How to price your service in a nail salon

Hi, my name is Helene and im a part of Moonflair content crue. I feel so lucky that I have the opportunity to inspire and hopefully help you with difficult topics, like pricing in a nail salon! 

Yes, it’s very difficult for most of us to price ourselves. So I’m going to give you some guidelines that you have to think about. First of, its your work and your income! It’s not a hobby anymore, or if it is, it’s important to have the right price so you don’t undermine the nail industry. Because trust me, the nail salons would rather see that you as a “hobby-enthusiast” make more money, than damage the pricing in the nail industry overall. 

The second thing you have to have in mind is that it is a business and i am sure you want it to grow to a healthy business. A business where you earn enough money to set aside cash at the end of the month so you can keep renewing yourself, get better equipment, attend more courses/seminars, have extra colors, nail art and things like that to offer your clients. Even though you don’t use those extra colors and “bling” so much, you should be able to afford to buy it and get more attractive for the customers with more nail art and colors to choose from. In the start of a business these things are hard. So, after a while when you have built up the clientele, it’s hopefully easier to set aside money. That’s why it’s important to have the right price for your service from the start. You have to earn enough for rent, taxes, bills and  salary for yourself. After some time you will earn more and be able to set aside some money for your business in the future. So that you can have a healthy business to work in.

Now that I have gone through the reality check 😉 I’m off to the pricing and what to think about. There are no correct answers here unfortunately, but this is a checklist of what you should keep in mind. 

1. Search the area. What do your colleagues charge for a new sett and refill? Yes, even though it’s your competition they are also your colleagues. And keep that in mind, so you can help each other to keep the nail industry growing and overall rease our salaries. So if you just started doing nails, you put yourself a little under or at the same price, but if you have more experience you go higher. And if  people are asking about the price, you should say the price reflects on the experience and your level of education. Your colleagues will also check you and if they see you are putting your price a little higher, then they hopefully will go after and set their price higher too. And so it goes on and that way we will raise the salary in the nail industry.
2. What are your expenses? Set up a list of what you expenses are and calculate what you minimum should earn each working day.
3. What do you want to earn in one hour? How long does one service take, refill and a new set? And the rest of the services you offer should be priced after that, you don’t want to earn less money an hour with other services. Maybe you should price more for some services as well, like gel polish treatment/service.
4. If your bills and rent get higher or the products you use get more expensive – then your price have to go up. If you don’t do that you will earn less money than before and get lower salary. If your clients want to have the service, they have to pay for what it cost.
5. The whole society overall are rising the costs every year, so why shouldn’t you do the same? You have to pay that milk at the grocery store, that has a little higher price every year. This is the Index Regulation. So if you don’t raise your income, it means that you will earn less money every year.
6. Do you want a raise? Well then you have to raise your prices, considering what you want to earn in one hour. It doesn’t have to be much, but a lille will mean a lot for you but not so much for the clients. At the salon I work in we raise the prices a little two times a year, once in December (index regulation) and once in may (our salary raise).
7. If the client want something extra, charge extra for it. It takes more time or you use more expensive products to make it. And all that extra time it took for you to practice that new nail art or a new technique in addition to what you pay to attend workshops or seminars to achieve that service of nail art you can offer.

I hope these guidelines will help you to figure out what to charge for your service. Like i said, it’s not that easy to set a price on yourself, but hopefully straight facts will make it easier for you 😉

Please check out my instagram account @nailsbyhelenet where you can find some inspiration and don’t hesitate to contact me if you want to ask me something about this topic, or anything else for that matter 😀

Hugs and kisses

Helene