Booth Rent or Commission? The Salon Chair Calculator

"I could rent a chair down the street for $225 and keep everything." Every salon owner hears it. Here's what that chair is actually worth — to you and to her.

Commission costs more than it looks: the split, the payroll burden on it, the color, the card fees, the software. Booth rent pays less than it looks: the rent, minus the room it sits in. Nobody puts both on one page, so the argument runs on feel. This workbook puts one chair, one stylist, under both models, with every dollar landing in the column of whoever pays it.

Both sides of the same chair. The owner's net under commission and under booth rent, then the stylist's take-home under each. The sample: commission pays the owner $468 a week against $35 under booth — and booth pays the stylist $1,350 against $843. Both models are right for somebody. The gap is the pressure on the chair.

The crossover. Commission's net rises as the book fills; booth rent's is flat. The workbook solves the weekly revenue where they cross — $651 in the sample — and shows this stylist's book against it, so you know whether commission wins because of the model or because of this one stylist.

The rent that would match. The booth rent at which you would be indifferent — $658 in the sample, not $225. Have it ready before she asks.

The dashboard grades it — owner's margin under each model, book against crossover, rent against overhead, commission rate, product cost, and two retention measures — HEALTHY, WATCH or ALERT, with two charts: what the owner nets as the book fills, and what the stylist keeps. One portrait page.

Built for

Hair salons · barbershops · nail studios · lash and brow studios · spa and massage rooms · tattoo studios · anyone who rents a chair or pays a split.

What you get

One .xlsx file, five tabs, instant download. Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers, LibreOffice. No macros, no add-ins, no subscription. A realistic sample is loaded so you see every color of the grading before you type over it. Copy the workbook once per stylist.