Pricing Your Hair Extension Services

Once you have completed your hair extension course and have a few practice models under your belt you will need to establish what prices you will be offering your hair extension services at. 

This can be quite a tricky task, as there are many factors that come into play when selecting pricing, and every business will be slightly different and competing in different markets. 

There are a number of different things you will need to consider, and here we will go through each of them to help you select the right prices for you and your business.

What Hair Extensions Services Will Your Business Be Offering?

Firstly, you need to identify what type of service you are going to be offering to your clients.

Will you be offering a variety of different techniques, for example micro ring, fusion bond hair extensions and wefts, or have you decided that you would like to be a “specialist” business, focusing on only one method such as nano ring hair extensions exclusively?

Will you be offering (if qualified) alternative hair dressing services such as cutting, blending and colouring, or will your clients be going to a hairdresser (if you are an extension technician only) for these services?

Styling options such as curling and aftercare products such as shampoo, conditioner, heat protection etc for your clients to purchase?  All of these are important factors to help decide your pricing.

Create A Brand For Your Business

Now that you have identified the type of services you will be offering, you will need to look at where in the market you would like to place your “brand”. 

Would you like your hair extension business to be cheap and cheerful, offering reasonable prices so that your services are accessible to all, or are you thinking of a more high end luxury image where prices are relatively high, but you will only be using the top end products, offering a glass of wine during the fitting, and throwing in a complimentary selection of aftercare products.

Just be aware that a business based on offering the very lowest prices is very difficult to build and sustain, as it can often become a 'price war' with other lower end priced technicians resulting in lower and lower profits for you.

You want to be building a client base of people who are going to be regular extension wearers, who will come back to you time and time again. having a client base of repeat business is a lot easier than constantly trying to gain new clients looking for a cheap deal.

Your Competition

Now that you have decided on the services you are offering, and the type of brand you would like to portray, it comes to the most important aspect of working out your pricing – your competition. 

You will need to take a look at the prices of other hair extension businesses in your local area that are already offering the same type of services as you, as this will give you an indication of what customers in your area are happy to pay.

This will vary greatly between areas, for example London prices will be considerably higher than other areas due to the location, and may not be affordable to other parts of the country.

It is important to note here that this should not be done with the intention of undercutting your competition, but simply as a research tool. Undercutting others and always trying to be the cheapest, becomes a 'race to the bottom' in terms of pricing and is not sustainable in the long term, resulting in your business struggling to make the type of profits that you are worth.

If through your research you find that a lot of your competition are offering cheap and cheerful prices, but you were thinking of a high end boutique service, you may need to consider that your local area is not suited to this type of pricing and rethink your costs.

A good 'price point' to be at is where you offer good quality extensions, but at fair and affordable prices. Remember, clients are a walking advert for you, so fitting the very cheapest extensions is not going to create a good reputation for your business and will quite often lead to unhappy customers.

TIP.....customers who are looking for the very cheapest prices can often be the worst type of client. They can often have unrealistic expectations, expecting luxury quality without the price tag.....& are often the worst clients for taking care of the hair extensions in the correct way

If on the flip side however you find that your competition are charging high prices for the type of services you would like to offer, you too can also consider these type of prices as long as your experience and products match the prices you are demanding, as they must be fair to your client as well as you.

Finalising Your Prices

Now that you have all of the research you require, you will need to consider other costs that must be taken into consideration as well as the cost of the hair. These extra costs are sometimes easily forgotten when you are working out costs....and hence the profit you will make.

You will need to consider how far you are willing to travel for free if you are mobile, as you will have fuel costs to consider. You will also need insurance for your business, and will need to purchase and stay up to date with your tools  All of these costs need to be factored into your pricing so that you have a profitable hair extension business.

An Example - Breaking Down Your Prices

Let’s look at an example of how you could price your fittings

Jess is a newly qualified hair extensions technician.  She is trained in 3 methods – fusion bonds, micro ring, and tape – and would like to offer all of these to her customers in the hope this will attract more business. 

Jess has looked at her local area and most other hair extensionists are charging around £290 for a full head of 18” hair extensions.  Sally would like to use good quality hair but not maybe at the very top end 'luxury' quality, and has found a supplier that charges around £170 for the amount of hair she will require for a full head.  She is also happy to drive up to 20 miles to her clients, or will ask them to travel to her if they are further away than this.  Jess wants to set her business up to focus on good quality, but affordable hair extensions. 

So her pricing may look something like this:

Cost of hair and tools (e.g. micro rings): £170

Cost of fuel: £10 approx

Total costs: £180.

If she charges the same as her local area, she will make around £110 for each fitting, which is a nice healthy profit for her business.  

However, being new to the industry she may decide to offer a slightly lower price while she builds experience and a picture portfolio. Then, once she is more established she can look to ways to set herself apart from others by offering a more 'luxury' experience and increasing her prices to reflect this.

Every Business Is Different....

There is no definitive way to set your pricing for your hair extensions business. Every business is different with different priorities, profit margins and quality of hair that they use, so you will need to work hard to establish yourself in the market and build your clientele so that you can become a well-known and trusted hair extensionist in your area.

Try to have the mindset that you don't just want to be another hair extensions technician, you want to stand out from the crowd by paying attention to all the details that make the experience with you so much better than any other technician.