Poplin for Laundry Pros

I signed up to be a laundry pro for poplin after seeing an ad on indeed advertising $15-$20 per hour to do laundry at home. I already have a full time job but could use extra money. I didn’t want the commitment of working every night or weekend so I figured poplin would be a good fit. Poplin does allow you to accept or decline orders whenever it is convenient for you. For a standard order placed before 3pm, you must pick it up by 8pm that day and return it by 8pm the next day. Customers are charged $1 per pound of laundry and laundry pros are paid 75 cents per pound of laundry. Laundry pros pick up and deliver laundry in their own vehicles and wash laundry at their own houses while providing their own laundry detergent and bags. Laundry pros are required to return laundry in clear plastic bags. The pay should definitely be higher for the work we do. We rely heavily on tips. After including time spent driving to pick up the order, driving the order back to your house, washing it, drying it, folding it, bagging it, weighing it, driving it back, then back home, I don’t think I’ve ever averaged $15-$20 per hour. You can eventually build up a good client base as you “rank up” but it has been a pretty slow process in my area. The app itself is sometimes glitchy and causes you to not be able to accept orders that you received a notification for.

I like the work, it is flexible for me and I can choose to take jobs when it is convenient for me. There are some improvements that could be made. I wish we could also rate the customers if they are terrible. I feel like there are customers who complain to get free service, the customer is NOT always right and some of them are just scammers. Which is a shame because from what I can tell the washers on the app really do care. The pay should also be increased. Even if they charged another 50¢/lb over what they do now it would still be a bargain for the amount of work and the washers would make more decent money. Hopefully they think about that soon, life is getting more expensive all of the time and people should be compensated for their hard work without having to rely on customers to tip. Really it’s not bad, I would not rely on it full time, but it is good if you have a work from home already or are a SAHM perhaps, or even if you just have a few days where you aren’t doing anything and want some extra cash. If you tried to do it full time to support yourself I feel like you would be working 80 hours a week to do that. Also, since it’s gig you need to keep track of all expenses yourself for taxes and provide all the supplies, so if you aren’t organized you’re going to have a hard time with that, because to get all your write-offs and make sure you’re making money that HAS to happen. Overall, it’s good for people who want to gig from their house, have the time, and don’t mind folding laundry.

This has been a lifesaver for me. I have a disabled son that’s made it hard for me to work and bring in income. He’s level 3 autistic completely non verbal and has been kicked out of 5 daycares. Ever since I found this app I’ve been able to work 7 days a week taking 1-3 customers laundry at a time. There’s definitely room for improvement on my end and the app but it’s been amazing so far. I only have to drive to pick it up and drop it off. The customers I’ve had have been great so far. The amount is definitely worth the work. The customers are charged by the pound. The higher you go in the app the more benefits you receive so the company really seems to care about its employees. The training is phenomenal. -Brittany Blankenship in Irvine, Ca Cons The only con I can think of is the customer tends to forget to tip until they log back in a week later to order more laundry lol. Kind of how doordash works. Maybe put a reminder to tip in their emails or have them tip ahead of time and also give them a chance to increase the tip. Advice for management The only thing I can think of is to add a mileage cost to pick up farther away customers. I’ve driven an hour to lots of customers. It’s technically added on with the tip currently but what if they don’t tip or add the gas tip to the actual tip if that makes sense. Also maybe remind customers of rules they never put hangers on the hang dried items so I end up having to spend money on hangers for them.