How Much Do Grooming Salons ACTUALLY Make?

Are you up-to-date on your financials and bookkeeping in your grooming businesses?
‍

I hope so cause Uncle Sam is coming… which brings us to today’s deep dive - You know, the hush-hush yet a super valuable topic of discussion: How much money do grooming salons REALLY make?!
‍

I’m talking cold hard financials. 💰
‍

This information isn't exactly Google-able. It’s typically what you hear on the FaceBook rumor mill and we all know how trust-worthy that is…
‍

But lucky for you, we have EXCLUSIVE data from 281 grooming salons about how much money they really make.
‍

Some ranged from making ~$19,000 to nearly $2.5 million a year… (they go beyond grooming… more on this later).
‍

WILD. They gave us their behind the scenes numbers (which frankly I’m surprised they did 🤯). Let’s dive into some of the highlights 👇

‍

DISCLAIMER - This is not financial advice! (I’ve always wanted to say that…) I know all these numbers are dependent on a ton of factors especially geographic location, salon size, etc but this should be a solid benchmark for you on where you stack up or strive to be in your business. Okay enough with that - we’ll save legal topics for another issue. 😉

‍

For context, here is the state breakout for which grooming salons filled out this “money” survey / deep dive.

🐶 Unleashing the Secrets Behind Revenue!

Let’s make sure we cover the basics before we start throwing numbers at you.

Revenue = the money generated from normal business operations, calculated as the average sales price times the number of units sold. In the grooming world, it’s average grooming price times the number of dogs groomed plus tips, add-ons, other services, etc.

You get the gist.
‍

According to the data, a typical grooming salon does around $300,000 to $500,000 in revenue per year.

• Max: $2,484,232‍
• Top 75%: $640,471‍
• Average: $489,959‍
• Median: $346,011‍
• Bottom 25%: $187,750‍
• Min: $19,824

‍

The top response did nearly $2.5M a year in revenue. I must add that although they do offer grooming, they also offer pet boarding which usually is a more lucrative service so we’ll take that with a grain of salt.

It’s important to note that most salons who took part in this survey have 5-6 employees so use that as a reference when viewing these survey results.

“But Alex, if I had a large team of groomers, I’d make more money too.”

But…. when you have more groomers on your staff, your expenses are higher and your net profit will decrease. (Revenue - Expenses = Profit)

This brings us to our next metric - profit!

‍

💰The Bottom Line (profit)!

This is the number that salon owners really care about because any profit a salon generates goes to its owners usually at the end of the year.

‍

According to the data, a typical grooming salon does around $100,000 to $120,000 in profit per year with a 28-33% profit margin. (profit divided by revenue equals profit margin)

• Max: $530,000

• Top 75%: $146,837

• Average: $119,052

• Median: $100,000

• Bottom 25%: $59,044

• Min: $0 or unprofitable

‍

Profit margin is a better apples to apples benchmark since it’s calculated as a ratio to your business revenue of what’s left after all of your expenses.

If your falls below the 28-33% profit margin range, they’re probably ways to optimize your business’s profitability such as:

• charging more per service
• selling add-on’s
• grooming more dogs
• reviewing groomers’ pay and commission structure
• optimizing your grooming team’s utilization
• streamlining operations with software
• renegotiating your lease, van or real estate arrangements
• monitor spending on supplies and salon materials

Anything that affects the inflows or outflows of cash in your business could be something to look at.