Disclaimer: BeautyKiln gives general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Talk to a qualified professional before making big decisions.

Pricing Guide for Beauty Therapists: 2025-26 Benchmarks

Beauty therapy is the broadest job in the industry and the hardest one to price. You might do a bikini wax, a brow tint, a 60 minute facial and a spray tan in the same afternoon, and every one of them has a different consumable cost, a different room time and a different rebooking pattern. Pricing them all off the same instinct is how therapists end up busy and skint at the same time.

This guide gives you the published regional benchmark for the treatments where a reliable one exists, tells you honestly which treatments do not have one, and then shows you how to turn any price into an effective hourly rate so you can see which parts of your column are carrying the rest.

All figures below are the 2025-26 regional benchmarks published in our Regional Pricing Benchmarks guide, compiled from the NHBF State of the Industry survey, Treatwell and Fresha booking data, Salon Tracker analytics and independent pricing surveys. They are approximate averages for self-employed practitioners and small salons, not budget chains and not luxury central London.

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What this guide covers, and what it does not

There is a published regional benchmark for waxing, brows, facials and spray tanning. There is not a reliable one for massage, electrolysis, LED, dermaplaning or advanced skin treatments, because the qualification level, machine cost and treatment length vary too much between practitioners for an average to mean anything.

We have not invented figures for those. The section further down gives you the method to price them from your own costs, which is the only honest way to do it.

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Waxing

Waxing is where most therapists undercharge, because the appointment is short and the price looks small next to a facial. Check the hourly rate before you decide it is cheap.

Full leg wax

Bikini wax

Hollywood / Brazilian wax

The waxing trap. An intimate wax is a longer, more skilled treatment than a full leg, and it carries more risk, more aftercare and a much higher rebooking rate. If your Hollywood is priced close to your bikini, you are absorbing the difference yourself.

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Brows

Eyebrow shape and tint

Brows are the classic add-on and the classic loss-leader. A tint needs a patch test, and the patch test is unpaid time you have to price into something. See our patch testing guide for what the law and your insurer actually require.

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Facials

Standard facial, 60 minutes

This is the one treatment in the set where the published benchmark names the duration, which makes it the cleanest number on the page: for a 60 minute facial, the benchmark price is the hourly rate. Nothing else here comes with a duration attached, because appointment lengths vary too much between practitioners to publish.

That makes the facial a useful yardstick for your own column. Take your regional facial figure as your baseline hourly rate, then run the method below on your shorter treatments using your own room times. Some of them will beat it and some will not, and which is which is rarely what people expect before they work it out.

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Spray tanning

Spray tanning is seasonal and it is the treatment most often given away in a package. If you discount it, discount it deliberately and for a reason, not because a client asked.

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The treatments with no published benchmark

Massage, electrolysis, LED, dermaplaning, microneedling and advanced skin work do not have a regional average worth printing. The spread between a level 3 practitioner with a couch and a level 4 practitioner with a £6,000 machine is too wide for an average to describe either of them.

Price those from your own numbers using the method below. If someone hands you a national average for advanced skin treatments, ask what qualification level and what machine it assumes, because without those two things the figure means nothing.

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Working out your effective hourly rate

This is the number that tells you whether a treatment is earning or just filling the diary. The benchmark tells you what the market pays. This tells you what it pays you.

For any treatment, take:

1. The price you charge.
2. Minus your consumables for that treatment. Wax, strips, spatulas, tint, lash glue, couch roll, tan solution, gloves, aftercare sample. Count them properly for one appointment.
3. Divided by the room time, in hours. Room time is not treatment time. It is the time from the client arriving to the room being ready for the next one, so it includes consultation, patch test admin, changeover and cleaning.

That gives your effective hourly rate before overheads and before tax.

Worked example, using made-up numbers to show the method rather than to set a price. Say you charge £30 for a treatment, your consumables come to £4, and the appointment occupies 45 minutes of room time including changeover. That is £26 over 0.75 hours, so £34.67 an hour before overheads and tax. Run the same three lines for every treatment on your list and the ones that are quietly costing you money will identify themselves in about twenty minutes.

Two things people forget in step 3. Patch tests are room time, even when they are two minutes and free. And travel is room time if you are mobile, because you cannot sell that hour to anyone else.

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Costs to build in before you set anything

• Insurance, which for beauty therapy is priced by the treatment list, not the job title. Adding one advanced treatment can change the premium.
• Patch testing time and product, which is unpaid at the point of use and has to sit inside the treatment price.
• CPD and requalification, which for some treatments is a condition of your insurance rather than a nice-to-have.
• Kit replacement, including the wax pot, the couch, the machine and the sterilising equipment.
• Product waste, which is real on tint, tan and anything you mix per client.

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Mobile and home-based pricing

Mobile therapists typically charge a small premium over salon prices to cover travel time and fuel, and most do not charge enough of one. If a 30 minute round trip sits either side of a 45 minute treatment, your effective hourly rate is calculated over 75 minutes, not 45.

Home-based therapists usually charge slightly under salon prices. That is a choice about positioning, not a rule. Your overheads are lower. Your work is not worth less.

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When your price should not follow the benchmark

The benchmark is an average, and averages describe markets rather than practitioners. Charge above it when you hold a qualification the people around you do not, when your rebooking rate is high, or when you are turning work away. Charge below it deliberately and briefly, when you are genuinely building a column or trialling a new treatment, with a date on when it ends.

What you should not do is sit at the bottom of your regional range by default because you have never checked where the range is.

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Who to contact

• NHBF - industry guidance and pricing surveys for the sector
• HMRC self-employed helpline - tax and registration queries - 0300 200 3310 (Free)
• Your insurer - before adding any treatment to your list, because the list is what you are rated on
• Citizens Advice - general business and rights guidance - 0800 144 8848 (Free)

Sources

• NHBF State of the Industry survey 2024/2025
• Treatwell UK pricing data 2025
• Fresha industry report 2025
• Salon Tracker analytics 2024/2025
• Independent pricing surveys and industry publications
• ONS regional economic data

Prices are 2025-26 figures and will move. Check them against your own local market before you set a menu.

Related guides

• Regional Pricing Benchmarks
• The Complete Pricing Guide for Self-Employed Beauty Workers
• When and How to Raise Your Prices
• Pricing Psychology: Stop Undercharging
• Beauty Therapy Regulatory Requirements
• Patch Testing: Your Legal Obligations
• Insurance by Specialism