EPISODE · Jan 30, 2026 · 11 MIN
Tiered Pricing: How to Charge Different Rates in Your Salon (Without Team Drama)
from Build Your Salon with Phil Jackson · host Build Your Salon with Phil Jackson
If everyone in your salon charges the same price - junior who's just qualified, senior who's been with you 10 years - you're leaving money on the table.WHAT TIERED PRICING ISDifferent team members charge different prices based on experience, expertise, and client demand.Hair salons do this well. Beauty salons? Not nearly enough.THE FIVE REASONS IT WORKSREASON 1: HELPS JUNIORS BUILD CLIENTELEWithout tiered pricing, reception has subconscious bias - senior costs more in wages, needs to stay busy. Junior never gets chance to build regulars.With tiered pricing, price-sensitive clients gravitate to junior. Levels the playing field.REASON 2: IT'S FAIR TO SENIOR TEAMSomeone with 2 years charges same as someone with 10 years? That's not fair.Tiered pricing shows there's a career path - not just a job.If you don't take care of your team's future, they'll take care of it themselves. Usually means leaving or going self-employed.REASON 3: COST-BASED PRICING MAKES SENSESenior team costs you more in wages.If they charge same as juniors, you make MORE profit from junior and LESS from senior. That's backwards.With tiered pricing, profit per service stays consistent.Even if you're solo: Have an owner tier that prices in your marketing and admin time.REASON 4: CONTROL OVER WHO DOES WHATScottish beauty salon example: Expert therapists on £18-25/hour being booked for £10 quick brow waxes. Losing money.With tiered pricing: Exclude cheap services from Expert tier. Quick treatments only bookable with junior tiers.Now the maths works.REASON 5: RETENTION TOOL IN DOWNTURNSJanuary hits. Clients get price-sensitive.Without tiered pricing: They leave entirely.With tiered pricing: "Money tight? Try our junior tier instead - same great service, lower price."Keep client in business. When finances improve, they move back up.THE OBJECTIONS"Team offended being called junior?"→ Use Graduate, Advanced, Lead. Language is flexible. Concept isn't."Clients think juniors aren't as good?"→ That's the point. Different experience = different pricing."Clients will complain?"→ They won't. Like airline seats: economy, premium, business. Same destination, different experience."Seniors worry clients will leave?"→ Good - opens space for premium-priced customers."Team conflict?"→ No - if progression is transparent. Set clear criteria: retention, utilisation, training, reviews.HOW TO IMPLEMENTDefine tiers → Set progression criteria → Communicate with team FIRST → Update systems → Launch publicly━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES:Get Paid Properly: getpaidproperly.com💬 WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://youtube.com/@buildyoursalonApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - Leaving Money on Table1:23 - What Tiered Pricing Is2:19 - Reason 1: Helps Juniors3:21 - Reason 2: Fair to Seniors4:19 - Reason 3: Cost-Based Pricing5:14 - Reason 4: Control Who Does What6:09 - Reason 5: Retention Tool7:01 - Objections Answered9:45 - Progression Criteria#tieredpricing #salonpricing #salonbusiness━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? [email protected]
What this episode covers
If everyone in your salon charges the same price - junior who's just qualified, senior who's been with you 10 years - you're leaving money on the table.WHAT TIERED PRICING ISDifferent team members charge different prices based on experience, expertise, and client demand.Hair salons do this well. Beauty salons? Not nearly enough.THE FIVE REASONS IT WORKSREASON 1: HELPS JUNIORS BUILD CLIENTELEWithout tiered pricing, reception has subconscious bias - senior costs more in wages, needs to stay busy. Junior never gets chance to build regulars.With tiered pricing, price-sensitive clients gravitate to junior. Levels the playing field.REASON 2: IT'S FAIR TO SENIOR TEAMSomeone with 2 years charges same as someone with 10 years? That's not fair.Tiered pricing shows there's a career path - not just a job.If you don't take care of your team's future, they'll take care of it themselves. Usually means leaving or going self-employed.REASON 3: COST-BASED PRICING MAKES SENSESenior team costs you more in wages.If they charge same as juniors, you make MORE profit from junior and LESS from senior. That's backwards.With tiered pricing, profit per service stays consistent.Even if you're solo: Have an owner tier that prices in your marketing and admin time.REASON 4: CONTROL OVER WHO DOES WHATScottish beauty salon example: Expert therapists on £18-25/hour being booked for £10 quick brow waxes. Losing money.With tiered pricing: Exclude cheap services from Expert tier. Quick treatments only bookable with junior tiers.Now the maths works.REASON 5: RETENTION TOOL IN DOWNTURNSJanuary hits. Clients get price-sensitive.Without tiered pricing: They leave entirely.With tiered pricing: "Money tight? Try our junior tier instead - same great service, lower price."Keep client in business. When finances improve, they move back up.THE OBJECTIONS"Team offended being called junior?"→ Use Graduate, Advanced, Lead. Language is flexible. Concept isn't."Clients think juniors aren't as good?"→ That's the point. Different experience = different pricing."Clients will complain?"→ They won't. Like airline seats: economy, premium, business. Same destination, different experience."Seniors worry clients will leave?"→ Good - opens space for premium-priced customers."Team conflict?"→ No - if progression is transparent. Set clear criteria: retention, utilisation, training, reviews.HOW TO IMPLEMENTDefine tiers → Set progression criteria → Communicate with team FIRST → Update systems → Launch publicly━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES:Get Paid Properly: getpaidproperly.com💬 WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://youtube.com/@buildyoursalonApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - Leaving Money on Table1:23 - What Tiered Pricing Is2:19 - Reason 1: Helps Juniors3:21 - Reason 2: Fair to Seniors4:19 - Reason 3: Cost-Based Pricing5:14 - Reason 4: Control Who Does What6:09 - Reason 5: Retention Tool7:01 - Objections Answered9:45 - Progression Criteria#tieredpricing #salonpricing #salonbusiness━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? [email protected]
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Tiered Pricing: How to Charge Different Rates in Your Salon (Without Team Drama)
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