On this page
A Sunday shift, a new price list, another technician, a lease: each decision feels risky, because a wrong call only shows up in your account months later.
Find the one closest to yours below, and start with the first guide listed for it.
Each guide answers one decision. All of them work from the same example salon and the same rule: in Australia, an hour you roster costs an employee's Award wages whether or not a client books it. So every guide asks which hours are booked, not only what you charge.
With an A$70 table hour that includes GST (A$63.64 once GST is taken out) and wages counted with 12% super, a Sunday needs close to 100% of rostered hours booked just to cover a full- or part-time technician's wages. The day-by-day table is in what each hour costs under the Hair and Beauty Award.
Part 1Which guide should you read first?
Busy or quiet, but the money isn't there
Some hours are full, others sit empty, and little is left after wages and rent.
- How much a nail salon makes, chair by chairWhere the weekly ceiling comes from, and how the roster eats into it. Start here.
- Price by the chair-hourWhich services earn the most for each hour of chair time.
- Fill the quiet hours you already pay forFind the hours you pay for but don't sell, and fill them before you discount.
Deciding on Sundays or another technician
A new shift adds wages before it adds a single client.
- What each hour costs under the Hair and Beauty AwardAward rates from 1 July 2026 as a cost per hour, and how much of each shift must be booked.
- How much a nail salon makes, chair by chairHow one more technician changes what each day can earn.
About to open a salon or spa
The lease fixes your rent for years. The numbers should come first.
- Run the numbers before you sign a leaseSeats, trading hours, wages and rent in one weekly model.
- How much a nail salon makes, chair by chairHow chairs and opening hours set what a salon can take in a week.
Looking at a salon for sale
The asking price rests on takings you can't check from one page.
- How much a nail salon makes, chair by chairWhat the chairs and opening hours could take in a week, before you trust a seller's figure.
- Run the numbers before you sign a leaseRent and trading hours against what the seats can earn, for the lease you'd take on.
Start with how much a nail salon makes, chair by chair. The other guides build on its numbers.
Part 2How do these guides work out the numbers?
Every guide works through the same salon: Southland Natural Nails & Beauty at Westfield Southland in Melbourne. It has 10 nail tables and 8 pedicure chairs, and the centre is open 64.5 hours a week. It isn't our client. We chose it because its menu, service times and opening hours are public.
Figures marked in this model are our calculations from those inputs, not results measured at a client's salon. Wages come from the Fair Work pay guide for the Hair and Beauty Industry Award, effective 1 July 2026.
of turnover goes on business expensesThat's the range for beauty businesses turning over more than A$400,000 in 2023-24, in the ATO small business benchmarks for beauty services. It covers nails, skin and massage, not hairdressers. The 12% to 23% left over is our subtraction. It comes before the owner pays themselves, so it isn't profit.
- Every figure links to its source, on this page or in the guide that uses it. Government sources come first.
- Anything marked in this model is our calculation, not a client's result.
- Wages are Award rates from 1 July 2026. The date at the top of each guide shows when it was last checked.
Part 3Questions salon owners search for
Are nail salons profitable in Australia?
Australian figures come from the ATO small business benchmarks for beauty services. For beauty businesses turning over more than A$400,000, total expenses were 77% to 88% of turnover in 2023-24, and what's left comes before the owner is paid. See how the numbers build up chair by chair.
How does a salon owner make money?
By selling chair time. The owner keeps what's left after wages, rent and products. The chair-by-chair model works it through on one salon.
How do nail salon workers get paid?
In Australia, nail salon employees are covered by the Hair and Beauty Industry Award. From 1 July 2026, a level 2 employee earns at least A$28.45 an hour on weekdays, with higher rates on weekends (Fair Work pay guide). Commission can be paid on top, but it can't replace the minimum hourly rate set in clause 17.1 of the Award (Fair Work on commission payments).
How to grow a salon in 2026?
Fill the hours you already pay for before you add chairs or staff. An employee's empty rostered hour costs the same wages as a booked one, so filling it adds takings without adding cost. Leave discounts until last, because they can spill into hours that were already full.
Would you rather have the marketing side handled for you? See what we do for marketing for nail and beauty salons.
Founder of ATAVORA, a small marketing team in Vietnam working for service businesses in Australia, the UK and the US. Want these methods applied to your own seats, hours and bookings? A Marketing Diagnosis puts them side by side, with a written plan within 5 business days, A$449 one-off.
Prefer it handled every month? All-in covers your website, Google profile and one ad channel for A$1,490 a month.