How Much Toilet Paper Does an Office Need? A Practical Budgeting Guide

How Much Toilet Paper Does an Office Need? A Practical Budgeting Guide

If you've ever been handed the job of ordering supplies for a workplace, you'll know the peculiar panic of trying to work out how much toilet paper a hundred people actually go through. Order too little and you're doing the awkward "we've run out" shuffle by Thursday. Order too much and you're the person who turned the storeroom into a tissue pyramid.

I've been in the paper game since 1998 — nearly three decades of thinking about loo rolls more than any reasonable person should — so let me walk you through how facility managers actually work this out.

The Short Answer (Because You're Busy)

There's no single magic number, because offices vary wildly in headcount, customer traffic and how many people seem to treat the workplace loo as their personal stationery-cupboard-slash-day-spa. But as a starting estimate, most workplaces land somewhere between 2 and 4 sheets-worth of "usable toilet paper" per person, per toilet visit — which over a month translates to roughly 1 to 2 rolls per person for staff-only offices, and a bit more for sites with public or customer washrooms.

Let's turn that into a table you can actually use.

Office Toilet Paper Usage: Estimated Monthly Table

The figures below are estimates for budgeting purposes only — your actual usage will depend on your people, your washroom count and whether the air-con makes everyone drink more water. Think of them as a starting point, then fine-tune after a couple of orders.

Office size (staff)	Estimated rolls per month (staff only)	With customer/public washroom traffic
6–15 people	10–25 rolls	20–35 rolls
16–30 people	25–50 rolls	40–65 rolls
31–60 people	50–100 rolls	80–130 rolls
61–100 people	100–180 rolls	150–250 rolls
100+ people	1.5–1.8 rolls per person	2–2.5 rolls per person

A few things skew the numbers:

• Sheets per roll matter. A 360-sheet 2-ply roll lasts a lot longer than a cheap 180-sheet "mega pack" roll from the supermarket. When you compare, compare sheets, not rolls. (More on that in our guide to price per roll.)
• Visitor-heavy sites — cafés, medical centres, tradie depots — run hotter than the table suggests.
• Half-height or single-ply rolls in dispensers get swapped more often, which quietly increases usage.

How to Work Out Your Office's Real Number

Here's the method I give every new business customer:

1. Pick a baseline month. Not December, not the month your biggest team was on leave. A normal month.

2. Count rolls used. If you buy a known quantity — say a 96-roll pack — and track how long it lasts, you've got real data.

3. Divide by headcount to get your "rolls per person per month" figure.

4. Add a 15–20% buffer. Sick days, busy seasons, that one person who genuinely uses more than everyone else.

Once you know your number, ordering becomes boring — and boring is exactly what you want from a supplies budget.

Budgeting: What This Actually Costs

Say you run a 40-person office and you're landing around 70 rolls a month. Buying that from a supermarket, a few packs at a time, means paying full retail and someone's trolley-run every fortnight. Buying a 96-roll bulk pack instead means:

• One delivery, one invoice, no trolley diplomacy
• A locked-in cost per roll that makes next quarter's budget predictable
• Enough buffer that "we've run out" emails become a distant memory

For most offices in the 20–80 person range, a 96-roll pack lasts roughly six weeks to three months — which is a nice, low-admin rhythm for reordering.

Quality Still Counts in Commercial Washrooms

One trap I see constantly: offices buying the thinnest paper possible to save money, then finding people use (and waste) twice as much. Thin paper isn't cheaper per use — it's just cheaper per roll, which isn't the same thing at all.

A good 2-ply like our Cleopatra 2-ply (360 sheets per roll, 96-roll pack) is the workhorse choice for high-traffic commercial washrooms — more sheets per roll means fewer roll changes, and 2-ply keeps cost per use sensible. For smaller offices or staff washrooms where comfort is part of the deal, the Mr. President 3-ply (250 sheets, 96-roll pack) feels noticeably more premium.

The Takeaway

• Start with the table above, then track one month of real usage.
• Compare on sheets and cost per use, not just rolls.
• Buy in bulk with a 15–20% buffer and let the storeroom do the remembering for you.
• Match the ply to the washroom: 2-ply for high-traffic, 3-ply for comfort.

Ready to Stop Thinking About Toilet Paper?

That's the dream, honestly. Browse our bulk toilet paper packs at toiletpaper.com.au — we've been supplying NSW, VIC, SA, ACT and QLD businesses and households since 1998, with Australian made stock where possible and delivery that actually turns up. If you're not sure which pack suits your headcount, give us a bell — 28 years in, this is genuinely our favourite conversation.

Internal link suggestions:

• `2-ply-vs-3-ply-toilet-paper.md` — when comparing the Cleopatra and Mr. President packs for staff vs. customer washrooms
• `cost-per-roll-guide.md` — for the "compare sheets, not rolls" point above
• `toilet-paper-supplier-checklist.md` — for readers upgrading from ad-hoc supermarket buying to a proper supplier
• Product pages: Mr. President 3-ply 96-roll pack; Cleopatra 2-ply 360-sheet 96-roll pack