Our guide to pricing your services is the most read thing on this site, which says something about what barbers are actually worrying about. This is the other half of that sum: what a chair costs you to run before you take a cent home.
The costs that are easy to see
Rent or chair rental, insurance, electricity, card fees, an accountant. You already know these because someone invoices you for them. They are also the ones you have least control over month to month.
The costs that quietly add up
Consumables are the ones nobody budgets properly, because each individual item is small enough to ignore. Blades, razors, gowns, aprons, oil, spray, combs. Take a shop doing twenty cuts a day, five days a week — that is about 5,000 clients a year through one chair.
- A fresh blade per client is not optional. It is the standard, and an inspection expects to see it. At a few cent a blade it is one of the cheapest things you buy and the one clients notice most.
- Gowns wear out. They get bleach on them, the neck elastic goes, and a tired gown is the first thing a new customer sees.
- Aprons last, until they don't. One per barber, replaced when it looks tired rather than when it falls apart.
Buy consumables the way you use them
The single biggest saving available on this list is not finding a cheaper supplier — it is not buying in ones. A shop that orders blades and razors one at a time pays the single price every time and pays for delivery attention it does not need. We price consumables so that buying the quantity a working shop actually gets through costs less per unit, and it is worth doing the same with whoever you buy from.
What to do with the number
Add your consumables for a year, divide by your client count, and you have the cost of goods per head. Most barbers are surprised by how small it is next to the price of a cut — which is exactly the point. It means the argument for using cheap blades to save money is a bad one, and the argument for reviewing your prices annually is a good one. Our pricing guide covers that side of it.
