When inflation drives up operating costs, the fastest savings often hide in your indirect spending, not your core materials. A uniform rental program is one of the simplest ways to control these costs, with optimized programs helping businesses reduce total uniform expenses by up to 50%. Also, reviewing your facility service contracts for hidden fees and right-sizing your program can protect your budget without sacrificing quality or safety.
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Prices are climbing across nearly every category, and business leaders feel the squeeze daily. Raw materials cost more. Labor costs more. Even the basics of keeping your doors open (energy, maintenance, supplies) keep ticking upward.
Most leaders respond by scrutinizing their biggest line items. That makes sense. But the real opportunity to protect your bottom line often sits in a part of the budget that rarely gets a second look: your indirect spend.
This article breaks down where inflation quietly inflates your costs, why uniform and facility service programs are a smart place to find savings, and how to build a program that fits your budget today.
Why does inflation hit indirect spend the hardest?
Inflation rarely announces itself with one big price jump. Instead, it shows up in dozens of small increases, such as fuel surcharges, service fees, replacement costs, and contract renewals that quietly climb each year.
These costs cluster in what procurement experts call “tail spend.” This is the long list of smaller supplier relationships that, together, eat up a surprisingly large share of your total budget. Office supplies, IT services, maintenance, workwear, and facility services all fall into this bucket.
Here’s the problem. Procurement data shows that roughly 80% of an organization’s total spend flows through about 20% of its suppliers. The remaining 20% is spread across the other 80% of vendors. That means a huge number of supplier relationships, and a meaningful slice of your budget, get very little attention.
When inflation pushes prices up, those neglected contracts become a steady drain. Many companies set up uniform and facility programs, let them auto-renew, and never revisit them. Each renewal layers on a little more cost, and nobody notices until the numbers add up.
Why is a uniform rental program a smart way to control costs?
A uniform rental program is one of the most practical ways to take inflation pressure off your budget. Instead of buying, replacing, and laundering workwear yourself, you pay a predictable rate for a managed program that handles it all. Optimizing your program configuration offers multiple independent levers to capture significant savings.
key areas for cost savings
Right-Sized Programs
Over-ordering, untracked garments, and poorly sized programs inflate costs. Designing a custom program tailored around your actual active workforce eliminates unnecessary inventory bloat.
The Right Product for the Right Role
Dressing every employee in premium or name-brand workwear, regardless of job function, wastes money. Matching products to actual roles ensures you don't overpay for features your team doesn't need. For example, a Massachusetts cannabis company successfully cut its uniform program costs by 50% simply by auditing its setup and eliminating costly, unnecessary flame-resistant garments. See how.
Smarter Fabric Choices
Not every role needs heavy-duty or specialized fabric. A strategic audit of your fabric choices can quickly reduce inefficiencies across your different departments.
Predictable, Managed Pricing Models
A UniFirst uniform rental program focuses on transparent, managed pricing structures to help you eliminate unexpected budget spikes and control your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Right-Sized Programs
Over-ordering, untracked garments, and poorly sized programs inflate costs. Designing a custom program tailored around your actual active workforce eliminates unnecessary inventory bloat.
The Right Product for the Right Role
Dressing every employee in premium or name-brand workwear, regardless of job function, wastes money. Matching products to actual roles ensures you don't overpay for features your team doesn't need. For example, a Massachusetts cannabis company successfully cut its uniform program costs by 50% simply by auditing its setup and eliminating costly, unnecessary flame-resistant garments. See how.
Smarter Fabric Choices
Not every role needs heavy-duty or specialized fabric. A strategic audit of your fabric choices can quickly reduce inefficiencies across your different departments.
Predictable, Managed Pricing Models
A UniFirst uniform rental program focuses on transparent, managed pricing structures to help you eliminate unexpected budget spikes and control your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
How do hidden fees inflate your costs even more?
Watch for these charges
Repair and replacement fees
Miscellaneous service fees
Fuel surcharges
Annual rate increases buried in renewal terms
These add up fast, especially during inflationary periods when providers pass rising costs straight to you. For instance, a prominent logistics provider with over 675 locations discovered that a staggering 33% of its uniform budget was being lost purely to garment losses and damages under its previous vendor. By partnering with UniFirst for a structured, customized rental program, they captured over 20% in total cost savings. See how, UniFirst delivers 20% cost savings for a leading transportation company.
The fix is transparency. Before signing or renewing any contract, ask for a full breakdown of unit rates versus extra fees. You should only pay for exactly what you need. At UniFirst, transparency is built into our core agreement models, ensuring clear price tracking so there are no surprises.
How do you build a uniform program that fits your budget?
Steps to take during an inflationary stretch
- Audit your current program: Look closely at what you’re paying and what you’re getting. Identify over-ordering, unused garments, and fees you didn’t expect.
- Match products to roles: Make sure each employee wears workwear appropriate to their job, with no more, and no less. This keeps your team safe and comfortable while trimming unnecessary spending.
- Demand pricing transparency: Insist on full visibility into unit rates versus added fees before you commit.
- Prioritize flexibility: Choose a partner who lets you adjust inventory levels and product specs as your business changes. With the 24/7 UniFirst Portal, you can add or remove a wearer at the touch of a button.
- Think in total cost of ownership: A low sticker price means little if hidden fees pile up. The right partner helps you understand how the whole program affects your bottom line.
Take control of your budget today
Inflation will keep testing your bottom line, but your indirect spend doesn’t have to be a blind spot. A well-designed uniform and facility service program gives you predictable costs, transparent pricing, and real savings—exactly what you need when every dollar counts.
UniFirst works with businesses of all sizes to build programs that are easy to manage and completely transparent. Rather than pushing a one-size-fits-all product, we partner with you to deliver exactly what your team needs.
Ready to find the savings hiding in your budget? Learn more about managing your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) or request a FREE VIP Cost Analysis Program® today to take control of your indirect spend.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Savings vary by program, but optimization levers like right-sizing your active workforce inventory, matching fabrics to roles, and eliminating unnecessary specialty garments can reduce total program spend by 20% to 50% depending on how much wasteful tail spend exists in your current setup.
Look for repair and replacement fees, fuel surcharges, miscellaneous service fees, and annual rate increases buried in renewal terms. Always ask for a breakdown of unit rates versus extra fees before signing.
Many businesses worry about operational disruption, but with the right partner, the transition is seamless. UniFirst utilizes local service teams to preload and size employee garments ahead of time, ensuring zero downtime for your daily business. Read how we executed a seamless transition for the Happy Valley Cannabis Case Study or how we streamlined logistics for a Leading Transportation Company Case Study.
Tail spend is the large group of smaller supplier relationships that collectively make up a significant share of your budget. About 20% of total spend flows through roughly 80% of suppliers, and those contracts rarely get reviewed. During inflation, neglected tail-spend contracts quietly absorb repeated price increases, making them a prime target for savings.
Any business feeling inflation pressure benefits, but the gains are largest for companies that haven't reviewed their program in years or let contracts auto-renew. Industries with strict hygiene, regulatory, and safety needs—like transportation, food processing, and manufacturing—gain the added benefit of compliance alongside cost control.
