Nail studio price lists: how to work out the price of every service

Most nail studio price lists weren’t calculated — they were copied from the studio in the next neighbourhood. The problem isn’t that the price comes out low; it’s that you don’t know which services make you money and which you’re doing for free.

Costing in this trade is simpler than it looks, because it has only two ingredients: the products you use up and time at the desk. The second is the expensive one, and it’s the one almost nobody measures.

Step 1: what an hour at the desk really costs

Gather all your monthly fixed costs: rent, electricity, heating, internet, social security contributions, accountant, cleaning supplies, sterilisation, subscriptions, advertising, depreciation of equipment (lamps, e-file, chair).

Then count the month’s genuinely productive hours. They’re not the hours you’re open. They’re the hours someone is sitting in the chair. Realistically, that’s 55–70% of your opening hours: there are gaps, delays, cleaning, ordering, messages.

Example: €1,700 in fixed costs and 110 productive hours a month gives an hourly cost of €15.50 — and that’s before you take a single euro yourself. If you set a target salary of €1,400, the hourly cost becomes about €28.

Step 2: product cost per service

You don’t need accountant-level precision — you need to sit down once and measure yields. How many applications you get from a bottle of builder gel, how many from a top coat, how many rolls and files go per client.

• Divide the price of each product by the number of applications it gives.
• Add the disposables: files, buffers, cotton buds, gloves, towels, acetone, paper.
• Add the sterilisation cost per set of tools.
• Round up. The product cost of a gel polish usually comes to €3–6, an acrylic set €7–12.

Step 3: the price

Price = (actual duration × hourly cost) + products + margin. With an hourly cost of €28 and a set that takes 90 minutes and €5 of product, your break-even point is €47. Anything you charge below that isn’t a special offer — it’s a loss.

This is where you see why duration is the critical number. A gel polish in 60 minutes and a gel polish in 100 minutes are not the same service, however similar the name. If you don’t record the real time of each appointment, your price list rests on a feeling that’s almost always 20 minutes too optimistic.

The four places profit leaks away

• Removal. It’s 15–25 minutes of work and almost always given away. Either it goes into the price or it’s charged separately — there’s no third option.
• Designs and nail art. Charged per nail or per quarter-hour, not as “a bit extra”.
• Repairs. Set a window (e.g. 5 days) within which a broken nail is fixed free of charge. Outside the window, it’s charged. In writing, not implied.
• Gaps from cancellations. An empty appointment doesn’t cost products; it costs the whole hour at the desk.

Packages and memberships: when they pay

A package of four infills at 10% off only makes sense if it secures booked appointments. The discount doesn’t buy goodwill, it buys predictability: a diary that’s full four weeks ahead is worth more than 10% on each visit.

The rule: the package books appointments at the point of sale. A package to be used “at some point” is just a discount.

What to look at every month

1. Revenue divided by productive hours — your average hourly yield. One number that says it all.
2. Which service has the worst hourly yield. It’s a candidate for a price rise or a shorter duration.
3. Percentage of empty slots and no-shows.
4. Product cost as a percentage of turnover — if it’s consistently above 15%, something isn’t being costed properly.

In NailPro every appointment keeps its duration and service, so these four numbers come straight from the appointments you’re already booking — no second notebook needed.

Conclusion

Don’t ask what the neighbourhood charges. Measure what your hour costs, how long each service really takes and how much product goes into it. The price you arrive at may be the same as the neighbourhood’s — but you’ll know why, and you’ll know which service is worth promoting.