What does an hour in your chair cost?
Start from the year, not the hour. Add up what you want to earn, your super and every cost of running the chair, then share it over the hours clients actually book. That's your cost per booked hour, and every price on your list is built from it.
Your cost per booked hour
The same sum as our hourly rate calculator, reworked for a salon. Every box is an example, put in your own. Everything stays in this browser.
An estimate, the sum is income plus super plus your costs, plus profit, over the hours booked. Products used in a service go on each service below, not in the yearly costs. Not tax advice and not financial advice.
Sole traders don't have to pay super for themselves, which is exactly why it goes in the sum. The ATO says "You don't have to pay super guarantee for yourself but you can choose to make personal super contributions to save for your retirement." Leave it out and your prices quietly skip your retirement.
Source: Australian Taxation Office, Business structures, key tax obligations, read 27 October 2026.
If you employ staff, their hour costs more than their pay rate. A qualified level 3 stylist's award rate is $29.45 an hour from 1 July 2026, and super, leave and the hours nobody books push the real cost well past that. The Hair and Beauty Award calculator works it out and brings the figure back here.
Source: Fair Work Ombudsman, Hair and Beauty Industry Award 2020 [MA000005], clause 17.1, read 27 October 2026.
Chair time, and processing time you can book into
Price each service by the minutes it takes your hands, then decide what to do with the minutes it doesn't. A colour has application, processing and finishing. While it processes your hands are free, and if you book a blow-dry or a cut into that gap, the gap isn't costing you anything.
So the price list below counts processing minutes only when you can't book into them. If you work alone with one chair and the client stays in it, count them. If you've a second chair or a basin and book into the gap, don't, and your colours come out cheaper than a salon that does nothing while colour develops.
Why this changes your colour prices so much
With the example numbers a full head colour is 45 minutes hands-on and 35 minutes processing. Counting the processing adds 35 minutes of your hourly cost to the price. Booking another client into it adds nothing. That's often the difference between being cheap and being right.
Salon price list template
Your price list
Change any service, minutes or product cost. Prices come from your cost per booked hour above and round to whole dollars.
| Service | Hands-on mins | Processing mins | Product $ | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Prices have no GST in them, right while you’re not registered.
Example services, minutes and product costs, not market prices. Put in your own.
Show the total price
Whatever you charge, the price on your list and your booking page is the price the client pays. The ACCC's rule, as business.gov.au puts it, is "If you display or advertise prices, always include the total price. The total price must include all charges, taxes, duties, levies or fees (such as goods and services tax or airport tax)."
Source: business.gov.au, Display prices, read 27 October 2026.
So once you're registered for GST, your list shows prices with GST in, never "plus GST" to a client. And a "from $85" price for long hair needs the real total said before you start, not at the counter. NSW Fair Trading says "The total price of a product or service must also be displayed."
Source: NSW Government, Pricing standards, read 27 October 2026.
You only add GST when you're registered, which you must be once your GST turnover reaches $75,000 a year. Under that, your prices have no GST in them.
Source: Australian Taxation Office, Registering for GST, read 27 October 2026.
Deposits for long services
A 3 hour colour correction or a full set of extensions is a whole morning. If that client doesn't turn up, the price you worked out above is lost for the whole block. Long services are where a deposit earns its place, and our cancellation policy template writes the rule for you.
Book clients in and send tax invoicesYamate sells software to salons and tradies. This guide and its calculator are free and ask for nothing.
Related
General information, not tax advice and not financial advice. The calculator is an estimate from the numbers you put in and the example figures are not market prices. Your prices are yours to set, and you lodge your own tax.