Free commission calculator for salon owners
Every point of commission comes out of the same money that pays you. Drop in last month's revenue and see both numbers together, plus the whole budget behind them. For owners who employ stylists on commission.
What you can afford to pay yourself
$4,746/mo
$56,946 a year, before tax
At your 50% commission rate. Your budget target is $6,893: $2,933 as commission behind the chair, plus $3,960 as the owner's wage for running the business.
The rate your revenue carries
44.0%
You're paying 50% where your revenue carries 44.0%. With payroll taxes, that gap costs $2,240 a month, and it's already taken out of the pay above.
Every extra point of commission costs you about $373 a month, including payroll taxes.
The pay above is your budget target, plus or minus your cushion, minus the extra commission and payroll taxes you pay above the rate your revenue carries.
Team pay budget
$17,600/mo
Rent budget
$4,400/mo
Everything else
$17,948/mo
Cushion if you paid the budget rate: $92/mo
Your budget lines add up to more than your revenue. Retail is below the roughly 10% of service revenue this model assumes.
What salons actually run
Most salons run net margin 8 to 15%, median about 11%
This is a wage for running the business, not profit. Industry guidance is to pay the owner a market-rate wage as an expense, then treat whatever is left as profit on top. The BizMetricsHQ operator panel of more than 210 salons puts salon net margin at 8 to 15% with a median around 11%. Your wage is separate from that. Profit sits on top of it.
Target and actual
Aim for 30 to 35% of total revenue
Most salons run total payroll about 45%, with a range of 40 to 60%
Strategies, the salon financial consultancy, targets service payroll at 30 to 35% of total revenue and treats anything above 40% as a payroll problem. What salons actually run is higher: the BizMetricsHQ operator panel puts payroll at about 45%, and Homebase puts total payroll at 40 to 60%. We use 40% as the working middle.
What salons actually run
Most salons run total payroll including support runs 40 to 60%
There is no separate benchmark for front desk and assistants. Total payroll including support commonly runs 40 to 60% of revenue, and this model puts 45% into wages before taxes and benefits.
Published benchmark
Employer taxes plus workers' comp run about 12% of wages. Against the 45% of revenue this model puts into wages, that lands at 5.4%.
No published benchmark
No established industry benchmark for this one. It's the model's working allowance, so set it against your real cost.
Target and actual
Aim for most guidance says don't let it pass 15%
Most salons run 8 to 15% of revenue
Salon rent commonly runs 8 to 15% of revenue, and most guidance says don't let it pass 15%.
No published benchmark
No established percentage benchmark for this one. It's the model's working allowance, so set it against your real bill.
No published benchmark
No established industry benchmark for this one. It's the model's working allowance.
Target
Aim for 5 to 10% of service sales, with product and retail together at 8 to 12% of revenue
Backbar is commonly benchmarked at 5 to 10% of service sales. Product and retail cost together should land at 8 to 12% of revenue, which is where this model sits once restocking is added.
How this is worked out
Arithmetic, not a benchmark. At a 120% markup, product costs about 45 cents of every retail dollar you take.
Target and actual
Aim for 7 to 8% of revenue, if you are already at a 10 to 12% net margin
Most salons run 3 to 6%
Aim for 7 to 8%, with a caveat almost nobody repeats. The SBA's guidance is 7 to 8% of revenue for businesses under 5 million dollars, and it assumes you are already running a 10 to 12% net margin. If you are not there, spending 7 to 8% comes out of profit you do not have. Salons actually run 3 to 6%. In a deliberate growth phase you might push to 20%, but that is a decision about where your salon is and what you are trying to do, not a benchmark, and it is not sustainable long term. This model allocates 4%, which is what the budget carries once every other line is paid.
No published benchmark
No established industry benchmark for this one. It's the model's working allowance.
No published benchmark
No established industry benchmark for this one. It's the model's working allowance.
No published benchmark
No established percentage benchmark for this one. Published figures are dollar ranges, not percentages of revenue.
What salons actually run
Most salons run 2.6 to 3.5% of revenue
Card processing alone is commonly 2.6 to 3.5% of revenue. Slick is 2.1% in person, below that range.
No published benchmark
No established percentage benchmark for this one. It's the model's working allowance.
No published benchmark
No established industry benchmark for this one. It's the model's working allowance.
Target
Aim for 7.5% of revenue as business reserves
A common salon budget target puts 15% aside as profit, split 7.5% into business reserves and 7.5% as the owner's draw. That split is a working rule for what to do with profit, not a published benchmark. This model allocates 2%, because once the team, the space, the product and the running costs are paid at these rates, 2% is what is left to put by.
This model doesn't include retail commission. If you pay it, usually 10 to 15% of retail sales, it comes out of your cushion.
44.0%
The target for stylist pay is 30 to 35% of total revenue. Total payroll across salons runs about 45%. This model uses 40% of budget revenue for stylist pay, which works out to 44.0% of your service dollars, or about $2,933 per stylist a month. If you're above that, you're not unusual, but the difference has to come from somewhere.
This budget puts $220/month against salon software. Slick for 6 stylists is $92/month on Essential or $142/month on Advanced.
Both tiers sit inside that line.
Slick is salon software built for hair stylists and barbers. It runs your bookings, calendar, card payments, text reminders and marketing from one app, so numbers like the ones you just worked out keep themselves up to date.
10,000 salon pros already run their business on it. In the US, Slick is part of DaySmart.
Sarah switched from Vagaro and grew bookings 42% using Slick's marketing tools.
Read her story →
Before you decide on a raise, it helps to see how other owners structure it. These are common conventions, not rules, and not advice to cut anyone's pay. Your market and your prices move all of it.
Common coaching convention, not survey data. No published survey of salon commission rates exists that we could stand behind.
When a stylist asks for more, the price usually moves before the percentage does. A higher price pays the stylist more and leaves more for the salon. A higher percentage only moves money from one side to the other.
$65 service at 44%
Stylist earns $28.60
Salon keeps $36.40
$65 service at 48%
Stylist earns $31.20
Salon keeps $33.80
$71.50 service at 44%
Stylist earns $31.46
Salon keeps $40.04
A common trigger for a price rise is being booked 85% or more for two to three months running. Start with around 10% and check the book again after a couple of months.
One catch: if commission is paid on the full ticket, part of every price rise goes straight back out as commission, including the part that covers color. Some salons split color services into product and labor and pay commission on the labor only.
A commission stylist on your payroll is an employee, so the costs don't stop at the percentage.
Commission has to cover at least minimum wage for every hour worked in the week, including time waiting between clients. If it falls short, you top it up. Many salons write it as 'commission or hourly, whichever is higher'.
Past 40 hours, overtime is owed, and commission is part of the rate it's calculated on.
7.65% for Social Security and Medicare, federal unemployment on the first $7,000, plus your state's unemployment rate and workers' comp. This model allows 5.4% of revenue for it.
A backbar or product charge can't take anyone's pay below minimum wage or overtime for the week. Some states restrict deductions further.
General information, not legal advice. Rules vary by state, so check with your payroll provider or an employment attorney.
Where a number has a source, we cite it. See where these numbers come from
Four leaks that pull money out of the lines above, and how Slick plugs each one.
Your stylist loses the commission and the salon loses the revenue, while rent and the rest of your costs keep running.
What plugs it
Slick digital appointment cards take a deposit up front, so a gap costs you less.
A point of processing on real salon volume is thousands a year you never see on a statement.
What plugs it
Slick is 2.1% in person.
This budget assumes retail is about 10% of your service revenue. Fall short and the budget comes up short too.
What plugs it
Slick stock tracking keeps restocking matched to what actually sold.
One stylist can carry the team line while another quietly sits under it, and the totals hide both.
What plugs it
Slick per-stylist reporting on service and retail.
Salon owners who made the switch.
Increased bookings by 42% with Slick's marketing
Grew her revenue by 20% with Slick
Saved thousands on client fees since leaving Fresha
Cut costs by thousands since moving to Slick
Moving to the slick was one of the best decisions we've made! The team are fab! Super quick with any help we might need and easy to talk to, thanks for everything!
Love Slick. It works beautifully, great for appointment management, text blasting clients, reminder texts are part of the package and the customer service support is outstanding. Brilliant!
The most innovative and relevant Salon system I've ever worked with always listening to our requirements always delivering and always coming out with new solutions for our working day
it's been so easy to get used to, we're so pleased to have changed over from previous difficult systems. They're brilliant at helping with your business
We'll walk your budget with you and show you where Slick fits. Takes about 20 minutes.
Use your best guess and slide it. The point isn't the decimal, it's the gap. If the rate you pay is a few points above what your numbers carry, that difference is coming straight out of your own pay, and a few points is usually thousands a year.
Seven of the eighteen lines come from published industry benchmarks, listed with sources under the calculator. Eight have no established benchmark we could stand behind, so we've labeled them as the model's working allowance. The other three show a target or a worked-out allocation. We started from the budget model commission salons commonly use, then corrected four lines that didn't match the published data.
Switch on 'Do you take clients yourself?' at the top of the calculator and tell it how much service revenue you personally bring in. You get paid twice in a commission salon: a commission on your own clients out of the team pay budget, and a wage for running the business. The calculator adds both together.
Rent is the hardest line to move, so something else has to give. Usually it's the team line, retail performance, or price. Look at revenue per square foot first. If rent is 15% of your income, you need the revenue to catch up to the space.
It depends on what she brings in, not on the number. 50% is usually the top level, for stylists fully booked with their own clients. Slide the commission rate above to 50% and look at the gap. If it's big, a price rise often gets her the raise without the salon carrying all of it.
Many salons do, as a product charge on color services or by paying commission on labor only. Federally it can't take anyone below minimum wage or overtime for the week, and some states limit deductions further. Check with your payroll provider before you start.
No. This one is built for commission. Booth rental economics are different: your income is rent, not services, and most of these lines shift or disappear.
The numbers you type stay in your browser. If you unlock the full breakdown we keep the details you enter in the form so we can email you a copy. Nothing else.
We checked every line for a published benchmark. Where one exists we cite it, where it doesn't we say so. Treat this as a starting point, not a rule.
These percentages start from the budget model commission salons commonly use. We checked every line against published benchmarks and corrected four of them: marketing, payroll taxes, card processing and backbar all moved. Seven lines have a real published benchmark and say so when you tap them. Eight don't, and those say that too. Three more show a target or a worked-out allocation. A number with no source behind it shouldn't pretend otherwise. The model reconciles when retail runs at about 10% of your service revenue at a 120% markup. Budget percentages apply to your service revenue plus that 10% retail target, except card fees, which use your actual total. Your rent, your market and your service mix will move all of it. Treat this as a starting point, not a rule.
Some of these are targets and some are averages, and they are not the same thing. Where we have both we show both, so you can see what to aim at next to what most salons actually run. Being above a target is common, not a failure.
Two targets do not fit inside this budget, and that is worth seeing rather than hiding. A salon aiming at 7 to 8% marketing and 7.5% into reserves needs about 15% of revenue for those two lines. This model can only allocate 6%. The gap is not a mistake in the math, it is the arithmetic of a commission salon: once the team, the space, the product and the running costs are paid at these rates, there is very little left to fund growth or a cushion. Every line here is a percentage of the same money, so funding one of those targets means moving another line, not finding new money.
What you take home
Your team
Your space
Product
Running the business
Almost there
See every line of your budget, the commission rate your revenue carries, and where any gap is coming from.