Free tool
Commission or booth rent?
What a technician takes home either way — and the weekly number where renting the chair starts paying more.
One technician, one week
On 50% commission, they take home
$1,080 / week
$800 commission plus $280 in tips. The house keeps $800 to cover product, the chair and the front desk.
Renting the booth instead
$1,490 / week
All $1,600 of the services, less $300 rent and $90 of product, plus tips.
They break even at $780 of services a week. Above that, renting pays more — which is where techs start asking.
The math, in the open: commission take-home = services × rate + tips. Booth-rent take-home = services − rent − product + tips. The break-even is where those meet: (rent + product) ÷ (1 − rate). Tips are assumed to pass to the technician in full under both models, so they cancel out of the comparison and do not move the break-even. Not modelled: payroll tax, backbar charged per service, product markup resold, or a sliding scale that changes rate with revenue — all of which shift the real number. Nothing you type is stored.
What the number means
The break-even is the whole argument
Rate is what people negotiate. Volume is what decides who was right.
Booth rent is a fixed cost, so every extra dollar of services makes it cheaper per dollar earned. Commission takes the same share whether the column is packed or empty. That is why a busy technician eventually asks about renting, and why a quiet one is better off not.
The crossover is simple arithmetic: (rent + product) ÷ (1 − commission rate). At a 50% split, $300 rent and $90 of product, it lands at $780 of services a week. What that figure really prices is risk — under commission the salon carries the empty weeks, and under rent the technician does.
It is also the conversation to have before someone hands in notice. If a technician is consistently above the break-even, they will work it out. Knowing the number first means the retention conversation happens on your terms.
Questions
Commission and booth rent
Most salons land between 40% and 60% to the technician, with 50/50 the common starting point and higher rates for staff who bring their own clientele. The rate alone does not tell you much, though — what matters is what the house pays for out of its share. A 40% split where the salon supplies all product is not obviously worse than a 55% split where the technician buys their own.
Stop reconstructing it monthly
Commission totalled as the day is rung up.
Sonorch POS assigns every service to whoever performed it, so the split is already done at close.
Weighing tools instead? See the best AI receptionist for salons.