Salon Service Menu: How to Design a Price List Clients Read and Book From

Your service menu used to be a card at the front desk. Now it is also your online booking page, the services list on your Google Business Profile and the price list a new client screenshots before she has ever met you. In most of those places nobody is there to explain it, so the menu has to sell on its own.

This guide covers how to structure a menu clients can scan, name services so they get booked, show stylist levels, hair lengths, tax and add-ons, and keep every version in step. Setting each price from your costs is covered in how to price salon services. Figures are in US dollars; the maths is the same in any currency.

#What should a salon service menu include?

Every menu needs the same core: a handful of categories, each service's name with one line on what's included, its length, its price or price bands, how tax is shown, and the date the prices start. The rest depends on your salon.

The cancellation line matters more than it looks. A client who first meets your deposit or late-cancellation fee at checkout feels caught out; one who read it on the menu and again at booking has already agreed. Our guide to a salon no-show policy has wording clients accept.

#How should you order a salon menu?

Order categories by what your clients book most, and within each category list the most-booked services first. A client reading a menu is looking for the one service she came for; the faster she finds it, the more likely she is to read the add-on beside it.

Use your sales records, not instinct. Count the last three months of services by category and rank them. A cut-and-colour salon might lead with haircuts, then colour, then treatments; a brow and lash studio with brows. Put occasional services, such as bridal and events, last, as one line pointing to a separate menu.

How many services should a salon menu have?

Fewer than you think. Every near-duplicate ("express facial", "mini facial", "quick facial") makes the choice harder and the desk's job longer. Merge services that differ only in a few minutes, cut anything that sold fewer than a handful of times last quarter, and move rarely booked specialist work behind a single "by consultation" line. If a client can't scan the whole menu in about a minute, it's too long.

#How to name salon services so they get booked

Name each service by what the client gets, using the word she would search for, and add one plain line on what's included. A name she doesn't understand is skipped online and questioned at the desk.

Three rules keep names working:

• Lead with the search word. "Balayage", "blow-dry", "lash lift" and "gel manicure" are what clients type into Google and your booking page.
• Describe, don't decorate. "Indulgent" tells her nothing; "mask, scalp massage and blow-dry" tells her what the extra money buys.
• Say what each tier adds. "Classic, Deluxe, Signature" only works if each line names the difference.

Services you can't price before seeing the hair, such as colour correction or extensions, belong under "by consultation", with a consultation slot she can book online.

#Should you price by stylist level or hair length?

Price by stylist level where the person changes the result and clients ask for them by name: cuts, colour and styling. Price by hair length where product and time grow with length: colour, smoothing and treatments. Doing both on every row turns the menu into a grid nobody reads.

Stylist levels

Show at most three levels as columns, such as Stylist, Senior stylist and Creative director, and explain each in one line under the table ("Creative director: Sofia, precision cuts and colour correction"). Avoid "Junior" on the menu itself; clients happily book a stylist and reluctantly book a junior.

Tie the price to the person booked, and show it in the booking confirmation. For colour by a creative director, add one supplement line ("Creative director: + $40 on any colour service") rather than a second grid.

Hair length

Define the bands in words a client can check in a mirror: short (above the shoulder), medium (to the shoulder blades), long (to the middle of the back) and extra long (below it). Add "thick hair: one band up". Confirm the band in the consultation before any colour is mixed, and note it on the booking.

#"From" prices: when they work and when they backfire

A "from" price works when a fair share of clients really pay it and the menu says what moves the price up. It backfires when almost nobody pays it, because the client compares her bill with the number she read.

Check before you print. Pull three months of sales for every "from" service; if most land well above the "from" figure, show the length bands or levels instead. When you do use one, say what moves it: "All-over colour from $139 (short hair). Medium $189, long $239, extra long $289."

In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority's price transparency guidance allows an indicative or "from" price, but says it should still include all applicable mandatory charges, such as VAT.

#Should salon menu prices include tax?

That depends on where you are, so check your local rules before you print. The answer differs between countries and, in the US, between states.

Whatever applies, show only tax you're registered to charge, and state the basis once, at the top of the menu: "All prices include VAT", or "Prices exclude sales tax where it applies". Use the same basis on your website, your booking page and Google, because a client who sees two prices for the same service expects the lower one.

#Put add-ons beside the services they go with

List each add-on, with its price, on the same line or directly under the service it belongs to, not in a separate section at the back. The stylist can then suggest it by pointing at the menu, and the client sees the price before she says yes.

Price every add-on above its own break-even, including the minutes it adds. Which add-ons work with which services, and how to suggest them without pushing, is covered in how to increase your salon's average ticket.

#Use an anchor service to make the middle look reasonable

An anchor is a genuine premium service at the top of a category, which makes the service most clients should choose look reasonable beside it. Without it, your mid-priced service is "the expensive one".

Say your deep-conditioning treatment with a blow-dry is $89 for medium hair, and you'd like more clients to choose it over a plain $59 blow-dry. Put a bond-repair treatment with gloss and blow-dry at $149 on the line above. Some clients will book the bond repair, which is fine; the rest now see $89 as the middle option.

The anchor has to be a real service you're happy to sell, and it has to sit next to the service it supports. One per category is enough.

#Should salon prices end in 9 or be round numbers?

Both work; the trade-off is feel. A price ending in 9, such as $89, keeps the first digit lower and reads as a considered value price. A round price, such as $90, reads as simpler and more confident, and some high-end salons round on purpose.

• Position. A creative director's $150 cut can look more assured than $149, while a $19 brow tint looks friendlier than $20.
• Tax. An ending only reaches the client if tax is inside the price. If tax is added at checkout, the total she pays won't end in 9 anyway.
• Consistency. Mixing $89, $95 and $100 on one menu looks careless. Pick one style and use it throughout.

There's no single right answer, and no reliable figure that settles it for every salon. Choose the style that fits your brand and keep it.

#A sample salon service menu

Here is a sample layout to adapt. The prices illustrate the layout; they are not benchmarks, so set your own from your costs.

Notice the layout: levels only on cuts, lengths only on colour and treatments, the anchor above the treatment it supports, and "if booked separately" figures that add up from the menu itself. Series and memberships need written terms, such as validity and refunds; our guide to salon membership programs covers pricing and wording them.

#Where your menu lives: print, booking page and Google

Keep one master price list and publish it everywhere from it, with the same names, prices and tax basis, updated on the same day.

• Printed menu. One at the desk and a small one at each station, so a client can read prices while the stylist suggests an add-on. Reprint rather than patch; a hand-corrected price makes clients doubt the rest.
• Website and online booking. The version most new clients see first. Give every service a duration, a description and, where it applies, its length band or level.
• Google Business Profile. Add services under "Edit services", each with a price and a description. Google's help page says custom service names shouldn't contain prices, and custom services that break its policy are rejected automatically, so the price goes in the price field. Our guide to Google reviews for salons covers the rest of the profile.
• WhatsApp catalogue, where your clients use WhatsApp. WhatsApp's help centre says each catalogue item can carry photos, a price and a description, and shows to customers only after WhatsApp approves it.

#When should you update your salon menu?

Review the menu every six months alongside your prices, and update it whenever a price, a service, a stylist's level or your tax position changes. A stylist moving up a level is the change most often missed: her regulars keep booking at the old price because nobody changed the booking system.

Raise prices service by service rather than across the board, and give regulars two to three weeks' notice. The method, the price-change message and the awkward cases are in how to price salon services. More guides like this are in Fully Booked's international edition.