Barber tools › Money
What you need to hit your number
Everybody has a number in their head. Almost nobody has worked out what it costs in cuts. This turns the number into a week you can actually picture — and sometimes into the news that the week does not fit.
A year, before tax
What you actually get, not the list price
46 allows for holidays and quiet spells
0 if you pay fixed rent or own the shop
Setting the target is easy. Knowing each week whether you are ahead of it is the bit that needs logging.
Know Your Chair logs seven numbers a week and turns them into utilisation, revenue per hour, and what your gaps are costing you — tracked over time instead of worked out once.
Try it freeFree while we build it. No card.
A number in your head is not a plan
Forty grand sounds like a decision. It is not one until you know it means forty-three heads a week, every week, for forty-six weeks. Some people see that and feel better, because it is fewer than they feared. Others see it and realise the target was never going to happen at the current price.
Price moves this far more than effort does
Adding two pounds to an average cut does more for the target than squeezing in another two heads a day, and it costs you nothing in hours. Change the price in the box above and watch how far the cuts figure falls. That is usually the more honest conversation.
The weeks matter as much as the price
Working out a target on 52 weeks is the most common way to miss it. You will take holidays. January is quiet whether you like it or not. Planning on 46 builds that in, so a fortnight in the sun does not put you behind.
What it does not include
This is money through the till after the shop's share, not take-home. Tax, National Insurance, products, kit and insurance come out of it afterwards. If you want the take-home version, work back from a bigger number.
Common questions
How many haircuts a week do I need to earn £40,000?
At £24 a cut over 46 working weeks it is about 37 a week before any shop cut, and around 43 if the shop takes 15%. Raise the average to £28 and the same target needs roughly 31 a week.
Why 46 weeks and not 52?
Because nobody works 52. Two weeks off, the odd bank holiday, a week of illness and the dead spell after Christmas take a month out of most years. Planning on 52 sets a target you miss by a month's takings.
Should I use my list price or my average?
Your average. Mates' rates, kids' cuts and the odd tidy-up between them pull the real figure below the price on the board, and it is the real figure that pays your rent.
Is this before or after tax?
Before. It is what passes through your hands after the shop takes its share, not what you keep. Income tax and National Insurance still come out of it.