the towel is part of the routine. In our experience a restroom that adds dryers keeps ordering towels; the order shrinks, but it does not reach zero. Plan the standing order for that, not for nothing.

On hygiene, the studies conflict and a large share of them are funded by one side or the other, so we do not rest the decision on them. For most workplaces the choice between towels and warm-air dryers is the employer’s; our office restroom buyer page covers the OSHA position, and kitchens and clinics follow their own rules and usually keep towels.

What to do with the number

If your restroom sees fewer than about 150 dries a day, keep towels and cut the cost per dry instead: a metered hardwound dispenser such as the Scott Pro hard-roll system reduces towels per dry, and the six levers post ranks the rest. If it sees more than 500, get an installed quote for a dryer and run the worksheet above with your own figures; the towel order you keep for spills and surges is a small one, and we will size it for you. Either way, the towels and dispensers are under paper and tissue and dispensers, or send your current invoice and we will beat it line by line.

FAQ

How much does a hand dryer cost to run per use?

Excel Dryer’s May 2026 XLERATOR product sheet states 3.7 watt-hours per use at an 8-second dry time, tested by SGS to the UL hand-dryer product category rules. At the Florida commercial average of 11.47 cents per kilowatt-hour reported by EIA for June 2026, that is about 0.04 cents per dry, or roughly 4 dollars per 10,000 dries. Older or heated dryers with longer cycles use more; check the spec sheet for your model.

How much does a paper towel cost per hand-dry?

Divide the case price by the case count, then multiply by towels per dry. A case of 4,000 multifold towels at an example 30 dollars is 0.75 cents per towel; at one and a half towels per dry that is about 1.1 cents per dry, or 112 dollars per 10,000 dries before labour and waste. Substitute your own invoice price and count towels per dry in your own restroom for a week.

Do I still need paper towels if I install hand dryers?

For most workplaces the choice between towels and warm-air dryers is yours, and our office buyer page covers the OSHA position. In practice restrooms keep a small towel supply anyway for spills, faces, glasses and the person who will not use a dryer, and kitchens and clinics keep towels because their rules and workflows are different. Plan for a reduced towel order, not a zero one.

How long does a hand dryer take to pay for itself?

Take the installed cost of the dryer, including the electrician, and divide by the saving per dry, which is the paper cost per dry minus the electricity per dry. In the example in this post the saving is about 1 cent per dry, so a 1,500-dollar installed dryer needs roughly 150,000 dries, which at 300 dries per working day is about two years. A busier restroom pays back faster; a quiet one may never do so.