How do you price salon services?
Price every service from the bottom up. Add the cost of your time in the chair, the product you actually use, your share of rent, software and card fees, then the profit you want. Check that number against what your market pays. Raise it when your costs rise.
Most price lists get written the lazy way. You look at the salon down the street, land a few dollars under them, and hope it works. That sets your pay by someone else's rent and someone else's product choices. The better order is to cost your own chair first, then look around to see whether the number is sellable.
Start with what an hour in your chair costs you
You cannot price a service until you know what it costs to keep the lights on for an hour. Pull your last month of bank and card statements and write down everything that gets paid whether or not a client sits down.
- Rent, or your booth or suite rent
- Power, water, heat and laundry
- Insurance and licenses
- Software, booking and card processing fees
- Front desk or assistant pay, plus payroll taxes
- Towels, capes, foils, bowls, brushes and backbar you refill without thinking
- Education, shows and classes
Divide that total by the hours you are genuinely open and staffed. Not the hours on the door sign. The hours someone is in the building getting paid. That gives you the cost of an hour before you touch a single bottle of colour.
Put your software cost in the fixed column
Booking, checkout and payroll tools are a fixed monthly line, so they belong in the same column as rent. Write the real number down instead of guessing at it. Hairvana pricing
Charge for time, product, and skill, in that order
Once you know your hourly cost, build each service price in three layers.
- Time. Multiply your hourly cost by how long the service really blocks the chair, including consultation, processing you cannot leave, and cleanup.
- Product. Weigh the colour, developer, treatment and bond builder for one real service and write the cost on the service card. Stop estimating from the bottle.
- Skill and profit. Add what your hands are worth and what the business needs to keep. This is the layer owners cut first, and it is the only layer that pays for a slow February.
Processing time is the part people price wrong. If you can take another client while colour develops, the chair is earning twice. If you cannot leave the client, that time is yours and it gets billed.
Weigh one bowl, fix one price
Put the bowl on a scale before and after a colour service for a week. You will find services where product cost quietly doubled since you wrote the menu, and those are the prices to fix first.
What should you charge for a colour service?
Across Hairvana salons, the median price of a colour service is $73. Use that as a sanity check, not a target. Your number depends on your rent, your product cost, how long the service takes and what your clients will pay. Price your own chair, then compare.[1]
If your bottom-up number lands far above the median across Hairvana salons, you are not automatically wrong. You may be slower, in a more expensive building, or using more product. If it lands far below, check whether you forgot processing time, bond builder, or the fact that you are paying a stylist to deliver it.[1]
Build a menu that prices what you actually do
A vague menu bleeds money. "Colour" covers a root touch-up and a four hour correction, and the client always expects the cheaper one. Break the menu into pieces you can count.
- Price the base service, then price add-ons separately: toner, gloss, bond builder, treatment, extra bowl.
- Charge for a consultation on anything that could turn into a correction, and credit it toward the booking if the client goes ahead.
- Use clear tiers by stylist level if your team has real differences in speed and demand, and tell clients what the tier means.
- Give long or dense hair its own line or a per-bowl charge so nobody has to argue about it at the mirror.
- Write the expected time next to each service so the front desk books the right block.
Then make the booking page say the same thing as the printed menu. A price on a wall and a different price online turns into a discount every time.
How often should you raise prices?
Review prices on a fixed date every year, and raise them when your costs have moved. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the all items index increased 3.4 percent over the 12 months to July 2026. If your rent, product and payroll went up, a flat price list means you earned less.[2]
When you do raise, say it plainly. Tell clients the new prices and the date they start, at the chair and in writing. Do not apologise, do not explain your margins, and do not quietly raise one service while leaving the rest stale.
Do not raise and discount in the same breath
A new price list followed by a loyalty coupon tells clients the old price was the real one. If you are raising, hold the number for the whole season before you offer anything off it.
Services with extra time, masks and gloves cost more
Some services cost you more than product and hours. Smoothing services are the clearest case. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns that when formaldehyde is present in the air at levels exceeding 0.1 ppm, some individuals may experience adverse effects such as watery eyes, burning sensations in the eyes, nose, and throat, coughing, wheezing, nausea, and skin irritation.[3]
That means ventilation, masks and gloves, careful scheduling, and sometimes keeping the station next door empty. All of that is cost. Price those services to cover it, or stop offering them. Charging a smoothing service like a blowout is how you end up paying for the privilege of doing it.
Will you lose clients if you raise your prices?
You may lose a few. Plan for a small drop, watch rebooking for the next two cycles, and see who comes back. Judge the move on revenue per hour, not headcount.
Being the cheapest chair in town is the weakest place to stand, because someone can always open nearby and undercut you. Hold on to the clients you have through the change with the same client retention strategies you would use any other month.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment of barbers, hairstylists, and cosmetologists to grow 7 percent from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all occupations.[4]
Your defence is skill, consultation and a client who knows exactly what they are paying for, not a lower number on the wall.
Track what each price does to your book
A price is a test. You only learn whether it worked by looking at what happened after it. Pull service revenue by service and by stylist, time how long each service actually took, and compare the two. salon POS system
- Revenue per hour of chair time, by service. The expensive service that takes all afternoon may earn less than the quick one.
- Add-on take rate. If nobody is buying the bond builder, the problem is the offer at the chair, not the price.
- Rebooking after a price change, by stylist. One stylist losing clients is a conversation, not a pricing problem.
- Product cost as a share of each service price, checked again when your distributor raises prices.
If your numbers show the chair is already full at a fair price, the next lever is what each visit is worth rather than how many visits you can squeeze in. how to increase salon revenue
What to do this week
- Add up one month of fixed costs and divide by your real staffed hours.
- Weigh product for your three most-booked services and write the cost down.
- Rebuild those three prices as time, plus product, plus the profit you want.
- Compare the result with the median colour price across Hairvana salons and decide whether your number is defensible.
- Set the date for your next full menu review and put it in the calendar now. [1]
Hairvana was founded by Kollin Gessler, who also leads ProDesign International and QAI Hair. ProDesign International has been in business 30+ years.[5][6][7]
Frequently asked questions
How do I know my prices are too low?
You are booked solid and still short at the end of the month. Another sign is having no room to absorb a product price increase without losing money on a service. If a full week does not cover your costs and pay you properly, the price list is the problem, not the schedule.
What is a typical price for a colour service?
Across Hairvana salons, the median price of a colour service is $73. Treat that as a reference point against your own bottom-up number, not a price to copy. Your rent, product cost and service time decide what you need to charge.[1]
How much should I raise my prices by?
Raise by enough to cover what your own costs did, plus the profit you missed last year. For context, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the all items index increased 3.4 percent over the 12 months to July 2026. Your rent and product increases may be larger than that, so use your own statements.[2]
Should I charge for a consultation?
Yes, on anything that could become a colour correction or a long appointment. Charge for the time, and credit it toward the service if the client books. It filters out tyre-kickers and stops you giving away an hour of expertise for free.
Should every stylist charge the same price?
Only if they take the same time and have the same demand. Tiered pricing by stylist level works when you can explain what the tier buys the client, such as speed, experience or advanced colour work. Keep the tiers few and the difference obvious.
Sources
- Median price of a colour service across Hairvana salons
- Consumer Price Index - July 2026 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- Hair Smoothing Products That Release Formaldehyde When Heated (U.S. Food and Drug Administration)
- Barbers, Hairstylists, and Cosmetologists: Occupational Outlook Handbook (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- Who founded Hairvana
- What Kollin Gessler runs
- How long ProDesign International has been in business
