Free tool

How much do hair stylists make?

Compare commission and booth rent with the same service sales and tips. Enter your schedule and costs to see what each setup leaves before taxes, whether you are a stylist, barber, nail tech, esthetician, or massage therapist.

Your work, your costs

Starting figures are examples. Replace them with your own offer, lease, and expenses. Amounts are in US dollars.

Your role
Schedule & other costs

48 working weeks, 52 rent weeks, 8% product costs, $5,200 other booth costs and $0 commission costs per year.

After entered costs. Before taxes.

$8,592

more per year in the booth rent scenario, on these inputs.

This is a cash comparison, not take-home pay or a recommendation. Income tax, payroll and self-employment taxes, benefits, and any costs you have not entered are outside these figures.

Commission

$28,800

per year, before all personal taxes

Your service commission
$28,800
Tips you keep
$0
Rent
-$0
Product costs
-$0
Other costs
-$0

Booth rent

$37,392

per year, before all personal taxes

Service sales
$57,600
Tips you keep
$0
Rent
-$10,400
Product costs
-$4,608
Other costs
-$5,200

Where the two meet

At about $774 in service sales per working week, the two scenarios match before taxes. Above that, booth rent leaves more under these fixed costs. This assumes the same service sales and tips in each setup; changing your client book or pricing changes the comparison.

The link includes your entered amounts. Anyone with it can see this scenario.

A wage benchmark, separately

National employee wages are context for your role, not an hourly offer for you. BLS wage data includes reported tips and excludes self-employed workers, so it is not ranked against these scenarios.

Hair stylist wage referenceWhat BLS wages include
How the comparison is calculated

Commission: weekly service sales × commission rate × working weeks, plus weekly tips × working weeks, minus annual costs you pay.

Booth rent: weekly service sales × working weeks, plus the same tips, minus weekly rent × rent-paying weeks, product costs on service sales, and other annual booth expenses.

Tips are the amount you enter, independent of rent or commission. A zero means no tips are added. Rent uses its own schedule, so taking four weeks off does not automatically remove four rent payments.

Both figures are before all personal taxes. A flat percentage cannot capture your individual tax position. See the IRS explanation of self-employment tax. Employee benefits and paid leave also need a separate comparison.

Amounts are calculated to cents and displayed as rounded dollars. The crossover is approximate. This does not assess whether an employment or rental arrangement meets local legal requirements.

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Understand the comparison

Your inputs. Visible arithmetic.

Tips stay independent of rent, working weeks stay separate from lease payments, and your expenses stay visible. National wage references provide context alongside your two scenarios. They never stand in for a job offer.

Questions

Stylist pay, answered

How much do hair stylists make?
Earnings depend on your service sales, commission or lease terms, tips, working weeks, and expenses. This calculator compares two scenarios from your inputs before all personal taxes. National wage data is linked separately for context: it describes employees, includes reported tips, and is not a personal earnings forecast.
Do stylists make more on commission or booth rent?
It depends on the share you keep, your lease, product costs, other expenses, and how many weeks you work. The calculator assumes the same service sales and retained tips in both setups and shows where their pre-tax results meet, when a rising-sales crossover exists. Taxes, benefits, paid leave, and any change in your client book may change the decision.
How are tips calculated?
Enter the tips you expect to keep in a working week, after any tip sharing and before tax. The same dollar amount is added to both setups for each working week. Changing rent or commission never changes the tips. Enter zero to exclude tips.
How accurate are these numbers?
The formulas are explicit, but the result is only as useful as the inputs. Starting values are editable examples, not conservative forecasts. Open Schedule & other costs to enter working weeks, rent-paying weeks, product costs, and annual expenses. All personal taxes and benefits are outside the calculation, so the result is not take-home pay.
Is my information stored or shared?
Edits are calculated in your browser and are not saved to a customer account. If you choose Share these inputs, the link contains your entered amounts. Anyone with that link can read them, and opening it sends its URL to the site like any page request. Usage analytics records actions such as successful sharing, without adding your financial inputs or calculated totals to those events.
Why did an older shared result change?
Older links keep their sales, commission, and rent values. The current model replaces inferred tips and a flat payroll-tax adjustment with explicit tips, editable expenses, and separate work and rent schedules. Review those inputs before comparing; older results are not reproduced as if they were still valid.
I want to open my own salon. Where do I start?
Plan the whole business side before opening: growth, bookings, clients, team operations, stock, administration, and owner insights. The free salon AI planner prepares your brief. Building and running the setup happens in Founden, where you review supported connections and costs.

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How much do hair stylists make? | SalonAI