Hi Tinkabell.
If you commission split you are paying the business owner a share of your money to help build your column
If the business owner sets your hours and prices that makes you a freelance contractor in her business and you qualify for minimum wage for your hours and holiday pay (good luck explaining this to the owner!). You will be responsible for paying your own tax and national insurance but you should check the regulations because I may not be up to date.
The business owner will be responsible for paying VAT So if the customer pays £120, and you have a 60/40 split arrangement in the business owner’s favour, you will get £48, the taxman gets £20 and the business owner gets £52.
Commission splits give you the benefit of the landlord doing some marketing and trying to book you clients. To give you an example, years ago I did a commission split with a beauty therapist and I worked hard to make sure she was fully booked so she was taking £1200 a week take home. She decided she’d be better off renting her own place and left - moving into a room in the same building as me! In spite of hovering in the foyer and doorstepping her former clients (carrying them off to her room and having stand up rows with me that I was “stealing” her clients) she never made as much money ever again and went bust. She didn’t appreciate that doing the work is only one part of building a business, and it’s the easy part. Never take customer loyalty for granted, sometimes customers are loyal to a salon, not a person.
Yes of course you can make more by chair renting. Sometimes a small slice of a big pie works out better than a big slice of a small pie. Sometimes the small pie looks better - it doesn’t always taste better.
