Salon Price List: How to Write and Price Your Rate List
Ask most owners how they set their prices and you’ll hear some version of “I checked what the place on the next street charges.” It’s a fair starting point. It’s also how a salon ends up busy all week and short at the end of the month, because the place on the next street might pay half your rent, or might be losing money too.
A good salon price list does two jobs. It tells clients clearly what they’ll pay, and it makes sure every service on it earns something after product, commission and rent. Here’s how we’d build one from scratch.
1. Group services the way clients think
Clients don’t read a rate list top to bottom. They look for their thing. So group by what they came for, not by how your team is organised:
- Hair: cuts, blow-dry and styling, colour, treatments (keratin, protein)
- Skin: facials, clean-ups, bleach, masks
- Hands and feet: manicure, pedicure, nails
- Hair removal: threading, waxing
- Makeup: party, engagement, bridal
- Packages: the combinations you actually want to sell
Keep it short. Twenty well-chosen services beat sixty that nobody can find. If a service hasn’t been sold in six months, it probably doesn’t need a line.
2. Price each service from its real cost
This is the part most rate lists skip. For every service, add up four things:
- Product used: the colour, developer, wax or facial kit that goes into one service. Not the price of the tub, the cost of one use. Our backbar cost guide shows how to work this out.
- Staff commission: if the stylist gets 30%, that comes straight off the top.
- Time: your monthly rent, bills and fixed salaries divided by the hours your team can actually take clients. A 90-minute service carries three times the overhead of a 30-minute one.
- Tax, if you charge it.
What’s left is profit. If a service leaves almost nothing, it either needs a higher price, less product, or a shorter time slot. The free service profit calculator does this sum for you and suggests a price for the margin you want.
You’ll usually find one or two surprises. Hair colour on long hair is a common one: priced the same as short hair, it can use twice the product and an extra half hour.
3. Use “from” prices, honestly
Some services genuinely vary: colour by length, makeup by look, keratin by thickness. “From” prices are fine for these, as long as the client hears the real figure before you start. Nothing loses a regular faster than a bill that’s double what she expected.
A simple rule we like: write the starting price and what moves it. “Global colour, from ___ (shoulder length; longer hair priced on consultation).”
4. Decide on stylist levels (or don’t)
Many salons charge more for a senior stylist than a junior one. It’s fair, since the senior’s time is scarcer, and it gives juniors a way to build a book. If you do it, keep it to two or three levels and print them side by side so nobody feels tricked at the till.
5. List the add-ons
Add-ons are where a lot of quiet profit sits: a hair mask with the wash, a head massage after the facial, nail art on a manicure. They take a few minutes and little product. Put them on the list with their own price, so the front desk can offer them without making it up on the spot.
A rate list template you can copy
| Service | Time | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Haircut (women) | 45 min | ___ | Includes wash and blow-dry |
| Haircut (men) | 30 min | ___ | Beard trim add-on ___ |
| Blow-dry | 30 min | from ___ | Long hair ___ |
| Global colour | 2 hr | from ___ | Priced by length |
| Keratin treatment | 3 hr | from ___ | Consultation first |
| Facial (classic) | 60 min | ___ | Course of 4: ___ |
| Threading (eyebrows) | 10 min | ___ | |
| Full arms wax | 30 min | ___ | |
| Manicure + pedicure | 75 min | ___ | Gel polish add-on ___ |
| Party makeup | 60 min | from ___ | Hairstyling add-on ___ |
The time column isn’t for clients, it’s for you. If you can’t say how long a service takes, you can’t price it or book it properly.
6. Put the list where clients decide
A laminated card at reception only helps clients who are already inside. Most decide before they come, so the same list should be:
- on your online booking page, with times, so they can book without calling
- sent as an image on WhatsApp when someone asks “rates?”
- pinned on your Google Business Profile and Instagram highlights
7. Review it once a year
Product costs go up quietly. Pick one month each year, re-run the numbers on your top ten services, and adjust. Tell your regulars a few weeks ahead. Most won’t mind a small yearly change; what they mind is a sudden big one.
Keeping the list and the till in sync
In Salonipy, the service menu is the price list. Each service has its price and duration, so the bill fills itself in, appointments block the right amount of time, and the same menu shows on your booking link and on a kiosk tablet at reception. Change a price once and it changes everywhere. If you want to see which services earn the most after commission and product, the reports show that too.
Related: Service profit calculator · Backbar cost per service · Salon billing software