Dog Grooming Prices: How Much to Charge for Dog Grooming
How much to charge for dog grooming comes down to one number and one clock. The number is your hourly floor: the income you want to keep, grossed up for the tax you set aside, plus your yearly costs, divided by the table hours clients actually pay for once no-shows are taken out. The clock is how long each dog takes you. A groom’s price floor is the floor times its minutes, plus supplies. In the illustrative example below the floor is $43.86 a paid table hour, and a large dog in a medium coat, at 102 minutes, has a price floor of $78.56.
This post does not quote what other groomers charge. A price list copied from another salon carries their minutes, their costs and their no-shows, not yours. A floor built from your own numbers tells you the least you can charge; what clients near you will pay is a separate question.
The dog grooming price formula
hourly floor = (income to keep / (1 - tax set-aside) + yearly costs)
/ (table hours booked a week x (1 - no-show share) x weeks)
groom floor = hourly floor x minutes / 60 + supplies
minutes = base minutes x size multiplier x coat multiplier
add-on = hourly floor x extra minutes / 60 + product used
Step 1: the hourly floor
These figures are illustrative, chosen to show the method. The groomer wants to keep $42,000 a year, sets aside 20% of profit for tax, has $7,500 of yearly costs, books 30 table hours a week for 48 weeks, and loses 5% of booked hours to no-shows.
| Step | Working | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Profit needed before tax | $42,000 / (1 - 20%) | $52,500.00 |
| Business costs a year | tools, blades, shampoo, insurance, software | $7,500.00 |
| Revenue needed a year | sum of the two | $60,000.00 |
| Paid table hours a year | 30 booked a week x (1 - 5% no-shows) x 48 weeks | 1,368 |
| Hourly floor | $60,000.00 / 1,368 | $43.86 |
Check it the other way: 1,368 paid hours at $43.86 bring in $60,000; take off the $7,500 of costs and the 20% set-aside and exactly $42,000 is left.
Leave the no-shows out and the floor looks like $41.67. That small gap is the price of every empty slot, paid by every groom that does show up. The groomer also spends 6 unpaid hours a week cleaning, booking and ordering. Across 1,728 hours worked a year, only 79% are paid, and the $42,000 kept works out to $24.31 per hour actually worked.
Step 2: dog grooming prices by size and coat
Groom time grows with the dog and with the coat. The example’s small, short-coat dog takes 48 minutes, bath to bandana. Each size has a multiplier, and the coat being priced has its own: 1.25 in this example. All the multipliers are the example’s; time a few of your own grooms and adjust them until the minutes match your clock. Supplies are $4.00 a groom.
| Size | Size multiplier | Minutes in this coat | Price floor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small | 1.00 | 60 | $47.86 |
| Medium | 1.30 | 78 | $61.02 |
| Large | 1.70 | 102 | $78.56 |
| Giant | 2.20 | 132 | $100.49 |
The coat matters too. A large dog with a short coat (coat multiplier 1.00) takes 81.6 minutes and has a floor of $63.65. The same dog in this coat costs $14.91 more, purely in minutes. Price coat types as separate rows, not as one “large dog” price.
Now the insight the calculator pack is built on. Say the groomer charges $90 for a large dog in this coat, an illustrative price, not a market one. It clears the $78.56 floor and pays $50.59 an hour after supplies. But a flat price that ignores size does not hold up: charge a giant dog the medium price of $61.02 and its 132 minutes pay $25.92 an hour, well under the $43.86 floor. Every minute the price does not count comes out of your own pay.
Step 3: add-ons and matting, priced by the minute
An add-on is extra minutes plus whatever it uses up:
- De-shedding, 20 extra minutes plus $3.00 of product: $17.62
- Nail grinding, 10 extra minutes: $7.31
- Matting on this dog, 30 extra minutes plus $2.00 of blade wear and supplies: $23.93
If you bill matting in blocks, one 15-minute block at the floor is $10.96, with blade wear added on top. When to dematt and when to shave down is your judgment and your policy; the arithmetic only prices the time.
Step 4: mobile grooming prices
A van moves the salon to the client, and its costs move onto each appointment. The example spreads the van’s fixed costs over 960 appointments a year:
| Van cost per appointment | Working | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed costs | $15,000 / 960 appointments | $15.62 |
| Driving | 7 miles x $0.50 | $3.50 |
| Drive time | 15 min at $43.86 an hour | $10.96 |
| Water, power, generator fuel | your figure | $3.50 |
| Van cost | $33.59 |
Rows are rounded to the cent. Add $33.59 to the $61.02 medium groom and the mobile floor for that dog is $94.61. The van adds 55% to the groom price. The fixed part is the one to watch: at 480 appointments a year instead of 960, each appointment carries $15.62 more of it. Drive time is paid at the floor here, the same way pet sitting rates count the drive.
If you groom from a rented chair instead, the question is rent against a commission split. In the pack’s example, at a 50% commission and $250 a week of rent, renting keeps more once you bring in more than $730 a week. The full method is in booth rent vs commission.
Step 5: does the day add up?
Prices only work if the day holds the dogs. The example books 2 small, 2 medium and 1 large dogs at their floor prices, with 10 minutes of cleanup after each. They take 428 of the 480 minutes in the day, leaving 52. The day brings in $296.32; after supplies, the day’s $31.25 share of yearly costs and the 20% set-aside, the groomer keeps $196.06, which is $24.51 for each of the 8 hours in the day, cleanup and empty minutes included.
No-shows: what a deposit recovers
The pack’s no-show example uses a $60 groom and 100 dogs a month. 4 no-shows and 3 late cancels a month, refilling 25% of the late slots, cost $375 a month, $4,500 a year. A 25% deposit kept on a no-show and a 50% late-cancel fee recover $1,800 a year. What is still lost, $225 a month, is covered by $2.25 more on each groom.
How these were calculated
The hourly floor is (income / (1 - tax set-aside) + yearly costs) / (booked table hours a week x (1 - no-show share) x weeks). Groom minutes are base minutes x size multiplier x coat multiplier; a groom’s floor is floor x minutes / 60 + supplies, and an add-on is floor x extra minutes / 60 + product. The van cost per appointment is fixed costs / appointments + miles x cost per mile + floor x drive minutes / 60 + utilities. The day’s take is revenue minus supplies and a day’s share of yearly costs, less the tax set-aside. No-show losses are no-shows x price plus late cancels x price x (1 - refill share). Every figure on this page was computed twice: once by the code behind the product below, and once by an independent program that pays each groom minute by minute and counts paid hours week by week. The two agree to the cent. All incomes, minutes, multipliers, costs, prices and policies are illustrative inputs, not market rates. Cost per mile is the groomer’s own estimate. None of this is financial, legal or tax advice.
To run this on your own year, dogs and minutes, the pack below has seven linked calculators, from the hourly floor to size and coat pricing, add-ons, the van, chair rent, the day’s book and no-show deposits.