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Quick answer: Raise salon prices in small, regular steps, often once a year, instead of one big jump after years of waiting, and build each price from what the service really costs you in product, time and labor. Give regulars notice before the change, explain it in terms of what they get, and make sure every price question on the phone gets the same calm, consistent answer.
You have not touched your prices in two years. In that time your color line went up, your rent went up, your card processor took a bigger cut, and the stylist you want to keep asked for a raise you know she deserves. The number on your service menu is the only thing that stayed still, which means every appointment now earns you less than it did when you set it.
Most owners know this in their gut and still freeze. A price rise feels like the fastest way to hand your regulars to the salon down the road. It doesn't have to be. The clients who like you are more forgiving than the worst-case story in your head, and the way you roll out an increase matters more than the increase itself.
Running a salon has gotten more expensive on almost every line. In the US, prices for haircuts and other personal care services rose 3.7 percent in the 12 months to September 2026, the same pace as overall consumer prices, while electricity rose 4.4 percent (Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI, September 2026). In the UK, three salon owners interviewed by Hairdressers Journal, January 2026 all pointed to the same pressures going into 2026: product prices set by suppliers, utilities, wages and the yearly rise in the national minimum wage.
Margins leave little room to absorb that. One of those owners said rising costs in recent years had pushed his salon below its 10 to 12 percent net profit target, and that the 2026 increase was about catching up. A cost increase you decide to swallow doesn't come out of some cushion. It comes straight out of the slice you were keeping. Hold your prices through a year of rising costs and you are not being generous. You are quietly working for less.
The fear that any price rise sends people running is mostly wrong, and there's a body of research explaining why. In 1986 the economists Daniel Kahneman, Jack Knetsch and Richard Thaler described how people judge prices through what they called dual entitlement: a customer feels entitled to the price they're used to, and at the same time accepts that the business is entitled to its usual profit. When your costs rise and you raise prices to protect that profit, most people read it as fair. When you raise prices just because demand is hot and you can, they read it as gouging. A 1989 study in Marketing Letters tested the idea and found that a cost-justified increase was seen as fair, while an unjustified one was seen as unfair.
Later work backs this up for services in particular. A 2006 study in the Journal of Consumer Research by Lisa Bolton and Joseph Alba found that buyers are forgiving of an increase that matches a rise in the seller's costs, and that when the cost increase isn't directly tied to the item, people are more receptive to a price increase on a service than on a product. A service like yours, where a client can picture the product, the rent and the hours of skilled labor going into it, gives you a stronger fairness case than you probably think.
The same research points at the trap. A 2016 meta-analysis of price-fairness studies in the International Journal of Research in Marketing found that the damage from an increase people see as unjustified is larger than the goodwill you earn from one they see as cost-justified. So the danger isn't the extra five dollars. It's an increase that lands with no reason attached, or one that looks like you're testing how much you can get away with. A silent jump on the price list, discovered at the desk, is the version that costs you clients.
Once you accept that fair increases are survivable, the question becomes size and timing. A common mistake is going years without moving, then springing a large correction that shocks everyone at once. One owner in the Hairdressers Journal, January 2026 piece put it plainly: "waiting too long only makes the eventual jump bigger and more uncomfortable for both you and your clients." His salon raises prices every April; another reviews prices every October or November, when suppliers adjust theirs; a third prefers small, mid-year adjustments. The common thread is a regular review, not a panic.
Build each price up from what the service truly costs you in product, time and labor, then revisit it on a schedule (Salon Today, February 2025, lays out a service-costing approach). A consistently high salon chair utilization rate is one of the clearest signs that demand can support a price increase, so check that number before you decide how much to raise.
You also don't have to move every price by the same amount. Raising your most in-demand services, or the ones where you're clearly underpriced against the work involved, protects your margin without touching the entry-level prices that make a nervous first-timer comfortable enough to book. If you're rethinking the whole list, see how to structure and price your salon service menu, and remember that add-on services can lift the average ticket without changing a single menu price.
The increase itself is rarely what loses people. The surprise is. Give notice before the new prices take effect, so a regular hears it from you and not from a receipt; two of the owners in the Hairdressers Journal, January 2026 piece tell clients well in advance or at the appointment before the change. When you explain the reason, be specific and lead with what they get, not with a shrug at inflation. Something like "we've moved to a better color line and put the team through more training, so your color holds longer, and prices are shifting to reflect that" reminds someone why they chose you in the first place (HubSpot, updated October 2025, gathers this value-first approach from operators who've done it, and the US Chamber of Commerce, January 2022, makes the same case for contacting customers directly and explaining the real reason).
Direct beats broadcast. A personal heads-up from a stylist to a loyal client does more than a mass email nobody opens. Research on how people judge prices finds that whether an increase feels fair depends on the motives people see behind it (a review of fair-price perceptions by James Heyman and Barbara Mellers covers this well). Give clients the real reason and most of them keep booking.
Here's the part owners forget when they plan a price change. The place clients react to it is on the phone, when they call to book and ask what a cut and color costs now. That one question is the whole game. Answered with a calm, confident number and a quick reminder of what's included, most callers book. Answered with a fumble, an "um, let me check," or worse, a phone that rings out to voicemail during your busiest hour, and the same caller starts price-shopping the salon down the street.
It's also the worst possible moment to be missing calls. You've just handed people a fresh reason to compare, and the clients you already have are the ones worth protecting: depending on the study and the industry, acquiring a new customer costs five to 25 times more than keeping an existing one (Harvard Business Review, 2014). Every call about your new prices that goes unanswered is a regular left wondering, with a competitor's number one tap away. Track your salon client retention rate through the change so you can see whether anyone actually leaves.
That's the case for making sure every one of those calls gets answered, with the same steady explanation each time, whether it comes in at noon or after you've locked up. An AI receptionist like CallPad answers every booking call around the clock, quotes your current prices from your own information the same way every time, and books the appointment, so a price change your clients would have accepted anyway doesn't quietly cost you the ones who simply couldn't get through. Raise your prices because the business needs it. Then make sure the phone does the increase justice.
A group has the same fairness problem as a single salon, multiplied by every front desk. If one location quotes the new price and another still quotes the old one, callers notice, and the inconsistency looks exactly like the unjustified increase clients punish. Set the new prices centrally, give every location the same explanation, and check each location's calls in the first weeks after the change.
With CallPad, head office can set brand-wide prices, policies and scripts that franchisees can't change, so every caller hears the same price and the same reason, and each franchisee sees only their own locations' data. Whether the group uses one shared number or each salon keeps its own line, a shared number can book a caller into whichever location has the first opening, using the caller's history, the location they prefer, or by offering open slots at nearby locations, and when a caller needs a person it can transfer them to the right location's staff. It works even when your locations use different booking systems, and owners get one dashboard with reports for each location and across the group.
Pricing for salon groups is custom; contact us for a quote. For more, see phone setup and call routing for multi-location salons, central reservations for salon groups and CallPad for salon groups.
CallPad is an AI receptionist for salons, spas, med spas, barbershops and clinics in the US, UK, Australia and Canada. It answers every call 24/7 without adding staff hours, handles several calls at once and screens out spam calls. It answers questions from your own information, including your prices and policies, and speaks several languages. It books, moves and cancels appointments in real time on supported booking systems, including multi-service and group bookings, and can take a deposit or payment on the call or sell a gift card. It can also suggest add-ons, like a gloss, a toner or a deep-conditioning treatment, while it books. If you have more than one location, it asks which one the caller wants and books into that location's calendar. It replies to texts and can book by text, sends missed-call text-backs, texts clients on your waitlist when a slot opens up, and sends personalised reminders and thank-you notes. You can read call transcripts and listen to call recordings in the dashboard, and add a "this call may be recorded" notice to the greeting. When a caller needs a person, it can transfer the call or take a message.
Setup takes about 10 minutes, and you keep your existing number by forwarding it. CallPad also answers WhatsApp and email, and on WhatsApp it does everything the voice receptionist does, including booking, rescheduling and live transfer. Instagram, Messenger and TikTok are coming soon. Pricing is a flat rate with all minutes included, starting at US$150 a month in the US, £100 in the UK, A$200 in Australia and C$190 in Canada per location.
It books in real time with Mindbody, Booker, Zenoti, Square Appointments, GlossGenius, Setmore, Zoho Bookings, Phorest, SalonIQ, Salon Manager, Shortcuts, Simple Salon, Cliniko and Google Calendar. Mindbody works out of the box; if you use SalonIQ, Shortcuts or Salon Manager, contact CallPad to activate it. There's no CallPad Vagaro, Timely or Booksy integration yet; contact us and join the waitlist. Using Fresha or another system? Ask us. See all the booking systems CallPad works with.
You can hear what CallPad sounds like on a call before you decide.
Raise by a fair amount that reflects your real costs, give regulars notice before the new prices start, explain the reason in terms of what they get, and make sure every price question on the phone gets the same calm answer. Research on price fairness finds that cost-justified increases are judged fairer than unexplained ones, and that unexplained ones do more damage.
Most owners who handle it well review prices on a schedule, often once a year, rather than waiting years and making one big jump. Salon owners interviewed by Hairdressers Journal in January 2026 described annual reviews in April or in October and November, and small mid-year adjustments.
There is no single right percentage. Build each price from what the service costs you in product, time and labor, then add the margin you need. You don't have to move every price equally: raising your most in-demand or most underpriced services protects margin without changing entry-level prices.
Most won't if the increase is fair and explained. Studies of dual entitlement, from Kahneman, Knetsch and Thaler in 1986 onward, find that people accept increases that protect a business's usual profit when costs rise, but punish increases that look unjustified.
Tell them ahead of time, in person, by text or by email, with the date the new prices start, the real reason for the change and a short thank-you. A personal word from a client's own stylist tends to land better than a mass announcement.
Give the new price confidently, with a short reminder of what's included and why it changed, then offer a time. Have the same answer ready for everyone who answers your phone. CallPad answers price questions from your own information, so callers hear the same answer every time.
There's no single rule. One owner interviewed by Hairdressers Journal in January 2026 planned a small increase for new clients booking with him personally, while others raise prices for everyone with notice and use tiered prices by stylist level so clients can choose a lower price point. Keep the rule simple enough that everyone answering the phone can explain it the same way.
Look at your costs per service and your demand. If your costs have risen, your chairs are consistently full, and your most popular stylists are booked weeks out, demand can usually support an increase. A high chair utilization rate is one of the clearest signs.
Set the new prices centrally so every location quotes the same thing from the same day. With CallPad, head office can set brand-wide prices, policies and scripts that franchisees can't change, and owners get one dashboard with reports for each location and across the group. Pricing for salon groups is custom; contact CallPad for a quote.
CallPad starts at US$150 a month in the US, £100 in the UK, A$200 in Australia and C$190 in Canada, per location. It's a flat rate with all minutes included, so a busy month doesn't change your bill.
Want every price question answered calmly and every caller booked, even when you're with a client? Contact CallPad to hear how it would answer your salon's calls and get set up in about 10 minutes.
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