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How Grooming Prices Are Set, and Why They Keep Rising
A grooming price is not just the dog's size. Coat, condition, behavior and the salon's costs all go into the number.
Owners often ask why the same salon charges one price for a beagle and three times as much for a doodle of similar weight. The answer is that grooming prices are built mostly from time, and time depends on far more than size.
What goes into the price
- Size. Bigger dogs take longer to bathe and dry and need more product.
- Breed and coat type. A short coat that only needs a bath and tidy is quick. A coat that needs a full haircut with scissor work takes much longer. Double coats need careful deshedding.
- Coat condition. Matting, burrs and neglect add time, which is why many salons charge a dematting fee.
- Behavior. A dog that needs two people, frequent breaks or a muzzle takes longer, and some salons add a handling fee.
- Add ons. Teeth brushing, nail grinding, special shampoos, blueberry facials and bandanas are priced separately.
- Location. Rent and wages vary by area, and so do prices.
How a salon turns time into a price
Behind most price lists is a target for what one hour of grooming time has to bring in. That figure has to cover the groomer's pay, any bather, rent, utilities, supplies, insurance, card fees and the front desk, with something left over. Once a salon knows its number, pricing a dog is mostly a matter of estimating how long it takes.
For example, suppose a salon works out that it needs $60 for every hour a groomer spends on a dog. A beagle that needs a bath, nails and a tidy in about an hour is priced around $60. A doodle of similar weight that needs a full haircut, careful drying and scissor work over three hours is priced around $180. The doodle is three times the beagle not because it is bigger, but because it uses three times the table.
The figures are only an illustration. The point is the method: if you know roughly how long a dog takes, you can tell whether its price is in line with the rest of the book.
Common ways salons structure prices
- Size chart. Small, medium, large and extra large, each with a set price. Easy to quote, but it treats a smooth coated dog and a heavily coated dog of the same size alike, so coated breeds are often underpriced.
- Breed chart. A price per breed or coat type. Closer to the real time, but mixes and unusual coats need a judgment call at check in.
- Time based. A rate per hour or per fifteen minutes. The fairest match to effort, but owners find it harder to predict, so it is often used only for dematting or difficult dogs.
- Base plus surcharges. A base price by size or breed, then set fees for matting, handling, extra coat, or a style that takes longer. This keeps quotes simple while still charging for the extra time.
For a commission groomer, the last two structures usually track your time best, but only if the surcharges are commissionable. If they are not, the salon is charged for the extra work and you are not paid for it.
Why prices keep rising
Grooming is labor heavy. Most of the price pays for a skilled person's time, and wages, rent, insurance, water and supplies have all become more expensive. Larger, longer coated dogs being more popular has also pushed the average groom time up. When a salon raises prices, it is usually catching up with costs rather than adding margin.
How prices connect to groomer pay
For a commission groomer, the salon's price list is effectively your pay rate. At 50 percent commission, a $90 groom pays you $45 before tips, whatever it took. If that groom takes 90 minutes, you earned $30 an hour on it. If it takes two and a half hours, you earned $18. That is why fair pricing for long grooms matters to groomers as much as to owners. Our guide on how grooming commission works covers which charges are usually commissionable, since some salons leave add ons out.
Matting and handling fees: who gets paid for the extra time
Say a matted dog takes an extra 45 minutes and the salon adds a $20 dematting fee. If the fee is commissionable at 50 percent, you earn $10 for that 45 minutes, about $13.33 an hour. That is often well below what the rest of the groom pays, so even a commissionable demat fee may be set too low. If the fee is not commissionable, you earn nothing for the extra 45 minutes.
Either way, the useful move is to time it. If dematting regularly pays you far less per hour than your average, bring the numbers to whoever sets prices and suggest a fee based on time, for example a charge per fifteen minutes.
What a price increase does to your pay
When a salon raises prices and keeps the commission rate, your pay rises by the same percentage. Suppose the average groom goes from $70 to $75.60, an 8 percent increase. At 50 percent, you earn $2.80 more per dog, which is $70 more in a 25 dog week.
Watch for a price increase paired with a rate change. If the same salon also moves you from 50 to 47 percent, you earn about $35.53 a dog instead of $35, an extra 53 cents. The salon's revenue went up by 8 percent and your pay went up by about 1.5 percent. Ask for any rate change in writing, and run both the old and new terms through a normal week before you agree.
Discounts come out of your pay too
On most commission plans, a discount reduces the revenue your commission is based on. A 10 percent coupon on an $80 groom cuts the ticket by $8, and at 50 percent that is $4 out of your pay. One coupon is small. A promotion that runs for a month across your whole book is not. If the salon runs promotions, ask whether commission is figured on the full price or the discounted one, and find out before the promotion starts, not when the paycheck arrives.
Making the case to reprice a regular
Every book has a regular whose dog takes much longer than its price allows. To make a case the salon can act on, time three visits in a row, then turn them into an effective hourly rate.
For example, a dog priced at $95 takes 2.75 hours every visit. At 50 percent you earn $47.50, which is about $17.27 an hour. If your daily average is $24 an hour, matching it on that dog would mean earning $66, which at 50 percent is a $132 price. You may not get the full increase, but you now have a specific, reasonable request:
"Bella has taken two and three quarter hours on each of her last three visits. At $95 she pays about $17 an hour against my average of $24. Can we move her to the next coat tier, or add a coat fee, at her next booking?"
Most salons prefer to raise a price at a natural point, such as a new year or a change in the dog's coat, and to tell the owner in advance. The pay per dog guide shows how to calculate the hourly figure for any groom.
Questions worth asking your salon
- Are dematting and handling fees commissionable?
- Who decides the price of a dog that is booked as one size and arrives as another?
- When prices go up, does the commission rate stay the same?
- Are discounts and coupons taken out of the revenue your commission is based on?
See what your price list pays you
Log a week of grooms at their real prices in the commission calculator, then compare each groom's pay to the time it took. The pay per dog guide walks through the math.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my salon charge more for a doodle than a bigger short coated dog?
Because price follows time. A full haircut on a thick coat can take several times as long as a bath and tidy on a short coat, even when the short coated dog weighs more.
Is a dematting fee commissionable?
It depends on the salon's pay plan. Some include it in commissionable revenue and some do not. Ask, and get the answer in writing, because matted dogs are where the time adds up.
If prices go up, does my pay go up?
On a commission plan with the same rate, yes, by the same percentage. If the rate changes at the same time, work out a normal week under both sets of terms before assuming you are ahead.
Can a groomer set their own prices?
Employees usually work from the salon's price list, though many salons let groomers recommend a price for a specific dog. Booth renters and mobile owner-operators set their own. The booth rental guide and mobile groomer pay guide walk through the costs your prices have to cover.