How to price hair salon services: hours, colour, length and VAT

This guide builds a price from the inside out. It starts with the hours a stylist can actually sell, turns your costs into an hourly rate, adds the colour in the bowl, then covers long-hair surcharges, 'from' prices, VAT, rounding and raising prices without losing the regulars. If you are still planning the salon itself, how to open a hair salon covers the registrations and the premises first.

Legal and tax statements were checked on 25 September 2026 at legislation.gov.uk, GOV.UK, nidirect, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The worked example uses round numbers to show the arithmetic, not market prices.

Every later figure is divided by one number, so settle that one first: the hours in a year in which a stylist is working on a paying client. It is always far smaller than the hours the salon pays for, and most underpricing begins in that gap.

Work it out per person. Start with the contracted hours over 52 weeks, then take away holiday: GOV.UK says almost all workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks' paid holiday a year, and nidirect states the same minimum for Northern Ireland. Deduct bank holidays if the salon closes on them and they are not already counted in that leave, a realistic allowance for sickness, and the days spent on education and product training. What remains are the hours the stylist is on the floor.

Not all of those are sold. Between clients the station is cleaned, gowns and towels are changed and the colour bar is tidied. There are consultations that do not turn into a booking on the spot, skin allergy tests that colour manufacturers ask for before a colour service, gaps left by cancellations that came too late to refill, and quiet mornings. Count the hours over the last three months in which a client was actually in the chair. That share of the floor hours is your utilisation, and it varies between stylists: a junior still building a column sits well below a senior whose regulars rebook before they leave.

Without a history, estimate cautiously and correct the figure after the first quarter. An optimistic utilisation is the most expensive mistake in this whole calculation, because it makes every price look affordable on paper.

Now gather a year of costs in three groups. Running costs: rent, business rates, energy and water, insurance, software, card terminal fees, laundry, cleaning, repairs, the accountant and marketing. People: wages with employer's National Insurance and pension contributions, education, and a wage for yourself as the owner, set at what you would have to pay someone else to do your job. Owners who leave that line out often run a busy salon that pays them nothing. And a reserve for replacing equipment and for months that go worse than planned.

Divide the total by the productive hours of everyone who works on clients. The result is what every hour in a chair has to bring in before a single gram of product is counted:

• Hourly rate = (running costs + people + reserve) ÷ productive hours of the whole team
• Price of a service = hourly rate × chair time in hours + product used + margin
• Price on the list = that price plus VAT, if the salon is VAT-registered

An example calculation, with round numbers that describe no real salon: yearly costs of £150,000, including the owner's wage and the reserve, spread over 3,000 productive hours across the team give £50 an hour. A cut and finish that takes 45 minutes then costs £37.50 in chair time before any product and before any margin. Had the same salon assumed 3,750 productive hours, the rate would have come out at £40, and every price built on it would be a fifth too low.

To try it with your own figures, use the salon price calculator.

For colour with a processing time, count the whole appointment as chair time if the chair stays blocked while the colour processes. If the stylist starts another client meanwhile, count only the active minutes, but plan the diary for the overlap.

Colour is where product cost moves a hair price noticeably, and it is usually estimated from the price of a tube instead of measured. Put digital scales on the colour bar and weigh what actually goes into the bowl for a few weeks: tint or lightener in grams, developer at the mixing ratio the manufacturer specifies, plus toner, any bond-building additive and the treatments before and after. Divide each product's purchase price by its contents to get a price per gram or millilitre, and multiply by what you used.

Then add what the scales do not show. Foils, gloves, colour capes and the extra towel wash after a colour. The mixed colour left in the bowl, which is waste you paid for. A root touch-up, a full head of highlights and a balayage on long hair are different services with very different bowls, so they belong on separate lines rather than under one colour price with a vague surcharge.

Weighing has a second use: once you know the typical amount for a root touch-up, the colour records show who regularly needs double, which is the evidence behind the length rules in the next section. The same habit of measuring instead of guessing is applied to gels and nail art in nail studio pricing, where the material is cheap and the time is not.

Long or very thick hair takes more product and more time, and a surcharge is the usual answer. It only works if a client can tell before booking whether it applies to them, so tie it to something anyone can check: hair past the shoulders, hair past the shoulder blades, or an appointment that runs beyond the standard time. A surcharge first mentioned at the basin feels like a penalty even when it is entirely fair.

The same goes for 'from' prices. Since 6 April 2025, section 230 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 expects a service shown with its price, in a way that lets someone decide to book, to state the total price, including "any fees, taxes, charges or other payments that the consumer will necessarily incur", or, where that total cannot reasonably be calculated in advance, how it will be calculated, set out as prominently as the price. The CMA's price transparency guidance (CMA209) accepts a 'from' price "provided the price is realistic, meaningful and attainable". So a 'from' price for colour should be one that clients with short or medium hair really pay, with the length rule that raises it printed right beside it. The wider rules for price lists, booking pages and posts are set out in salon price display rules in the UK.

Some salons have also dropped the old split into ladies' and gents' cuts. In England, Wales and Scotland, section 29 of the Equality Act 2010 forbids a service provider to discriminate against a client as to the terms on which it provides the service, and sex is a protected characteristic; in Northern Ireland, the Equality Commission tells consumers that a business cannot charge them more because of their sex. A list that names the work instead of the client, such as a short cut, a restyle or a cut on hair past the shoulders, avoids the question and prices what actually takes the time.

VAT becomes part of the price once your taxable turnover over the last 12 months goes over £90,000, or you expect it to pass that figure in the next 30 days. From then on, GOV.UK says, you must charge VAT on what you sell unless it is exempt, and at the standard rate, which GOV.UK gives as 20% for most goods and services, one sixth of every VAT-inclusive price belongs to HMRC. Near the threshold, decide in advance whether prices rise by the VAT or the margin absorbs it.

Calculate the net price, add VAT if you are registered, and round the result up to a clean step: whole pounds for short services, a larger step for long colour work. Use the same pattern across the list, never round down below your price floor, and show the same figures at reception, on your website and on your booking page. Your booking page should show the same figures as the list: in Salon Wizard, for example, each service carries its duration and its price, and clients see both before they book.

Review prices once a year at a fixed moment, and sooner when a large cost changes. Spring is a natural date, because GOV.UK says the National Minimum Wage rates change on 1 April every year. Other signals are a new lease, a price rise from your colour brand, and a column that is full weeks ahead.

Appointments already booked keep their price. Section 50 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 treats the information given to a client before the contract as one of its terms, and a change to it is not effective unless the client expressly agrees. Announce the new list a few weeks ahead at reception and on your booking page, tell regulars in person, and give the reason in one plain sentence the whole team uses.