Should I publish prices at all, or say it depends?

Publish them. A client who does not know the price is more likely to choose someone else than to ask. For services where the price genuinely varies, give a range and explain what it depends on.

What about long hair that takes more work?

That is a separate service with its own price and duration, not a surcharge mentioned at the end. A client who learns about extra cost while paying experiences it as unpleasant, even when it is justified.

How many services should the list have?

As many as you actually do. A long list where half the entries have not been booked in months only makes choosing harder. If nobody asks for something, that is information rather than an oversight.

The price list in a salon

A salon price list usually exists in two places: on the wall and in the stylist's head. Both work while the client is in the salon, and neither works at the moment the decision is actually made.

Someone looking for a stylist in the evening is choosing between a few salons they found on their phone. One shows what things cost and how long they take, another says prices on request. Most will not call to ask.

An invisible price is a reason not to book

There is a common view that prices should not be published so clients do not choose on price alone. In practice the opposite happens: a client who does not know the price assumes the worst, or simply goes where it is written.

This applies most to new clients. A regular knows what they pay and does not need it written anywhere. Someone coming for the first time has no other information than price and impression.

A price published only on Instagram, in a post from five months ago, is no help either. It technically exists, but the person booking will not find it.

Duration is part of the price

A service with a price but no duration is incomplete both for the client and for the schedule.

For the client because they have to plan. The difference between a twenty-minute service and a ninety-minute one is the difference between dropping in on a break and setting aside half a day.

For the schedule because free slots are calculated from duration. A service without one gets reduced to some default grid, and then appointments overlap.

So price and duration belong together, as two facts about the same thing.

Surcharges discovered at the end

The worst possible moment to learn about extra cost is while reaching for a wallet.

Long hair, thicker hair, an extra wash, a treatment that turned out to be necessary. All of it can be entirely justified, but mentioned only at the end it reads as though the price was deliberately vague.

The answer is not to abandon surcharges but to turn them into separate services. A cut for long hair is a service with its own price and duration. The client picks it themselves, knows what they are paying and how long it takes, and there is no surprise.

Incidentally, it also makes the schedule more accurate, since long hair genuinely takes longer.

A range instead of an exact price, where that is the only honest option

For some services the price genuinely cannot be fixed in advance. Colouring depends on length, on how much product is needed, and on what has been on the hair before.

There it is more honest to write a range and say what it depends on than to write the lowest price that rarely applies. A client who sees that colouring costs between one figure and another depending on length has a realistic picture and does not feel misled when they pay above the minimum.

The lowest price written as though it were typical is a short-term gain and a long-term loss of trust.

The list shows what actually gets done

Once services are properly defined and tied to booking, after a few months you have information you did not have before: what is actually being asked for.

It usually turns out that most of the trade revolves around three to five services, and that the rest of the list exists out of habit. That does not mean those should be removed, but it does mean they should not be given equal prominence.

The same view shows when something is over- or underpriced. A service everyone picks may be too cheap for the time it consumes.

Changing prices

Prices change and that is normal. What matters is that the change appears everywhere the same day.

The usual failure is changing the price on the wall while the old one stays in the booking system or on the site. A client who booked at the old price is entitled to expect it, and it is hard to argue with something written down.

That is why it helps for the price list to live in one place that is the source of truth, with everything else pulling from it.

What a price list does not solve

Honestly, a clear price list does not bring clients on its own. It removes one reason for them not to come, which is not the same thing.

Also, a salon considerably more expensive than its surroundings will not fix that by presenting prices more attractively. A price list is information, not an argument.

What you realistically gain is fewer questions by phone, less awkwardness at the end of an appointment, and a more accurate schedule. Three small things felt daily.