How to calculate your dog grooming hourly rate
A full diary does not tell you whether each grooming hour is carrying its share of the business. For that, you need an hourly revenue floor: the average revenue each billable grooming hour needs to bring in under your own cost, pay and capacity assumptions.
This guide shows you how to calculate that figure and use it to check an individual quote. The examples use pounds, but they are illustrations—not UK market averages or recommended prices.
The calculation
Use two formulas:
Required hourly revenue = (annual business costs + annual target pay) ÷ annual billable hours
Job revenue per hour = job price ÷ job duration
Your required hourly revenue is a planning figure for the business. Your job revenue per hour shows how one appointment compares with it.
Step 1: total your business costs
Start with the recurring costs that your prices need to support. Depending on how you work, these may include:
- salon rent, chair rent or a home-working contribution;
- water, electricity, heating and business broadband;
- business and liability insurance;
- shampoo, blades, consumables and replacement equipment;
- booking, accounting, phone and other software;
- fuel, parking and vehicle costs for a mobile service;
- marketing and listings;
- other recurring business costs.
Use your own records. Convert an annual bill into a monthly figure by dividing it by 12 before adding it to the worksheet. This is a pricing exercise, not tax guidance; check the tax treatment of costs separately.
Worked example
These figures are hypothetical and match the starting assumptions in GroomPrice. They are not industry statistics.
| Monthly cost | Example amount |
|---|---|
| Premises / rent | £350 |
| Utilities | £90 |
| Insurance | £45 |
| Supplies | £160 |
| Software | £35 |
| Travel / vehicle | £120 |
| Marketing | £50 |
| Other costs | £75 |
| Total monthly costs | £925 |
Annual business costs are:
£925 × 12 = £11,100
Step 2: add your annual target pay
Add the annual pay you want the business to provide. Treat it as an input you can review, not as a promised result or after-tax income.
Using a £28,000 target in the example:
£11,100 annual costs + £28,000 target pay = £39,100 annual required revenue
This simplified model therefore asks the business to produce £39,100 in annual revenue.
Step 3: estimate billable capacity
Billable hours are the hours in which grooming work is earning revenue. They are not all the hours you spend at work.
Cleaning, client messages, ordering, bookkeeping, gaps and cancellations reduce grooming capacity. For a mobile groomer, driving between appointments also reduces the number of billable hours available, while fuel and vehicle spending belong in the cost calculation.
Keep time and spending as separate inputs: travel time reduces capacity; travel spending increases costs. Recording both is not double counting because they affect different parts of the formula.
In this example, assume:
- 25 billable grooming hours per week;
- 46 working weeks per year.
Annual billable hours are:
25 × 46 = 1,150 hours
Use a sustainable estimate that allows for time away and regular non-billable work. An optimistic capacity figure will make the hourly requirement look lower than it really is under your assumptions.
Step 4: find the hourly revenue floor
Divide the annual revenue requirement by annual billable hours:
£39,100 ÷ 1,150 = £34.00 per billable hour
Under these assumptions, the business needs to average £34 in revenue per billable grooming hour.
This is not an hourly wage, a profit guarantee or proof of what clients will pay. It is the result of the costs, target pay and capacity entered.
Step 5: check a price per job
Suppose a full groom is priced at £70 and takes 2.5 hours.
Its current hourly revenue is:
£70 ÷ 2.5 = £28.00 per hour
The price that matches the example's £34 hourly floor is:
£34 × 2.5 = £85.00
| Check | Result |
|---|---|
| Current price | £70.00 |
| Current job revenue per hour | £28.00 |
| Required hourly revenue in this example | £34.00 |
| Price at the example floor | £85.00 |
| Difference | £15.00 below the floor |
That does not mean every 2.5-hour groom should cost £85. It means a £70 price is £15 below this particular model's result. Different inputs will produce a different figure.
How capacity changes the result
The same annual revenue requirement produces a different hourly floor when the number of billable hours changes.
Keeping annual required revenue at £39,100 and working weeks at 46:
| Billable hours per week | Annual billable hours | Required revenue per hour | 2.5-hour job at that floor |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | 920 | £42.50 | £106.25 |
| 25 | 1,150 | £34.00 | £85.00 |
| 30 | 1,380 | £28.33 | £70.83 |
Each result is calculated from the underlying annual figures and then rounded to the nearest penny. The displayed hourly figure is not reused as an intermediate value, so rounding it does not distort the job-price column.
The point is not that you should work more hours. It is that capacity needs to reflect how your salon or mobile round actually operates.
Use the result across your service mix
One appointment cannot show whether the whole price list works. Check a representative mix of:
- short maintenance appointments;
- routine full grooms;
- longer coat work;
- appointments that regularly need extra handling time;
- mobile appointments with different travel patterns.
For each one, divide the current price by the time it actually takes. Include the working time that the appointment genuinely occupies rather than relying only on a breed or service label.
A job below the floor is a prompt to investigate, not an instruction to apply an automatic increase. Check whether the recorded time is typical, whether a cost or capacity assumption needs correcting, and how the service fits with the rest of the diary.
Common calculation errors
Treating every working hour as billable
If part of the week goes to travel, cleaning and administration, those hours cannot also be counted as paid grooming time.
Missing irregular costs
Annual insurance, servicing and occasional equipment replacement can disappear from a worksheet based only on one month's spending. Convert irregular costs into consistent planning amounts using your own records.
Confusing revenue with earnings
The result is required business revenue per billable hour. It is not personal hourly pay, guaranteed profit or after-tax take-home income.
Treating the result as a local market price
The formula explains what your assumptions require. It does not establish competitor prices, customer demand or an appropriate quote for a particular dog.
Using one duration for every appointment
Coat condition, the requested finish, the dog's needs and the way you work can change appointment time. Review actual durations and make welfare-led service decisions independently of the calculation.
Your five-step worksheet
- Add your real monthly business costs.
- Multiply the monthly total by 12.
- Add the annual pay you want the business to provide.
- Multiply realistic billable hours per week by realistic working weeks per year.
- Divide annual required revenue by annual billable hours.
Then divide each job price by its actual duration and compare the two hourly figures.
Review the inputs when costs, working patterns or typical appointment times change. Keep a dated copy so you can see why the result moved.
Try the calculation before you buy
Briskettle provides a free, read-only GroomPrice case study with fixed assumptions and sample jobs. It does not require payment and cannot change or save the example figures.
To work with your own costs, target pay, capacity and jobs, open GroomPrice. GroomPrice costs £4.99 one-time in GBP for UK customers, with no subscription.
GroomPrice results depend on the figures entered. They are not a promise of earnings, guaranteed profit, market pricing, tax advice or after-tax take-home pay.