I tested three towel weights across five Airbnbs for a year

For about ten months last year I did a slightly silly experiment across my five short-term rental properties. Three had 600 GSM Egyptian cotton bath sheets, one had 500 GSM hotel-standard towels from a bulk supplier in Manchester, and one had 700 GSM ones I bought on sale from a department store clearance. I wanted to know which was best, because the cost difference between them was actually enormous and I was tired of guessing.

GSM, in case you have never cared about this before, stands for grams per square meter. It is basically the density of the fabric. Higher number means thicker, fluffier, heavier towel. It also means slower drying and higher laundry cost and a harder time getting the towel back in the linen cupboard when you are trying to fit seven of them on two shelves.

The summary: 500 GSM won. By a lot. But not for the reasons I expected, and with a big caveat about one specific property type.

What I was measuring

I tracked four things across the year:

• Guest complaints about towel quality (by star-level review and direct messages)
• How often a towel had to be binned (holes, staining, going grey)
• Electricity and time per wash cycle at the on-site machines
• Replacement cost per towel per year based on actual churn

I did not track softness. Softness is subjective and guests do not complain about it unless you are handing them something that feels like a burlap sack.

The 600 GSM result (the boring middle)

This is what most hosts default to and honestly it was fine. Three properties, 36 total bath sheets at the start, 31 still usable at year end. No guest complaints that mentioned towels specifically. Laundry cost was moderate, drying time around 80 minutes in the mid-range tumble driers I have on site. Cost per towel was about £14 to £18 from Amazon and £22 to £28 from the nicer suppliers. Average across the three properties worked out to about £17.

The boring result. Nobody loved them, nobody hated them, they did the job.

The 500 GSM result (surprising winner)

This was the Manchester flat. I bought 12 bath sheets from a linen supplier who sells mostly to small hotels and B&Bs. They were £8.50 each, which is cheap enough that I suspected they would fall apart. They did not. At year end I had lost two, and one of those was because a guest used it to mop up spilled wine and I could not save it.

The real shock was the laundry. These dried in 55 minutes instead of 80. Over a year of turnover washes that added up to something like 9 hours less drying time per month, which sounds trivial until you are paying commercial electricity rates. The cleaner also mentioned she could get eight of them in the machine instead of six, which meant one fewer load per changeover.

Nobody complained. I had exactly one review that mentioned towels and it was a five-star review that called them nice and soft. They were not particularly soft. I think the guest was being generous.

The 700 GSM result (the expensive mistake)

This is the one I feel silliest about. I bought them on a department store clearance, paid £24 a pop for eight of them, thought I was being clever. They felt amazing in the hand. They also took 110 minutes to tumble dry, ate their way through the washing machine capacity (five per load, not six), and one of them came back from a wash with a permanent brown streak that I still cannot explain. I lost four out of eight over the year, partly because guests kept trying to take them home. I have opinions about that but the short version is: if a towel is nice enough to steal, you bought the wrong towel for this use case.

I switched this property to 500 GSM in November and was immediately happier.

The caveat: which property type

Here is where I have to be honest. One of my properties is a £280-a-night converted barn that markets itself as a luxury rural retreat. The guests there expect a certain aesthetic and I suspect 500 GSM would eventually show up in a review. I kept 600 GSM there. Not because 500 GSM is bad but because the price point of the listing sets an expectation and I do not want to fight it over £6 a towel.

My rule now: if the listing is under about £150 a night, go 500 GSM. Above that, 600. Nobody needs 700 unless you are a five-star hotel and even then I would argue about it.

What this means for restocking

At 500 GSM the churn rate is low enough that I am reordering roughly once every 18 months per property, versus about 12 months at 600 GSM. The cheaper unit price compounds with the lower replacement frequency and the thing basically pays for itself twice. I keep a running count in my Hoststock inventory list and the reorder alerts fire when I drop below 1.5 sets per bed, which is my minimum.

If you are standing in the aisle at Costco wondering which bale of bath sheets to grab, this is your sign. Grab the thinner ones. Save yourself the laundry.

Frequently asked

Are 500 GSM towels actually hotel standard?

Honestly, most budget and midmarket hotels use 400 to 500 GSM. The hotel quality label on 600+ GSM towels is marketing. I learned this from the Manchester supplier I mentioned, who sells to about 40 small hotels in the north.

Does thread count matter with towels?

Not really. Thread count is mostly a sheet metric. With towels what matters is GSM, twist type, and whether it is combed cotton or regular. Combed is worth paying a small premium for because it sheds less in the wash.

What about hand towels and face cloths?

Go as thin as you can get away with for hand towels, I use 400 GSM. Face cloths I buy 500 GSM in packs of 24 and replace them aggressively because they get mistreated by makeup and hair dye.

Does Hoststock track towels specifically or just linens?

In the Hoststock inventory list you can set any SKU you want and I keep mine split by type: bath sheets, bath towels, hand towels, face cloths. That way the reorder alerts fire at the right moment for each category instead of all lumping together.

Try the change, measure it

If you are currently running 600 GSM and you have never thought about it, do what I did. Buy 12 bath sheets at 500 GSM from a hotel supplier, put them in one property for 90 days, and look at your laundry time and guest reviews after. If reviews do not suffer you have just cut your towel spend almost in half without anyone noticing.

The experiments nobody does are the ones that pay for themselves. This one paid for itself in about two months and I am mildly annoyed I did not run it three years sooner.