Pay guide
What Each Groom Really Pays You: Pay per Dog and per Hour
A $110 groom feels like a good dog. Divide it by the time it takes and it may be the worst-paying appointment of your day.
On commission, every groom has its own hourly rate hiding inside it. The price tells you what the salon charged. The time it takes tells you what it paid you. Groomers who know that number for their regular dogs make better decisions about pricing, booking and which add-ons to suggest.
The calculation
Effective hourly rate for one groom
(service price × commission rate) ÷ hours the groom takes
Count the whole time the dog takes you: bath, dry, cut, and the cleanup that belongs to it. If a bather handles part of the job, count only your part.
Three dogs at 50 percent
- Doodle, full groom, $110, 2.5 hours. You earn $55, which is $22 an hour.
- Yorkie, full groom, $55, 1 hour. You earn $27.50, which is $27.50 an hour.
- Lab, bath and nails, $45, 45 minutes. You earn $22.50, which is $30 an hour.
The most expensive dog of the three pays the least per hour. That is common with large, coated breeds that take most of a morning, and it is why a book full of big doodles can look busy and still pay less than a mixed day.
What to do with the number
Spot the dogs that are underpriced. If one regular client's dog consistently takes far longer than its price allows, that is a pricing conversation for the salon, not a speed problem for you. Bring the numbers: the time it takes and what it pays per hour compared with your average.
Check your add-ons. Nail trims, teeth brushing and ear cleaning take minutes. If they are commissionable, they usually pay far more per minute than the groom itself. A $10 add-on that takes five minutes earns $5 at 50 percent, which is $60 an hour. If they are not commissionable, you are doing that work for free. The guide to how grooming commission works covers what to ask.
Compare against your hourly floor. If you are on hourly vs. commission, any groom that pays less per hour than your hourly rate is effectively paid at your hourly rate, so speeding it up only helps once the day as a whole commissions out. The break-even guide shows where that line sits.
Your day's average
Add up the commission for every groom in a day and divide by the hours you worked, including the gaps. That is your effective hourly rate for the day. Track it for a few weeks and you will see which days, which dogs and which booking patterns pay best. The commission only calculator totals each day's grooms for you, so all you need to add is the time.
How to time a groom honestly
The calculation is only as good as the hours you put into it, and most groomers underestimate. The appointment slot in the booking system is not the time the dog took. Neither is the time you remember, which tends to be the part where you were cutting. For a fair number, write down two times for each dog: when you took it out of the kennel to start, and when it went back in finished or was handed to its owner.
That span includes things that feel like they should not count but do: brushing out before the bath, waiting for a dog to settle, the second blow dry because the first one left it damp, and wiping down the table afterward. If the dog is on your table or in your hands, it is costing you time.
Drying is the one place where judgment comes in. If a dog sits in a kennel dryer while you finish another dog, that drying time is not really yours, because you are earning on the other dog during it. If you are standing at the table with a high velocity dryer, it is. A simple rule: count time when the dog is the only thing you could be working on.
Two weeks of start and end times is usually enough to see the pattern for your regulars. After that, you only need to time a dog again when something changes, such as a new cut, a coat that has grown out, or a dog that has become harder to handle.
Build a table for your regulars
Once you have times, put your regular dogs side by side. Here is a hypothetical book at 50 percent commission, using each dog's usual time:
| Dog and service | Price | Your share | Time | Per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goldendoodle, full groom | $120 | $60 | 3 hours | $20.00 |
| Shih Tzu, full groom | $70 | $35 | 90 minutes | $23.33 |
| Golden Retriever, bath and brush | $60 | $30 | 75 minutes | $24.00 |
| Schnauzer, full groom | $75 | $37.50 | 75 minutes | $30.00 |
| Walk-in nail trim | $15 | $7.50 | 10 minutes | $45.00 |
Sorted this way, the book tells a clearer story than the price list does. The doodle is the biggest ticket and the lowest hourly rate. The Schnauzer, at a modest price, pays half again as much per hour. The nail trim pays the most of all, but only if there are enough of them to fill time that would otherwise sit empty.
Use an average, not one visit
Any single groom can run long. A dog that is matted after a missed appointment, or one that had a bad day, will skew one visit badly. Base your number on the last several visits instead. Say that same doodle took 150, 165, 195 and 180 minutes over its last four visits. The average is 172.5 minutes, so your $60 share works out to about $20.87 an hour. That is a number you can take to a manager, because it is not built on the worst day.
If one dog swings wildly from visit to visit, that is worth noting too. A dog whose time depends on how long since its last groom is a case for a shorter rebooking interval, or for a dematting or overdue coat charge if the salon has one. Ask whether that charge is commissionable before you count on it.
Working out a fair price
If you know what you want a groom to pay per hour, you can turn the formula around to get the price that would do it:
Price needed for a target hourly rate
(target hourly rate × hours the groom takes) ÷ commission rate
Say your grooms pay you around $27 an hour on an ordinary day, and the $110 doodle from the example above takes 2.5 hours at 50 percent. To bring it up to $27 an hour, the price would need to be $27 × 2.5 ÷ 0.50 = $135. That is a $25 increase. Whether the salon makes it is their call, but a specific figure with the reasoning behind it is far more likely to get a hearing than "this dog takes forever."
When a bather does part of the work
If a bather washes and dries the dog before it reaches you, your share of the price is covering less of your time, which raises your rate per hour. Suppose the $110 doodle still pays you $55, but the bather takes the first hour. Your part is 1.5 hours, so you earn about $36.67 an hour on that dog instead of $22. Check how your salon handles commission when a bather is involved, because some split it or reduce the base, and the answer changes the math completely.
Mistakes that skew the number
- Using the booked slot. A dog booked for two hours that takes three pays a third less per hour than you think.
- Leaving out cleanup. Sweeping up after a heavy coat and resetting the table belong to that dog.
- Mixing in tips. Tips are real money, so it is fine to calculate a second figure with them included. A $10 tip on the $110 doodle brings it to $65 over 2.5 hours, or $26 an hour. Keep the two figures apart, though, because tips are not something the salon can price.
- Forgetting the price you were actually credited. If a groom was discounted, your share is on the discounted price. Use what shows on your commission report.
- Judging a dog on one number alone. A lower paying dog that fills an awkward gap, or a loyal client who refers others, can still be worth keeping on your book.
Frequently asked questions
Should I include tips when I work out pay per dog?
Work out both. The figure without tips shows whether the price and time make sense. The figure with tips shows what the groom actually paid you. Use the first one in any pricing conversation.
What if a dog takes longer because I am still learning a breed?
Then the low hourly rate is partly about practice, not price. Track the same dog over several visits. If your time drops, the number fixes itself. If it stays high once you are comfortable with the cut, the price is the issue.
Does a low paying dog mean I should turn it away?
Not necessarily. On hourly vs. commission pay, a dog that fills an otherwise empty slot costs you nothing on a day that would not commission out anyway. The number is a tool for pricing and booking decisions, not a rule for refusing dogs.
How often should I recalculate?
Whenever prices, your commission rate or a regular dog's routine changes, and otherwise every few months. A price increase that is not matched by your commission terms is worth checking straight away.