How To Price Your Spray Tan Services

Pricing the professional spray tan services for your salon or mobile tanning business can be a difficult feat. There’s a lot you need to take into consideration including how profitable your pricing structure is. While it is important to be competitive, we would not recommend pricing your services based on what your competitors are charging for their spray tans. Rather, you should look at your costs and forecasts to determine what you should charge your customers. Here is a quick guide to help you price your services accurately.

1. People

If you have hired staff, you need to factor in their wages to your costs and thereby your prices. If you offer a range of services in addition to spray tans, then work out how many hours per week they would spray tan and how much this costs you. Then determine how many spray tans they do on average each week and divide the wage cost by this number. Then times this number by 3 to ensure you have added in your margin here. Now you have a basis of how to price your spray tans.

2. The Products

Work out how many spray tans you can get out of one bottle of spray tan solution. Then divide the cost of the solution by how many tans you get out of the one bottle. Here you have a raw cost of how much it costs you to give a spray tan in product. Mark this cost up by at least 100% and add this to the cost of your session.

3. The Equipment

You must also factor in the cost of your spray tanning equipment including your spray tan machine and extras for the space, such as if you have invested in a tanning booth. These are all long term purchases which you must also factor into your prices. Think about how often you will need to update your equipment even if it’s every few years. Then work out how many spray tans you will do in this period and divide these costs by that number. Add this item to your price per session.

4. Accessories

Factor in spray tanning accessories such as disposables, sticky feet, hair nets and nose plugs. As you will need these for each spray tan you do, add this cost onto your price.

5. Other Costs

Think about other costs to your business such as marketing materials, electricity, water, insurance and refreshments for your clients. Work out this as an annual number and divide it by the number of spray tans you think you will do in a year. Add this figure to your running total.

If you also provide salon retail products in your business, consider this in your pricing whether you add it on cheaply or give some items as an add on for free.

6. Rent

If you have a salon and are renting, you need to factor this into your prices. Estimate the number of spray tans you will do per year. Then divide your annual rent by that number and add this final figure to the cost of your spray tans and voila you have your prices sorted.

If you run a mobile tanning business, while you won’t have rent you will have motor vehicle expenses to account for. Tally up your annual costs for things like car repayments, petrol, servicing, rego and insurance; then divide this by the number of spray tans you do per year to get the cost of this which you need to add into your prices.

You can also add in more margin to your prices from this point forward, and you know you have all of your costs covered.