Profit/cost per treatment, do you really know?

[Miss Sylk]

Its a bout time i knew exactly what i am making! With all my previous jobs my wage slip said it, simples, this is what you have earned but its so vague with self employment beauty.

If anyone has any idea how to work it out or have you worked it out and what profit per treatment do you make? The one i want to know the most is Acrylic nail extensions, the cost is a lot for this treatment and with competition, VAT and recession at an all time high (and my prices dropping) i fear my hardwork isnt worth the bother for this treatment in particular.

Any help appreciated, we dot want to work for free do we! xx

[wonderwoman]

You know its actually pretty easy to work out the cost per product, Either draw up a spreadsheet or do it manually.

Work out the full price cost exc vat then with it, then divide by the amount of treatments you think you will get out of it. Simple, then add your own wage, profit etc on top from the price you intend to sell it at. (dont forget delivery!)

Ie Nail glue 7.95 exc vat (includind vat 7.95/100*20=1.59= 7.95+1.59 =9.18) £9.18*30 treatments= 0.306p round it up to 31p then if you know thats one aspect, break it all up and hopefully you have a figure of price pr treatment! hths xoxo

[Baggybear]

There are already threads about working out cost per service and a search will pull many of them up for you, I have copy and pasted my reply to one of the previous threads below:

To work out your prices you should be breaking down your costs for each treatment and allocating a cost to each item then adding it all together, trying not to forget anything.

So for example if you need to know your cost per 1/2 leg wax
(these are all made up figures below just to give you an idea):

1.00 .... wax
.20 ...... spatulas
.80 ...... strips (paper or material)
.20 ...... gloves
.10 ...... cotton pads
.50 ...... pre wax
.50 ...... after wax
.10 ...... wax pot cleaner
.30 ...... electric (if you pre heat to go to appointment)
.50 ...... insurance
1.00 .... petrol
3.00 .... your time
.50 ...... advertising costs
______
£8.70

*If you use anything else or you plan to put money back in to the business to pay for equipment, further training etc.. that should be listed above too.


So you have worked out your cost would be £8.70 per 1/2 a leg wax and you could charge £9.00 (0.30 profit) and undercut everyone in your area £10.00 (£1.30 profit) and be the same as most others or £11.00 (£2.30 profit) and be slightly more expensive.

You need to ensure you know these basic costs as if/when your products/costs go up you can change the figure in your workings out (which should always be kept safe) and you will then know instantly if your costs need to go up or if you have enough profit to be able to swallow any price increase that happens.

Eg.. If you had chosen to undercut everyone and charge £9 then you only have 30p profit so there is no room to swallow any price increases at all and your going to end up putting your prices up quite quickly if petrol continues to go up or if your any of your products have a price increase (which means you now need more price lists printed - an extra cost to swallow).

If however you had chosen to charge £11 you would easily be able to swallow a small price increase from anything without having to worry too much about having to increase your prices or getting new price lists printed again.

No-one should just base their costs on what others are charging as you don't know what they are paying for their products, if they have included the costs for everything they should or if they are actually making any profit (some people will be working at a loss because they have not worked out their costs properly or are willing to work for less per hour than you want to).

If you ask your supplier (NSI,CND etc..) they should be able to give you a rough idea how many full sets each product will allow you, if not give you a full breakdown (I got a nice sheet breaking down all my product costs).

When it came to waxing I had to guestimate as there is no way of really knowing how much I would use for each treatment but I could guess how many full leg waxes I'd get per pot then divide the cost of a full pot by that number to get a per service cost.

[Miss Sylk]

Thanks ladies will try that. think i remember doing that many years ago for my business plan, i remember thinking i highly doubt this is accurate! but i should have another go anyway, products are diferent now, shall do that asap!

Would like to know just for a quick idea what peoples profit is for acrylic nails, if you have it written down and to hand, would appreciate it. I know people use different products i would just like to see.