Booth rent, commission or employee: what does a nail tech really take home per hour worked?

Booth rent, commission or employee: what do you really take home per hour worked?

Enter a typical week: hours at the salon, clients, ticket, supplies and tips. See take-home per hour worked, not per hour booked, for booth or chair rent, a commission split and an hourly job, with idle chair time, a self-employment tax estimate and the clients a week it takes to break even. Paste past weeks and see which arrangement actually paid.

Your numbers, not market rates and not tax advice. This page knows no going rents or splits and gives no tax, legal or financial advice: every price, rent, percentage and tax rate is a number you type. Nothing is uploaded: the inputs are used in this browser tab only.

1. Your week at the chair

Hours at the salon per week Clients per week Average service ticket ($) Chair minutes per client Unpaid admin hours (booking, cleaning, ordering) Tips (% of ticket) Retail sold per client ($) Supplies per client ($) Target take-home per hour worked ($)

2. Booth or chair rent

Rent per week ($) Card fee (%) Your margin on retail (%) Liability insurance per month ($) Licence, software, other fixed per month ($) Share of supplies you pay (%)

3. Commission split

Your split of services (%) Retail commission (%) Share of supplies you pay (%)

4. Employee

Hourly wage ($) Share of supplies you pay (%)

5. Tax set-asides (your own rates)

Self-employment tax rate (%) Income tax reserve (%) Employee payroll tax (%)

Rough set-asides, not tax advice and not a return. Replace each rate with what your own tax professional tells you.

The comparison

Arrangement	Take-home per week	Hours worked	Per hour worked	Per hour booked	Break-even clients a week

Where the week goes

Arrangement	Pay and costs	Net	Tax set-asides

Take-home per hour worked as your client count moves

A week is your own estimate multiplied out; real weeks vary. These are starting points for a conversation with the salon owner, not promises.

6. Audit your past weeks

One row per week: week label, arrangement (booth, commission or employee), pay you kept from services and retail, tips, expenses (rent, supplies, fees), hours worked including idle and admin, and optionally booked hours. Up to 300 weeks.

By arrangement

Arrangement	Weeks	Take-home	Hours	Per hour worked	Idle hours

Weeks, worst first

#	Week	Arrangement	Take-home	Hours	Per hour worked	Short of target

Prefer a CLI?

Same logic, zero dependencies, one command:

node cli.mjs compare --clients 24 --ticket 60 --rent 275 --split 55 --wage 15
node cli.mjs history weeks.csv --target 25 --json

Get cli.mjs and engine.mjs — Node 18+, nothing to install, no network call. More: How to compare booth rent and commission for a nail tech.

What's recognised

Input	Handling

The answer is exact for the numbers you type. It does not know going rents or splits, your state's rules, your lease terms, or what you will really owe in tax.

Common questions

Is this tax or financial advice?

No. Every price, rent, percentage and tax rate in the answer is a number you typed. The self-employment tax and income reserve are rough set-asides using the rates you enter, not a tax return, and the page knows nothing about your state, deductions or bracket. It is not tax, legal or financial advice.

Is booth rent or commission better for a nail tech?

It depends on how many clients you book and how much of your chair time sits idle. Booth rent is a fixed weekly cost, so it loses on slow weeks and wins once you are busy; a commission split costs you a share of every service but nothing when the chair is empty. The calculator shows take-home per hour worked for booth rent, commission and an hourly job, and the clients per week where booth rent overtakes the others.

Why take-home per hour worked instead of per hour booked?

Because the hours you are at the salon waiting for a client, and the hours you spend booking, cleaning and ordering, are hours you gave up either way. Dividing by booked hours flatters every arrangement; dividing by hours worked shows what the week actually paid.

Does it upload my numbers?

No. The browser page works on the numbers and text you enter, in your own browser, and never sends them anywhere. The CLI reads a local file or stdin and makes no network call.

How is take-home per hour worked calculated?

Weekly net = what you keep (services, tips, retail) less rent, card fees, supplies, insurance and fixed costs. Self-employment tax is the rate you enter times 92.35 percent of net; the income reserve is a percent of net less half of that tax. Take-home = net less both, divided by hours worked: the larger of your hours at the salon and your booked hours, plus unpaid admin hours.

What is the break-even client count?

The fewest clients a week at which an arrangement reaches your target take-home per hour worked. The crossover is the client count where booth rent first pays more per hour worked than the commission split or the hourly job.