Salon Service Pricing Calculator
Price the chair, not the guess — know what a service costs before it goes on the menu.
Work out what to charge for a haircut, colour or blow-dry to hit your margin. Enter the service time, your stylist wage, the chair overhead and the product cost, and the calculator prices to your target margin ex-GST, then adds 10% for the menu — so the number you display actually leaves the profit you planned for.
A planning guide from your service time, wage, overhead and product cost. Prices vary by salon and market — not financial advice.
How the service price is worked out
Cost to deliver, then priced to a margin
First the calculator works out what the service costs you to deliver: labour (stylist wage × service time), chair overhead (overhead rate × service time) and the product used. Then it prices to your margin: price ex-GST = (product + labour + overhead) ÷ (1 − margin). Because labour and overhead both scale with time, a longer service costs more to deliver and prices higher. Finally, if your salon is registered for GST, it adds 10% on top for the menu price — you always price the margin on the ex-GST figure, because the GST isn't yours to keep.
Worked example
A 45-minute women's cut with a stylist on $30/hr is $22.50 of labour, plus $15/hr of chair overhead = $11.25, plus about $2 of product — around $35.75 to deliver. At a 20% margin, the price is 35.75 ÷ (1 − 0.20) = $44.69 ex-GST (about $49 on the menu with GST). Stretch it to a 2-hour full colour — $60 labour, $30 overhead and ~$20 of colour and foils — and you're at $110 to deliver, or about $137.50 ex-GST at the same margin. Same formula, very different plate.
This is a service margin, not net profit. Rent, front-desk wages, insurance and marketing still come out of the gross profit. Use it alongside your profit margin and charge-out rate numbers, not on its own.
What wage and overhead should you use?
The price is only as good as the two hourly inputs behind it. These are 2026 planning baselines — always swap in your own numbers:
- Stylist wage — ~$30/hr. A rough all-in cost for a qualified hairdresser's chair time. A senior stylist or a commission split lifts it; a junior or apprentice sits lower.
- Chair / overhead — ~$15/hr. Rent, power, laundry, front desk, insurance and general consumables spread across each productive chair hour. Busy salons in high-rent locations run higher.
- Product & consumables — per service. A dry cut might be a dollar or two; a full colour with foils and treatment can be $20 or more. Cost the product actually used, not an average.
The single biggest error in salon pricing is treating every service as if it takes the same time and uses the same product. It doesn't — a colour ties up a chair for hours and burns real product, while a men's cut is in and out in 25 minutes. Time each service honestly and cost its product, and the margin looks after itself.
GST, margin and cost-plus markup
Where GST fits
If your salon is registered for GST — compulsory once turnover hits $75,000 — the 10% you add to the menu price belongs to the ATO, not you. So you price your margin on the ex-GST figure and add 10% on top for the price you display. A service priced at $44.69 ex-GST goes on the menu at about $49.16 inc-GST. If you're not registered, there's no 10% to add and the two prices are the same.
Pricing to a margin
Margin is the profit as a share of the price, so you divide by one minus the margin: price = cost ÷ (1 − margin). A $35.75 service at a 20% margin is 35.75 ÷ 0.80 = $44.69 ex-GST. That's why margin and markup aren't the same number — a 20% margin is a 25% markup on cost.
Cost-plus as a cross-check
Cost-plus works the other way: price = cost × (1 + markup). A 100% markup simply doubles the cost. It's a quick sanity check, but it doesn't guarantee a margin — a big markup on a cheap cut still leaves little in dollars, while a modest markup on a costly colour can be plenty. Price to the margin you want, then use the optional markup field to see how the two compare.
❓ Frequently asked Frequently asked questions
How much should I charge for a haircut?
Start from what the service costs you to deliver, then price up to your margin. A 45-minute women's cut with a stylist on about $30/hr and roughly $15/hr of chair and overhead costs around $22.50 in labour, $11.25 in overhead and a couple of dollars of product — about $35.75 all up. At a 20% profit margin the ex-GST price is 35.75 ÷ (1 − 0.20) = about $44.69, which is roughly $49 once you add 10% GST for the menu. A men's cut runs 20–30 minutes so it costs less to deliver and sits lower. The maths gives you the floor; your local market sets what you can actually charge.
How do I price a salon service?
Add up the cost to deliver the service — labour (stylist wage × service time), chair and overhead (overhead rate × service time) and product and consumables — then divide by one minus your target margin to get the ex-GST price: price = (product + labour + overhead) ÷ (1 − margin). Work everything ex-GST, then add 10% GST for the menu price you display. The two biggest levers are service time and product cost, so an accurate minute count and a real product figure matter more than anything else.
How much does it cost to deliver a colour?
Colours are long and product-heavy, which is why they cost far more to deliver than a cut. A two-hour full colour with a stylist on about $30/hr is roughly $60 in labour plus about $30 of chair and overhead at $15/hr, and colour, foils and developer can easily run $20 or more — around $110 to deliver. At a 20% margin that's about $137.50 ex-GST, or roughly $151 on the menu with GST. Because the product and the chair time are both high, timing the service accurately and costing the actual product used are the difference between a colour that makes money and one that quietly loses it.
How does GST affect salon prices?
If your salon is registered for GST, the 10% you add to the menu price isn't yours to keep — you remit it to the ATO. So you should price to your margin on the ex-GST figure, then add GST on top for the price you display. A service you've priced at $44.69 ex-GST goes on the menu at about $49.16 inc-GST. Registration is compulsory once turnover reaches $75,000, and most established salons are over that. If you're not registered, the menu price and the ex-GST price are the same and you don't add the 10%.
What profit margin should a salon aim for?
Profit margin here is what's left after the direct cost of delivering the service — labour, chair overhead and product — before your fixed costs like rent, front-desk wages and marketing. A 15–25% service margin is a common planning range, with busy salons and premium services sitting higher. Remember this is a per-service margin, not net profit: rent and the costs that don't scale with each client still come out of it. Set a target you can defend against your local market, price every service to it, and review the mix — cuts, colours and treatments carry very different margins.
Where these figures come from
Service pricing is a standard small-business costing method, not a legislated figure. The method here follows mainstream cost-plus and margin pricing practice, with the GST handling set to Australia's 10% goods and services tax.
- Cost to deliver — labour (wage × time) + overhead (rate × time) + product and consumables.
- Price to a margin — price ex-GST = cost ÷ (1 − target margin); margin is profit as a share of price.
- GST — Australia's goods and services tax is 10%; a registered salon adds 10% to the ex-GST price for the menu (registration compulsory at $75,000 turnover).
- Baselines — planning figures only: stylist ~$30/hr, chair/overhead ~$15/hr in 2026. Use your own costs.
Last checked: July 2026. This is a planning estimate, not financial or tax advice. Wages, overhead and product costs vary by salon and region — use your own figures and confirm your GST treatment with your accountant or the ATO.
Select the question that matches where you are right now.
The headline number is the price to charge for the service ex-GST — the cost to deliver it, marked up to your target margin. The breakdown shows the labour, overhead and product that make up the cost, the profit in dollars, and the inc-GST menu price.
Use it as the floor for your menu price. If the market won't bear it, either trim the service time, cut the product cost, or accept a thinner margin — the breakdown shows which lever moves the most.
It's not your net profit. Rent, front-desk wages, insurance and marketing come out of the service margin, and it isn't tax advice — confirm GST treatment with your accountant.
You price the margin on the ex-GST figure and add 10% for the menu. The GST you collect is remitted to the ATO, so pricing on the inc-GST number would quietly eat into your margin.
Three things move the price: how long the service takes, what you pay for the chair, and what product it burns.
Labour and overhead both scale with the minutes. Double the chair time and you roughly double the cost to deliver — which is why colours price so far above cuts.
A dry cut is a dollar or two; a colour with foils and treatment is $20 or more. Cost the product actually used per service, not a flat average across the menu.
The stylist wage and chair overhead set the hourly cost; the target margin turns cost into price. Nudge any of them and watch the ex-GST price and the profit in dollars move together.
A few habits keep pricing honest across the whole menu, not just one service.
Price each service on its real chair time, not a rough guess. A five-minute error on a service you do twenty times a day adds up fast across a week.
Weigh or track colour and product per service so the figure reflects reality. Over-dispensing is where colour margins quietly leak.
Run every service through the same method so cuts, colours and treatments each carry their own margin — then review the mix that actually sells.
Service pricing is one lever. Model the rest of the business alongside it.