Dry Cleaning in New York City: How Much You Can Expect to Pay

Dry cleaning services in New York City are highly competitive-there is no reason to pay an exorbitant amount to have your work clothes dry cleaned when a competing store down the block may offer faster and cheaper service.

How much, precisely, should you pay per shirt? This depends on both the borough (Manhattan, Brooklyn, or Queens) and also the particular neighborhood-are you on the Upper East Side? Financial District? Hell's Kitchen?

Also, newly established dry cleaning locations will frequently offer unbeatable "introductory" prices to get local customers hooked. They will also offer nice freebies such as cloth laundry bags or high-quality hangers. Your best bet, therefore, is to try to find a newly launched dry cleaning store in your neighborhood. If you walk down the block, you are likely to find one.

Assuming the store is new and offering a promotion to attract new customers, you could get your shirt dry-cleaned for around 99 cents per shirt-sometimes minimum orders or restrictions will apply, however.

If the store is not new, you will generally have to pay more. If you live in a luxury high-rise building, many of them have an in-house service that is located within the building itself. These are a bit more costly, running from $2 to $3.50 per shirt most of the time, but you are essentially paying for reliability and convenience.

Other locations will offer good dry cleaning services in the range of $1.50 to $2.25 or $2.50 per shirt. Generally, there is no reason to pay more than this, unless they are also delivering the shirt to your home.

Most locations do not allow you to "haggle" on a lower price, so you are better served by finding a dry cleaning location that is cheap to begin with. Also consider the store's turnaround time: some can have it done by the next morning, while others "send out" their dry cleaning orders and will not have your shirts cleaned until the end of the week.