Set the right price for your services
Use this calculator to understand how much to charge your clients while still making a profit. From take-home pay to pesky credit card surcharges. Your costs are covered.
Your monthly running costs
Everything you pay to operate the business (rent, software, supplies, marketing) before income tax. We'll handle your take-home and income tax in the next two steps.
More cost categories
What you want to take home
Your pocket money each month: pay, KiwiSaver, savings. We'll gross this up for income tax in step 5 so what's left in your pocket is actually what you wanted.
Your team's working hours, realistically
Add a row for each person, including yourself. Be honest about admin time and your real booking rate. Pretending you'll be booked 100% of the time is the fastest way to underprice yourself.
Team members
| Name | Hours / week | Admin / week | Booking rate | Skill tier | Billable hrs/mo |
|---|
Skill tier multipliers: Junior × 0.80 · Standard × 1.00 · Senior × 1.25 · Master × 1.50. A Senior's hour earns 1.25× a Standard's at the same time slot.
Reminder: staff wages live in step 2 (running costs). Add a team member here and don't forget to update the staff wages line.
Your required hourly rate
Required revenue ÷ realistic billable hours. This is what every hour of client work has to earn to cover your running costs and leave the take-home you want in your pocket, after income tax.
Price each of your services
For each service: time × hourly rate × skill multiplier, plus any product cost. The rounded column gives you the price to publish.
| Service | Time (hrs) | Product cost | Skill tier | Calc. price | Rounded | GST-incl. | Card fee | Current price |
|---|
Skill tier multipliers: Junior × 0.80 · Standard × 1.00 · Senior × 1.25 · Master × 1.50
Does this actually work?
These numbers show what's happening at your suggested prices. If anything looks off, jump back to any step using the bar above.
Take your prices with you
PDF for a printable handout. CSV for if you want a spreadsheet.
One last thing
Pop your details in and your price list will download.
How this calculator works
The model in three lines
Required monthly revenue = Running costs + Take-home ÷ (1 − tax rate) Billable hours/month = (Hours/week − Admin) × Weeks/year ÷ 12 × Booking rate Hourly rate = Required revenue ÷ Billable hours
The tax maths most calculators get wrong
Most pricing calculators add income tax as a flat markup on top of cost. Tax doesn't work like that; it comes out of what you charge, not on top of cost. This calculator grosses up your take-home target by your tax rate, which means after running costs and income tax, you actually end up with the take-home you wanted. The difference is roughly your tax rate (typically 20–30%), which is the gap between "looks right" and "actually right."
Per-service price
For each service: Price (ex-GST) = Time × Hourly rate × Tier multiplier + Product cost. Product cost is optional. Leave it blank if your general supplies are already in step 2, or use it for high-product services (colour, full sets) so you're not eating the materials.
Why no "cushion" percentage?
The booking rate you set for each person in step 4 already does this job. By saying honestly that you'll only book, say, 75% of your available hours, that buffer is baked into the maths. Same idea, less hand-wavy.
GST / VAT
If you're registered, set the toggle in step 6 to Yes and enter your rate. The calculator builds everything ex-GST and adds GST in the right-hand column for display.
Card surcharge
If you can pass it on to clients, prices stay the same and the surcharge is added at the POS, so the salon nets the published price. If you can't, the calculator grosses up the rounded prices so you still net the same after the merchant fee comes out. Same maths underneath, just different ownership of the fee. The default rate is 1.7%; change it if your provider charges you more or less.
What this won't do
It won't account for tip income, gift cards, or product-only sales. It assumes a flat effective tax rate. Real tax is progressive, so talk to your accountant for your number. It treats loan repayments as fully expensed for simplicity; technically the principal portion is post-tax, but it's close enough for pricing.