The Owner's Desk · Pricing · July 2026
How to price your menu in 2026
We publish price tables for 23 cities, which means we spend a lot of time looking at what salons charge. The spread is enormous — and the salons at the bottom of it are usually not the ones doing best.
The spread is wider than most owners think
Across the cities we cover, a gel manicure ranges from roughly $28 at the low end to $75 at the high end — and that's before you get to per-nail art pricing in the appointment-only studios. A full sculpted set spans even wider.
Two things follow. First, national averages are useless to you; your market is the only benchmark that matters, and our city price guides break each one down. Second — and this is the part owners underuse — the top of your local range is set by salons with the same costs as yours. If someone across town gets $65 for the service you charge $40 for, the difference is rarely the work.
Price the time, not the service
The most common pricing mistake we see is a menu built around service names instead of chair time. A "gel manicure" that takes 45 minutes and a "gel manicure" that takes 90 — because the client wants structure, repair and a clean cuticle line — cannot be the same number.
- Time-block your menu. Know what each service actually takes in your chairs, not what the internet says it takes.
- Price removal properly. Removal is real labour and the thing clients most often expect free. Charging for it (and waiving it with a new set) is standard and defensible.
- Charge for length, shape and art separately. These are the biggest silent time-eaters. If they're not line items, you're absorbing them.
The argument that lets you charge more
We make this case to clients constantly, and it works in your favour: cost per week beats sticker price. A $40 gel manicure that lasts 12 days costs about $23 a week. An $85 structured manicure worn four weeks costs about $21 a week — and looks better the whole time.
If your work genuinely lasts longer, say so in those terms. It reframes a higher price as the cheaper option, which is both persuasive and true.
Raising prices without losing your book
- Give notice. Three to four weeks, posted at the desk and sent to regulars. The surprise is what people resent, not the number.
- Raise once, meaningfully. Repeated small increases feel like drift. One clear adjustment reads as a business decision.
- Change something visible at the same time. A new product line, better ventilation, extra massage time. The increase attaches to an improvement.
- Expect to lose a few. The clients you lose to a $5 increase are usually your least profitable. The regulars who value your work will stay — and as techs told us, loyalty is built on the relationship, not the rate.
Publish your prices
We say this in every city guide, and it's the single easiest trust signal you can send: a published, itemised menu. Clients tell us the worst experience in nails is a total that assembles itself at the register. Salons with real online menus were also, in our research, dramatically easier to verify and describe accurately.