Explaining Colour Prices to Clients

Clients do not compare colour services. They compare numbers, because the number is the only part they can see. Which means the price conversation is not really about price — it is about making the invisible part of a colour appointment visible before the bill arrives.

What they think they are buying

A tube of colour. That is the mental model, and it is why "why is it £70 when the box in the supermarket is £8" is a reasonable question rather than a rude one.

The honest answer is that product is a small fraction of it. A colour service costs around £4 in product — the arithmetic is in what a colour service really costs. The rest is time, training, and the judgement that decides which of 160 shades goes on their head and at what ratio.

Say the price before you mix

Every difficult price conversation in a salon happens at the till, and nearly all of them could have happened at the chair.

If the service is going to cost more than the client expects — because their hair is long, because it needs two processes, because a toner is required — that is a sentence at the consultation, not a surprise at payment:

"With your length that will be [X] rather than the standard price, and it will take about half an hour longer. Is that all right?"

Clients almost never object to a price they were told in advance. They object to being surprised. It is the same principle as telling them a colour will need two appointments, which is covered in reading the hair, not the photo.

The two-appointment conversation

This is the hardest one, and it is worth having a form of words ready, because the alternative is attempting something in one appointment that should have taken two.

"I can get you most of the way today. Going the whole way in one go would mean pushing your hair further than I am comfortable with — so I would rather do it properly across two appointments. That is [X] today and [Y] in six weeks."

Three things are happening in that sentence: you are giving a reason that is about their hair rather than your schedule, you are showing that you are declining to do something you could charge for, and you are giving both numbers up front. That combination is why it works.

"Why is it more than last time?"

Usually one of four things, and all four are easy to answer if you know which it is:

The second row is the one worth noticing. A client whose white has gone from 40% to 60% has genuinely moved to a different service — half the mix is now a natural, at a different ratio, for a longer development. That is a real change, explained in the grey coverage guide, and clients find it entirely reasonable when it is described.

Do not apologise for the price

The client who will not pay for a toner

Common, and the temptation is to include it free rather than lose the sale. That is a bad habit for a specific reason: it teaches the client that the toner was never necessary, which makes it harder to charge for next time and every time after.

The better version is to explain what it does and let them choose: "Without it you will go brassy in about three weeks rather than six. It is up to you — but that is the difference." Some will decline. Many will not, and those who do decline usually buy it next time, having watched the prediction come true.

Put the plan in writing

For anything spanning appointments, write it on the card and give the client a copy — today's service, next appointment, roughly when, roughly what.

It does two things at once: it stops the second appointment being renegotiated from scratch, and it makes the whole thing look like the considered plan it is rather than a service that keeps costing more. Building those services into a coherent menu is covered in building a colour menu around one line.

The commercial side — part 5 of 5.
Previously: ← Building a colour menu around one line
Start the series: Which shades to stock first →

Product prices as published at the time of writing. Service pricing is a commercial judgement for each salon.