Hair salon price lists: how to price cuts, colour and treatments
How to work out a salon or barbershop service price: cost per chair hour, products, hair length, packages — and how to see takings per stylist.
Most salon price lists were written by looking at what the place across the road charges. That tells you what the market will bear — it doesn’t tell you whether a service makes you any profit. A colour that looks expensive may be your least profitable service if it takes twice as long as you think.
Step 1: the cost of one chair hour
Add up the month’s fixed costs — rent, electricity, water, payroll, contributions, accountant, software — and divide by the genuinely productive hours across all your chairs. Not the hours the salon is open; the hours someone is sitting in the chair. That number is the floor below which every service loses money.
Step 2: time × hourly cost, plus products
- Haircut: almost entirely time. Its price comes down to speed and experience.
- Colour: time and product — colour, developer, protective treatment. Weigh an average formula so you know the real cost of materials.
- Treatments: the product is often the biggest cost; check it every time your supplier puts prices up.
Step 3: price tiers you can explain
Long, thick hair takes more colour and more time. Tiers for short — medium — long are fair and expected, as long as they’re written on the price list rather than “coming up” at the till. The same goes for extra colour: it’s charged per tube or per gram, and the client knows that in advance.
Packages and memberships
A “root colour every 5 weeks” package or a monthly haircut membership at a barbershop locks in repeat business. It only works if you know how many visits have been used and what has been paid — otherwise it becomes a source of misunderstandings.
Takings per stylist
If you pay commission, or simply want to know which chair performs, you need the day’s takings per stylist. With role-based permissions each stylist sees their own, and the salon’s overall figures are visible only to those who need them. Issue a receipt for every payment at the moment it’s made, so your till and your tax records (in Greece, myDATA) always match.
In HairPro a cut, colour, treatment or package is charged from your own price list, with the day’s takings per stylist always visible — and every service linked to its duration in the schedule.
Conclusion
Cost per chair hour, measured time per service, the real cost of products and tiers written down in advance. The market tells you the ceiling; this calculation tells you the floor — and which services are worth promoting.