Charge for long or thick hair by what it actually costs you, extra product and extra time, and turn that into a small number of tiers a client can check in a mirror: above the chin, chin to shoulders, past the shoulders. Put each tier on your menu as its own line with its own price, add a set charge for each extra bowl of colour beyond the tier, and tell the client which applies when they book and again before you mix. Done that way, nobody is surprised at the till, and the client with hair to her waist is paying for her own colour rather than being quietly subsidised by the client with a bob.
Measure before you price
Most salons price long hair from a feeling that it takes longer. Put numbers on it for a fortnight.
- Product. For each colour service, note how many bowls you mixed and roughly where the client's hair sat. Work out what one bowl costs you: the tube, the developer, and a share of the foils, gloves and treatment.
- Time. Note application time and total chair time against the same lengths. The finish counts too; a thick head past the shoulders can add twenty minutes to a blow dry on its own.
- Your chair rate. Divide what you need a chair to earn in a week by the hours it is booked. That gives you a dollar figure for every extra ten minutes.
After two weeks the pattern is usually plain. Product rises in steps, roughly a bowl at a time, and time rises with it.
Choose tiers clients can see
Tiers only work if the client and the stylist agree on which one applies before anything happens. Long means different things to different people. A landmark does not:
- Short: above the chin.
- Medium: chin to shoulders.
- Long: past the shoulders.
Three tiers is enough for most salons. Some add a fourth for hair past the shoulder blades, or cover it with the extra-bowl charge instead. Thickness is harder for a client to judge on the phone, so price it separately: an extra bowl at a fixed price, charged only when the stylist sees that it is needed and has said so before mixing.
Cuts and blow dries can follow the same landmarks. Many salons do not tier a cut but do tier a blow dry, because that is where the extra time goes.
Put it on the menu as lines
Write each tier as a separate service with its own price and duration. A line such as "Global colour, past shoulders, $160, 2 hours" can be quoted by anyone who answers the phone, read on a booking page and understood at a glance. A colour listed from $120 invites the question that later becomes the argument. The wider reasoning is in how to write a service menu that sells.
The extra bowl gets its own line too, for example "Extra bowl of colour, $15". Listing it is what makes it fair: a published price, not a surprise.
Saying it out loud
The tier only avoids an argument if the client hears it twice: once when booking and once in the chair. On the phone, ask where the hair sits and name the price for that tier. At the start of the appointment, look at the hair, confirm the tier, and if a third bowl looks likely, say so then, with the price. A sentence such as "Your hair's past your shoulders and quite thick, so it's the long price and probably an extra bowl, $175 all up" takes five seconds and removes the only surprise left.
A worked example
Ribbonwood Hair is a three-stylist salon that charged a flat $120 for a global colour. Over two weeks the owner measured it. Short hair used one bowl, about $11 of product, and took 30 minutes to apply. Medium used about a bowl and a half and took 40 minutes. Long used two bowls, $22 of product, and took 50 minutes. The salon's chair rate works out at $90 an hour, or $1.50 a minute.
Compared with short hair, then, long hair cost an extra $11 in product and an extra 20 minutes worth $30: $41 in all. Medium cost an extra $5.50 in product and 10 minutes worth $15, so $20.50. The owner rounded to new prices of $120 for short, $140 for medium and $160 for long, with an extra bowl at $15 for hair that needs a third.
In the previous quarter the salon did 90 global colours: 25 short, 35 medium and 30 long. At the new prices that same quarter would have brought in 35 times $20, or $700, plus 30 times $40, or $1,200: $1,900 more for exactly the same work. Nothing about the long-haired clients' colour changed. The price simply matched it.
A month before the change, the owner texted regulars a short note naming their tier, so nobody found out at the till.
Mistakes that start arguments
- Charging extra after mixing. If a third bowl is needed, say so and say the price before it is mixed. A charge first mentioned at the till feels like a trick, however fair it is.
- Tiers with no landmark. A long hair surcharge with no definition will be argued about. Chin, shoulders and shoulder blades will not.
- Booking without asking. Whoever takes bookings should ask where the client's hair sits at the moment and book the tier, rather than booking a flat colour and hoping.
- Too many tiers. Five lengths and three thicknesses make a menu nobody can read aloud. Three tiers and one extra-bowl line cover nearly every head.
- Treating regulars differently by accident. If some long-haired regulars pay the old price and others the new, they will compare notes. Give everyone notice, then apply it to everyone.
If an answered line quotes your prices, it can only give tiers that exist as separate services. Glow Line's assistant quotes each listed price exactly and never works out a surcharge of its own; see services and hours.
What to do this week
- Start a two-week log of bowls used, application time and hair length for every colour.
- Work out your cost per bowl and your chair rate per minute.
- Draft three tiers with landmarks and one extra-bowl line, each with a price and a duration.
- Add the length question to your booking checklist and to the consultation at the start of every colour.
- See how a mobile hairdresser or a hair salon sets out services when the price depends on the head of hair.