Is Owning A Barbershop Profitable?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual income for a barbershop owner is $27,000, which comes out to about $11.00 an hour.

Why Those Numbers May Not Be True For Every Shop Owner:

Keep in mind being a barbershop owner is not limited to those numbers by any means. Barbering depends on a multitude of factors that can drastically change the income of the barbershop as a whole.

Prime Location:

The barbershop’s location has a lot to do with pricing your hair cutting services. For areas with a lower level of income, shops may only be able to charge $7 – $10 per haircut. If the location is in a higher-income area such as the “California metro area” the average price for a haircut is $28 – $30 for a basic hair cutting service. If you can find a barbershop with a prime location and cheap rent for the building. You could save thousands of dollars each month with lower overhead.

Start Taking Advantage Of Services:

Why stop at basic haircuts? Try offering more services to your clients so they get the most out of your shop. Clients love to feel clean and refreshed but customers that receive that added attention to detail will more than likely give you a decent sized tip for all your hard work and effort. Here’s a short list of services that can raise your annual income!

1. Try investing in a hot towel warmer to keep towels warm before and after your facial shaves.
2. Invest in a Professional grade steamer to leave running while you place a heated towel on your client’s face.
3. Treat your customer to aromatherapy and add an extra sense of relaxation to your service.
4. Try adding some aromatic oils to your steamer as well or adding it to the towel to bring out the natural calming scents to make your client feel like royalty.
5. After you’ve finished shaving your clients face, have a cold water bottle already prepared in the refrigerator, ready to pour on a new clean towel to soothe your clients face after the razor work. They will love you for this!

A client that sees another barber taking pride in their work will end up becoming that barbers client, evertime! – Cyclops

How Much Can A Barbershop Make After All This?

Well, It’s a little more complicated than just blurting out a number figure. Barbershop owners make their money by offering their barbers a few options: 

Commission Base:

commission base is using a certain percentage both parties have agreed upon; usually, that percentage is 30/70. For example, if you made $100.00 that day, you would give the owner 30% or $30.00 of that $100.00. How you handle your tips for that day would be discussed between the owner and barber. 

Chair Rent:

The most preferred way of weekly payment is by chair rent. Which means, the barbershop owner will rent out the chair space to the barber every week. A lot of factors determine that magic number as well, whichever amount the owner decides to go with will be set in stone. Finding the magic number is essential for profit.

Finding The Magic Number:

The owner will have to make sure they can pay the barbershops bills, and set some extra money aside for themselves to the expansion the barbershop in the future. The traffic of the barbershop gauges this number, along with the rent for the actual building the barbershop is residing. The chair rent amount shouldn’t cripple the barber, nor should it leave the owner feeling high and dry when it comes time to pay the bills. After the owner finds this magic number that will accompany those issues, all of the barbers will be paying the “Chair Rent” weekly. For example, at the shop I work at now I’m paying $225 a week equaling out to $900 each month. If the shop owner has eight barbers, then the shop owner will be totaling to $7200 a month. The barber shop owner does not include himself into this equation and can pocket what is made in addition. When you take that $7,200 a month and total it up for the year that equals out to a whopping… $86,000! Remember that’s only from the barbers paying for their chair rent each week. You will of course need to calculate taxes depending on your location/state. We suggest paying quarterly on your taxes rather than annually.

Rule Of Thumb:

The owner should be able to pay the monthly cost of the barbershop by themselves. The $86,000 should be the net pay for the entire year before factoring taxes. 

Be Responsible With Your Money!

I’ve been barbering for almost ten years now and the only reason I see shop owners fail is the simple fact that when you make a lot of “Cash” money people tend to spend it on things they don’t necessarily need. forgetting to budget spending habits for the future will determine the success of your barbershop. Most of the time barbershop owners neglect their shops over time and become comfortable in their loose spending habits and lose focus of running the business, and before they know it they’re out of a shop altogether.

“Saving money is very hard to do in a cash business; this is why it is crucial to look into taking a business course or money management classes to get a grip on how to budget your finances.” – Cyclops

Pro tip: In barbering the sky is the limit, You could even develop products to sell online, or from your barbershop to sell to local clients. These small mock-ups add up quickly by the time your annual comes around!

Conclusion:

If you run your shop on full-throttle, have a cheap overhead at a prime location and more barbers to keep your engines pumping. With a bit of luck and perfecting your marketing/Promotional strategies, there’s no reason you couldn’t be making $86,000 – $150,000 a year as a barbershop owner. Before taxes of course. Barber Blog Post: Owning A Barbershop Profitable?  3.6/5 Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube About time somebody wrote a true article about owning a barbershop. Barber owners always act like they struggling, One day I’m going to get my own shop and call it a day. Thank Cyclops for keeping it real #Respect @Ryan_Davis96 Cali Barber

Looking For A Pair Of Clippers Or Trimmers?

Our team at cyclops brand found the best clipper & trimmers on the market and broke down each individual clipper by weight, model and brand type. We have you covered when it comes to the facts about quality and which clipper or trimmer is going to be best for you as the barber. Check out the article “Top 10 Best Clippers & Trimmers” to get all the information you’ll need when picking the best one! Read Clipper Blog

Need A Camera For Taking Headshot Photos?

What does every professional barber have incommon on their social media pages? you guessed it! a quality camera that takes award winning headshots. Find the best camera now and start taking professional haircut headshots. I wrote a fantastic article that’s helped thousands of up and coming barbers grow on their social media accounts. Here’s the thing, people want to see clean looking images, they can tell when your being “half-ass” and when you’ve actually invested in your craft looking up ways to tweak your passion into a worthy looking visual presentation of yourself. Read Camera Blog

Are You A Barber? You’re Missing Out.

Cyclops Brand has teamed up with “World Class Barbers” on facebook. Bringing professional barbers from all around the world under one roof to show casing their talents. If you’re looking for a great place to get inspired and grow your following, this group allows for barbers to share their “Barber Related” links with each post. If you’re interested in this group click the link below!

Join World-Class Barbers!