A Step-by-Step Guide For Renting A Booth In A Hair Salon
Whether you're a hair salon owner or an independent stylist, booth rental is a common topic of discussion and consideration. If you're thinking about renting a booth, or renting out your booths in the case of the salon owner, it's important to have a well-rounded understanding of how these agreements work, what is involved, the pros and cons for both parties, and income potential before taking that step. Use our booth renting guide to help you confidently move forward as an independent contractor stylist or with renting booths in your own salon business.
What Is Salon Booth Rental?
Salon booth rental is a mutually beneficial arrangement between a salon owner and hair stylists who are independent contractors. It is very similar to the agreement between an apartment landlord and tenant, but instead of paying rent for a place to live you are paying rent for a place to work.
Stylists rent or lease the booth (a salon chair and space to work) from the person who owns an established salon to provide hair services to their own clients.
How Does Salon Booth Rental Work?
A salon booth rental business can be organized a few different ways and can vary greatly between locations. That said, there are some fairly standard salon booth rental rules and guidelines across the industry. For example, booth renters can expect to:
Pay rent to the salon owner (either a flat monthly fee or percentage of sales)
Provide your own tools, product, and retail items
Find your own clients and book your own appointments
Run your own payment systems
Manage your own finances and taxes
Do your own marketing
Maintain any licenses required by the municipality, city, and state
Contracts And The Booth Rental Salon Agreement
The rental agreements between a stylist and a booth rental salon are fairly standard. They should include a contract that lays out the length of the terms (how long the rental agreement is in place before renewing or releasing without penalty). The contract should state if payment is due weekly or monthly and state the penalties for not making payments on time. And it should should include an understanding about which services are allowed to be performed at the location.
Benefits For Salon Booth Renters
If you want to run your own business but aren't ready to start a traditional salon, renting a salon booth is a great way to get started. It's a low cost way to get your name and business off the ground and running with the authority of an established salon's reputation backing you up. You keep most of your own money except what for you invest into renting your booth, and your products, tools, retail, and marketing costs. There is no need to hire employees. You get to be your own boss, set your own schedule, and choose your own clients.
Cost Of Operating A Booth Rental
For booth renters, the fixed-rate cost of renting a booth in a salon typically ranges from $200-$600 per month. In locations such as New York City or Los Angeles booth rentals can be as high as $1000 per month. So, it's important to be realistic about where you can afford to set up your booth. Take into consideration the size of your client base and your ability to charge prices that will not only cover your booth rental and business costs but also your cost of living needs.
Some Drawbacks To Booth Renting
There are a few drawbacks for stylists to booth renting. First, you’re paying rent as a salon booth renter. So, you're not investing equity into your own property.
You have to budget for, and secure, your own supplies, products, and tools (beyond the chair and shampoo sinks that will come with your booth).
For a stylist just starting out – and without a good-sized, loyal client base – this will be more challenging. Your booth is your business and you need to be able to bring in the clients yourself in order to pay your bills and booth rental costs.
Guide For Salon Booth Renters
If you're thinking of renting a salon booth to offer your own services, here are some of the top tips to help get you started and for finding success:
Business Model: Determine your schedule (appointment only or will you accept walk-ins?), services, policies, expenses, and projections early on.
Pricing Strategy: You'll need to know how much you must make to cover your expenses, so plan your service pricing accordingly.
Excellent Record-Keeping: Track earnings, expenses, and customers carefully! Client management is extremely important for independent stylists who want to maintain a loyal clientele. Keep formulas, preferences, and other pertinent info easily accessible and refer to them before appointments.
Consider Salon Software: Today's modern salon technology and online booking systems are a fantastic all-in-option for independent contractors. Keep all of your customer and financial records, appointments, booth rental documents and more in one easy-to-use program.
Embrace Social Media Marketing: Since you are responsible for finding your own clients, you must market yourself effectively and creatively. Social media is one of the most popular ways for clients and stylists to be introduced, so consider starting business accounts on popular platforms and start showcasing your talent!
Choose the Right Salon: Location and fit. These are the most important factors when choosing where to rent a booth. You want a place that is easily accessed by you and your clients and might even have other nearby amenities. You should have similar values and business goals as the salon to ensure a great experience and increase everybody's success.
Benefits For Salon Owners
Starting a booth rental salon is a business model with many benefits. It's a great way to start bringing in immediate, recurring, predictive income. You don't have to train employees or consider health insurance plans, vacation days, or 401 programs because your booth renters are independent contractors.
And it's easy to set up booth rental businesses with a great salon software program that can help you manage everything from creating the initial contract to collecting monthly payments and having the entire history of your agreement easily accessible at any time.
What Are The Typical Costs Of Running A Booth Rental Salon?
The costs for running a booth rental salon will depend on what you provide for your renting stylists. The minimum basics that you should provide are:
salon chair
mirror
sinks
hair dryers
towels
But many salons provide more for their renting stylists. Amenities such as free WIFI, laundry and supplies, or coffee, tea, and refreshments are commonly included in booth rental salons.
Beyond these basics, you'll need to account for your building and maintenance costs (including insurances), decor and aesthetics, cleaning, utilities, maintenance of salon equipment, and stocking the bathrooms.
3 Ways A Salon Owner Can Maximize Their Profits
Online Booking Systems: Even though your booth renters will schedule their own appointments, an online booking system with scheduling software will keep your entire team informed with salon schedules and updates, and everybody can easily communicate using the convenient messaging features. Salon software technology also makes it easy to manage your accounting, collect rents and commissions, perform marketing campaigns, and track business goals – saving you time and money.
Improve team communication and culture: Fostering an environment of communication and respect among your team of renters will encourage everybody to strive for the salon's overall success. This will help keep your renters loyal – which means your rental booths will remain full and you won't have to deal with high-turnover and loss of income.
Commission-based fees: Commission-based booth rental fees can earn you considerably more than flat rate fees (which have a ceiling for your income potential). This is a strategy that can work wonderfully if you have highly-talented and hard-working stylists that charge accordingly. If your stylists don't fit this description, commission-based fees can be a bit of a risk.
Disadvantages To Renting Booths In Your Salon
Running a traditional salon can be more time-consuming than a salon booth renting business and require many more managerial and administrative tasks. Still, renting booths in your salon can have a few disadvantages that you should be aware of while considering the option.
Your salon's reputation is in the hands of your renting stylists. A customer who has a bad experience can damage the overall salon's reputation. To avoid this, vet your renting stylists thoroughly to make sure they are able to uphold the standard of service you expect in your salon.
Renters can come and go, making it difficult to foster community or build your salon brand. This makes it even more important to inspire loyalty and a great collaborative environment in your salon to avoid high turnover.
5 Places To Find Booth Rental Tenants
If you're looking to rent a booth in a salon, or are a salon owner looking for tenants, you can check out these resources for finding your match. For both parties, it's important to make sure you find a good fit in values, ethos, and vision for the salon. This will help ensure a happier, and likely long-term, partnership.
Job search websites: Indeed, LinkedIn, Monster and other job search websites are a great place to seek a booth or an independent stylist that is looking for a booth with full-time availability.
Online Classifieds: Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace are an option for finding or placing classified ads for booth rentals. Include the terms and rates in the ad.
Social Networks: Use your social networks to advertise availability. Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are perfect venues to showcase your salon, or your talent as a stylist, and share any updates about booth availability.
Salon Website: Salon owners can post booth availability on the business' website. Stylists who have an interest in your salon may check regularly for any notice of an available booth.
Word of mouth: Stylists who are happy with their rental situation are more likely to recommend the salon to their peers and colleagues in the business. This makes it all the more important to foster community and a great work environment in your salon! Happy renters will make sure your rental booths are not sitting vacant.
Automate Your Booth Rental Program with Salon Software
If you're ready to start a booth rental program at your salon, you want to consider investing in a great salon software program like STX. STX has a complete set of booth rental management features that will automate many time-consuming administrative tasks so that you can focus on building your salon dream team. Here are just a few of the ways that STX can help you get your booth rental program off to a great start.
You can onboard your new tenants easily by sending them legally-binding contracts, such as a rental agreement and payment information, that will be automatically stored in their employee files with easy access for them and for you.
Automatically collect rent payments on the due date without the hassle of aligning your busy schedules to meet, or handling cash or checks. You can also automatically deduct product sales commissions from your tenant's rent, saving the salon time, money, and paper during tax season.
Effortless communication with (and within) your entire team is possible with STX messaging and push notifications. Your team will always be connected to the latest salon updates, changes, information, and needs.
These features combined with expense tracking, marketing campaign solutions, detailed business reports, a powerhouse online scheduling program and so much more make STX the software of choice for today's modern salon owners.
Find out why salon owners are switching to STX. Contact us for more information about how we can help you get back hours in your week and find success with your salon booth rental business!