How to Open a Hair Salon | Planning, Costs, Software & What Stability Really Looks Like

Opening a hair salon is one of those dreams that sounds pretty simple in theory, until you start actually doing it and realize just how many moving pieces there are. I've been a hairdresser for 10 years and a salon owner for a large chunk of that. And let me tell you, the leap from stylist to salon owner is huge. Like, going from county clerk at your local office to president of the United States huge. But here's the thing, it is absolutely doable if you approach it strategically and avoid the common mistakes the trip up most new owners which is why today i am walking you through exactly how to open a hair salon from that very first decision you need to make all the way through to knowing when your business is actually stable and toward the end i'll show you three booking software options and how to choose the right one because trust me that decision matters a lot more than you might be thinking right now let's get into it so to open a hair salon first is the planning phase and step one is to decide on your size and operations first because before you even think about looking at at locations or choosing paint colors, you need to answer this question. Do you want to be a solo operation, have a couple chairs, or have 10 plus chairs? This is the foundation. Every single other choice you make, your budget, your space requirements, your software, your staffing, flows from this one decision. Step two is to get serious and understand the timeline because it's long. This step takes way longer than people expect preparing the space. You know, think about it. Pedicure chairs, shampoo kubels, blow dryers at every station, bright lights so everyone can see, a washer and dryer for towels and capes. That is a massive amount of infrastructure. So finding a spot, getting the landlord's approval, securing funding, finding a contractor, and then actually getting the work done, this can easily take six months to a year. And that's if everything goes perfectly smoothly, which it rarely does. Plus, the space will most likely need to be ADA accessible, which adds another layer of complexity and cost, which means that step three is to budget for those hidden costs. Everyone budgets for rent and equipment. The costs that really catch new owners off guard are usually construction related. Plumbing and electrical, the two biggest projects for almost any salon, can easily run you $40,000 to $100,000 depending on the size of your space and the scope of work that needs to be done. And then after you open, utility bills. We use so much water and electricity in this industry that your bills will be much higher here than a typical small business. Once you've worked through these and the planning phase, it is a lot of decisions. So take your time with it. Don't rush it. But once you get through that, you'll be into the setup phase. And the next step is going to be nailing the customer experience from day one and really making this a priority. Because I think it is the most important thing to get right at the very beginning, customer service and customer experience. Because even if you start with the most basic appointment booking app, you're going want to set it up properly and test it out as if you were a client trying to book. You're also going to want to be kind and warm to everyone who calls. Make people feel welcome. The reason to do all of these things as soon as possible is because these days all it takes is one post on NextStore to go viral about the super rude owner of that new salon for your business to be dead in the water before it even opens. Create that world-class experience and everything else you decide for your business will flow from there. The next step is to think strategically about your software timing. Quick story for you. I actually inherited my booking software from the previous salon owner when I took over. She started in the 90s with fully paper systems because of course software didn't really exist yet for salons. But about four years before I took over, she started digitizing and chose Booker as the platform she wanted to use. But she chose it because she as an esthetician really liked it, despite the fact that its features at that time weren't ideal for salons. Booker was originally released as Booker Spa, and it was much later that they added the salon functionality, and it took them a while to get it all figured out. So that meant that we were constantly finding workarounds to do things the system wasn't designed for, and clients were really frustrated as a result. So when we eventually switched after I took over, it felt like the right time because I the business's flow, I knew what clients wanted, and I knew what features were truly must-haves. And when I eventually switched to Boulevard, it was an informed decision based on the experience I knew my clients wanted, that I knew my staff needed, and that fit in the budget that we had. So with that story said, my advice is that, you know, of course as a new salon owner you're not going to have all that insight yet, and that's okay. So pick software after you have at least an inkling of your clientele's lifestyle and your own needs. For example, if you're primarily a med spa, your future needs are so different than a kid's haircut salon, right? A simple way to do this is to look at your business model and then pick a software that meets those needs and do a free trial. As you work through the free trial, consider planning either a soft opening or invite your friends and family to go through the full process with this software. Booking, confirming, showing up for the appointment and checking out. Try to get a feel for whether it works before you're seeing brand new clients and trying to build your reputation and hosting a busy grand opening. Because the other thing to be aware of is that it can be a massive pain to migrate software later. I'm talking weeks-long projects. So either choose one that can grow with you no matter how big you get, or choose one with the full awareness that you are going to need to take real time off from doing hair at some point to transition. And remember, I'm going to show you three options in just a minute that will work for different business models so you kind of know where to start. Next step is to not skip legal and licensing. This is huge. The stuff that trips people up here is usually failing to secure the correct individual and business licenses, particularly a salon shop license and licenses for each personal worker. Another issue is not meeting the local health and safety requirements. You know, we all know our state ones pretty well if you've gone through state boards in your state, but the county and the city ones, those can trip you up. And then just underestimating insurance needs like public liability, which can be required to obtain your other licenses. So skipping over these can be expensive, can leave you exposed or liable for issues down the road. So do your research for your specific state and city. Talk to other salon owners in your area. Hire a lawyer if you need to. It's really important that you don't skip this stuff. And now that we're through all of that, the next phase is just working towards stability and managing your mindset as you get off the ground. Because the question I hear a lot is, how long until my salon is stable? How long until I know that I'm really doing it? What stability looks like in concrete terms is a client retention rate of 60 to 70 percent. That's usually a very good indicator of stability. And that just means that out of every 10 clients, six or seven are coming back for repeat services. That shows customer loyalty and a sustainable business model. But at first, it's a little hard to measure this. If all 10 of your first clients come back, what does that mean? What if only two of your first 10 come back? The numbers are going to vary wildly early on, so be aware of that. But consistent operational metrics over several months, predictable revenue streams, minimal unexpected dips in your revenue, and an overall steady cash flow, those are green flags to look for. And know that this can take anywhere from six months to two years to achieve, depending on your business plan, your marketing, and your location. The next step is to change how you think about expenses. One thing I did right from the start that I think made a huge difference for me is focusing on this. Because at first, I was so against spending anything that wasn't 1000% necessary. I felt like paying for more expensive software would mean just spending more without bringing more in. But I came to realize that stopping marketing and stopping growth in order to stop spending, it's like stopping your watch to save time. It just doesn't work that way. The world's going to keep on moving, your competitors are going to keep on marketing no matter what you try to hold on to. So pretty quickly I stopped thinking about a lot of these as business expenses and started thinking about them as business investments. This made it so much easier to evaluate opportunities for their potential rather than making my decisions from a place of fear or worry. You can ask yourself questions like, will better software make my clients happier and my staff more efficient? That's an investment. Shift your mindset and you will make smarter decisions for your business. Okay, and now with all of this said, we have talked through everything from planning to setup to building stability and maintaining a good mindset in those first couple of years. So now I'd like to show you three software options real quick because this is one of those investments that can genuinely make or break your daily operations even early on. First up is Square Appointments. If you already use Square for payment processing, this one is going to be a really natural fit. Their pricing is super simple. The basic payment processing is free. You don't pay any monthly fee for that. All you pay is a per transaction fee. For Square Plus, that'll cost you $49 per month, and that gives you the option to add cancellation policies, no-show fees, and multi-staff booking. Square Premium is $149 per month, and that'll give you service cost tracking and resource management. Those transaction fees I mentioned are 2.6% plus 15 cents for in-person payments, which is fairly standard in the industry today. The pros of Square are really ultimate simplicity. And if you already use Square for anything, the learning curve is going to be basically zero. You can start with the free appointments tier and upgrade only if or when you need to. It's a really quick setup compared to more complex platforms. And because Square started as a payment processor, their payment processing works like a dream. It's rock solid. Plus, when clients see the Square logo at your checkout, they trust it and feel a little more confident. The drawbacks of Square are that there is a very limited ability to customize booking rules. So, like gap times or if you have a client who always takes you longer and you want their service to be booked for longer, those aren't really a natural feature that you can do right out of the gate. You would have to buy additional hardware like a card reader for some of their other more sophisticated features too. Another issue is that, at least on the free tier, you can't easily guard against repeat no-shows. Since the no-show policy is added at a higher tier, you're just kind of stuck eating the cost of any no-shows if you go with the Square-free version. And lastly, it's not really designed to scale beyond a small amount of providers before it starts getting cumbersome and is like too many different things networked together, because you've got, you know, Square appointments, Square payments, and quite a few other things that you can add for added costs. So it just, it can get a little cumbersome for bigger operations. Square is going to really be best for solo stylists and small teams of less than three people who really just need payment reliability and simplicity rather than really advanced salon features. It's a really smart choice, especially if you're already using Square for your payments. Next is Fresha. This platform markets itself as a powerful salon software at an affordable price, and it's got a massive marketplace that's worth calling out to. For pricing, their independent plan is $19.95 per month, so that's for solo practitioners, and it gives you one bookable calendar for one service provider. The team plan would be $14.95 per month per bookable team member, so if you needed two, it would be about $30, and then on from there. Their payment processing fees are a little bit higher than the industry norm. It's going to be 2.79% plus 20 cents if it's online, or 2.29% plus 20 cents for in-person, plus another 10 cents if they tap instead of swipe or using their chip. It's a little bit complicated, and it's a little bit expensive. Also, that marketplace I mentioned is through Fresha, and people can make an account and discover your salon that way. But anybody who finds your salon and books an appointment there, you're going to be charged a one-time 20% commission on the service they book. If a returning client books through the Fresha marketplace, you do not pay a commission fee. So it is just that one-time commission, but 20% is pretty steep even for a finder's fee. The biggest pros of Fresha are that the features are really helpful. So you get like resource booking and inventory management right out of the gate. That marketplace gives you a lot of organic discovery you can't get from many other software providers. And it's all around just genuinely affordable, especially if you're a solo practitioner or have a small team. For in terms of cons, that marketplace commission means that any new client who books with you through Fresha, you are paying 20% immediately. You are also locked into Fresha's payment processing. You can't shop around for a different rate or a different provider, so you are stuck paying that. The email customer support on the basic plan asks that you give them 48 hours to respond, which is a long time in the salon world. And lastly, the customization options are a bit more limited than higher priced platforms. If you're newer or still building clientele at your salon, accessing the Fresha marketplace can also genuinely drive business to help offset that commission cost, so it is worth considering. And finally, Boulevard. This is the platform that I recommend if you're serious about growth and you want a true all-in-one solution. The pricing starts at $176 per month for essentials, or it drops down to $158 per month if you do an annual plan, and that'll cover up to five service providers. Premier is $293 per month, and Prestige is $410 per month. There's also a custom enterprise plan for more large, complex operations that you can get in touch with them to learn more about. The essentials plan includes online booking that connects to your Facebook and or your Instagram pages, 100 free two-way text messages per month, smart scheduling tools that will suggest optimal appointment times to help you maximize revenue, a really slick waitlist tool, multi-service booking, social media integration, and the calendar management and client check-in is like the cleanest interface I have ever seen. Beyond the essentials tier, at a higher tier, you can schedule resources like rooms or equipment, and you can do multi-merchant transactions, which means that if someone comes in and works with two different providers and they're both booth renters, they swipe their card once and the money goes appropriately where it's supposed to go, which is so nice. Overall pros are just that really the interface is beautiful, modern, my stylist and my clients all consistently rave about it. Their customer support is honestly the best that I have encountered so far in my experience too. It's faster and more responsive than any other competitor I've used. And because it's built specifically for salons and spas, not adapted from other industries, a lot of the features and functionality just makes sense, just kind of clicks in my brain a little bit better than some of the functionality of, say, Square, which was not originally built for salons. And then their precision scheduling tool that's unique to Boulevard, it's really a game changer the way it finds and fills gaps in your calendar. Overall, Boulevard is a true all-in-one solution that completely eliminates juggling multiple disconnected tools, and I spent a long time doing that. But like anything else, there are a couple cons here to keep in mind. The premium pricing might be too much for salons with fewer than 5 providers. There's also no free trial, you have to book a demo with the sales team and then work from there. Who Boulevard is best for is medium to large salons with 5 or more service providers. If you're trying to consolidate multiple disconnected tools under one hub, or you are a growth-focused salon that really prioritizes that exceptional client experience, this is a good option. Overall, any salon that is ready to invest in premium software because you understand the value of the long-term efficiency and client retention, you're going to find Boulevard really checks just about if not every single box you have. Opening a hair salon is one of the most challenging, rewarding, terrifying, and exciting things you can do. It's not for everyone, and that's okay. But if you're serious about it, here's what you need to remember. Start with your size and operations decision first, because everything flows from there. Budget for way more than you think you're going to need, especially for construction and hidden costs like those utility bills. Prioritize your customer experience from day one, because your reputation in the community starts being built before you even open your doors. Choose your software strategically, test it thoroughly, and be prepared if you go for a lower-end option for that potential migration down the road. Through all of this, shift your mindset from business expenses to business investments. And above all, give yourself time. Give yourself grace. Stability does not happen overnight. It takes six months to two years to really find your rhythm. That is the industry norm and you are not falling behind or slow for needing a little time to really get into the groove of things. One more thing, don't try to do this alone. You can talk to other salon owners, you can join Facebook groups, you can hire professionals for the legal and financial stuff that you really don't want to bother learning or mastering. Rely on the customer support that's offered through whatever software you end up picking. You're paying for that support, so why not use it? Never be shy about asking for help from anywhere that you can get it in the community. Now, if you're in the process of opening a salon or you're thinking about it, drop a comment and let us know where you're at in the journey. What is your biggest concern right now? We're here to help. Thanks for watching. See you in the next one.

Try the Boulevard demo here: https://try.joinblvd.com/htohsv

Opening a hair salon sounds simple until you’re actually doing it. I’ve been a hairdresser for 10 years and a salon owner for much of that, and in this video I walk you through exactly how to open a hair salon—from your very first planning decision to knowing when your business is truly stable.

I cover how to choose your salon size and operations, realistic timelines, hidden construction and utility costs, ADA considerations, and why budgeting correctly matters. I also explain how to prioritize customer experience from day one, avoid reputation-killing mistakes, and think strategically about booking software so you don’t end up stuck with the wrong system.

I share my personal experience with salon software and break down three booking software options—Square Appointments, Fresha, and Boulevard—who they’re best for, pricing, pros, cons, and how to choose based on your business model. We also talk about legal and licensing requirements, insurance, client retention benchmarks, cash flow stability, and the mindset shift from expenses to investments.

If you’re serious about opening a hair salon, this video will help you avoid common mistakes, plan strategically, and set yourself up for long-term success.

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