How to price a groom so the clock and the money agree

Start from the minutes on your table

A breed name is shorthand for the number you care about, the minutes this dog will spend on your table. A Labrador and a standard Goldendoodle can weigh the same, and the doodle can still take twice as long. Start your price from those minutes, and use the breed name only to estimate them.

Work through it in four steps, with example numbers you can swap for your own:

1. Pick your hourly number. Work out what each hour on the table has to bring in to cover shampoo, blades, insurance, the van or the rent, card fees and the slots that go empty, and still pay you. This example uses $60 an hour to show the arithmetic, and we are not recommending $60 as your rate.
2. Time your real grooms. Run the clock from the moment the dog goes in the tub until you finish the last nail. Say your Labrador full groom takes 60 minutes, your Shih Tzu 75, and a standard doodle 150.
3. Multiply. At $60 an hour that is $1 a minute: $60 for the Lab, $75 for the Shih Tzu, $150 for the doodle, and $15 for a 15-minute nail trim.
4. Check it against your town. If a number lands far above what shops near you charge, look at the minutes before you look at the rate. Shortening a slow step in your routine is a cheaper fix than a price your local clients will not pay.

Some shops price a bath and brush as a share of the full groom instead of timing it on its own. The Groom Room in Toronto publishes its bath and tidy at 70 percent of its full groom fee, and FurSlot starts from the same ratio.

Pricing by weight leaves out the coat

Weight bands are easy to post and easy to explain, which is why many price lists use them, but they leave the coat out of the price.

PocketSuite puts it plainly: "Weight-based pricing groups dogs by a single number and assumes coat type, temperament, and grooming time scale the same way inside that bracket. They don't."

Put a 55-pound short-coated mix next to a 55-pound doodle. The two land in the same bracket at the same price, and only the doodle needs a full clip and scissoring. A standard doodle groom takes 2.5 to 3.5 hours of one-on-one work, says Dapper Doodle Grooming, against an hour to an hour and a half for a Labrador or a Beagle. If you charge those two dogs alike from a weight chart, you lose the difference each time a curly coat books.

Weight still works as a tiebreaker between two dogs of the same size and coat, so keep it for that and set the price from size and coat first.

Size, coat and condition, in that order

Start from size

A bigger dog has more coat to wash and more to clip. You can sort almost all the dogs that walk in into four classes, small, medium, large and extra large, and size is the right place to start a price because it is the one thing about the dog you can judge from the parking lot.

Add for the coat

Two dogs of the same size can sit a long way apart on price once you account for the coat. FurSlot's starting table uses four coat steps at each size. A wash-and-wear coat needs a bath, a dry and nails, and a dense double coat adds a real brush-out or de-shed. A full haircut is the next step up, and a curly or silky coat that needs a full clip and scissoring is the top one. On that table a small dog runs from $45 for the easiest coat to $70 for the hardest, and a large dog from $60 to $120. The gap widens as dogs get bigger, because a haircut on a small dog stays a small job even when the coat is difficult.

Adjust for condition on the day

Your breed and coat prices assume a well-kept dog, and the dog in front of you might arrive matted, three months past due, or needing two sets of hands. Each of those adds minutes you should charge for. Price them as extras on top of your base list, and keep the base list for well-kept dogs. For matting, see what to charge for a matted dog.

Pricing a breed you have not groomed before

At some point a client will call about a breed you have not had on your table. Rather than guess from the name, work from dogs you already know:

• Find its twin. Pick the breed you know best with the same size and the same kind of coat, and start from that price. A Lagotto Romagnolo is a medium dog with a curly coat, so it starts where your curly medium dogs sit.
• Ask for a photo. You can judge coat length and condition from a phone photo far better than from the breed name.
• Quote a range, then time it. Say "starting at" and name the top of the range if the coat looks rough. Time the groom, and set next visit's price from the real minutes.
• For a mix, meet in the middle. Most mixes land between their parents in size and coat. FurSlot quotes a mix the same way, by letting the client pick two breeds and averaging their time and price on the booking page. It also carries eight Mixed Breed rows, a short coat and a long or curly coat for each size, for a mix whose breeds the owner does not know.

Published prices from other shops

Use other shops' published prices to sanity-check your own numbers, and expect them to vary far more by town than by breed.

• National averages. HomeGuide's 2026 price list puts an average salon full groom at about $40 for a small dog and $75 for a large one, with mobile grooms running about $65 to $180.
• Doodles. Dapper Doodle Grooming lists $60 to $100 for mini doodles, $90 to $140 for standard doodles and $150 to $180 for large and giant ones, and says many salons add $10 to $30 for long coats.
• Same dog, two towns. Dogwood Grooming Spa in Knoxville, Tennessee, lists a Goldendoodle haircut at $85 to $100 and up, while Brooklyn Pet Spa lists its Goldendoodle haircut and bath at $103 and up.

In September 2026 we read real US price lists and found the same kind of dog costing up to twice as much in the priciest metro as in the cheapest small market. So do not copy any national price list as it stands, ours included. Use one to see which dogs cost more than which, and by about how much, then set your own level from your clock and your town. The 2026 grooming price roundup covers the market side in more detail.

Raising prices without losing the client

Most groomers wait too long and then raise too much at once. Smaller increases on a regular schedule are easier on your clients and on you.

• Give notice in writing. A month of notice is courteous, and your note should give the date, the new number and one plain sentence about why, such as shampoo and blade costs or more time spent on each dog.
• Honor what is already booked. Anyone already on the book keeps the price they booked at, which costs you little and is the part of the change clients tend to remember.
• Raise the price of the job that runs long. If your doodles run long, raise the doodle price and leave your short-coated regulars where they are.

In FurSlot you change a price with one edit in the breed matrix. New bookings get the new price straight away, and appointments already on the calendar keep the price the client booked at, including after a reschedule.

Turning all of that into a list you do not have to remember

Once you have your numbers, put them where clients can see them. If you price by size, the free price list template gives you a printable four-size list to edit in a couple of minutes.

If you want the breed-by-breed version, FurSlot arrives with 243 breeds already filled in, with a time and a price for each service built from the size and coat table above, and you can change any of those numbers. Clients see the time and the price on your booking page before they book, so you settle a doodle's price before the dog is on your table instead of at pickup. See how the breed matrix works, or look up any dog on grooming price by breed.

Setting and raising your prices

How much should I charge for dog grooming as a beginner?

Price your time at the going rate from the start, without a beginner discount. Time your grooms, multiply by the hourly number you need to cover costs and pay yourself, and check the result against shops near you. Beginners work slower, so if your number lands high, charge the local price while your speed catches up, rather than starting cheap and trying to raise later.

Should I price by weight or by breed?

Price by size and coat, and use the breed name to estimate both. Weight alone puts a short-coated mix and a doodle of the same weight in one bracket, even though the doodle can take twice as long. If you keep weight bands, add a coat line to each one so you charge curly and double coats for the time they take.

How much more should a doodle cost than a Labrador?

Charge for the extra time the doodle spends on your table. By Dapper Doodle Grooming's estimate, a standard doodle takes 2.5 to 3.5 hours against an hour to an hour and a half for a Labrador. On FurSlot's starting table a standard Goldendoodle full groom is $120 and a Labrador is $70, and both are starting points for you to edit to your own minutes and town.

How do I tell clients I am putting prices up?

Tell them early and in writing, with the date and the new price; a month of notice is courteous. Give one plain reason, keep anything already booked at the old price, and use the same wording with each client. Most clients accept a fair increase you explain once, and they get upset when they first hear about it at pickup.