Salon, lash, wax and tan franchise finance
The median brand here reports average revenue of $558,094 a unit. Percentage fees at the median brand come to 9.7% of sales. The median cost to open runs $333,902 to $642,448.
Salon, lash, wax and tan franchises at a glance
- Averan Franchise compares twenty salon, lash, wax and tan franchise brands, each from its own 2026 FDD.
- The cost to open a salon, lash, wax and tan franchise runs from $184,794 at Lemon Tree to $4,668,600 at Hair Success.
- Hammer & Nails reports the highest average sales of these brands, at $929,020, and Sharkey’s Cuts for Kids the lowest, at $280,246.
- Franchise fees take 6.32% to 13.74% of sales across the seventeen brands where Averan Franchise works out the figure.
These figures come from each brand's 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document, as the brand reported them, and were read by Averan Advisors.
Find a salon, lash, wax and tan brand
This guide covers twenty brands, each from its own 2026 FDD. Open one, or pick two and compare them.
All 20 brands
The brands in this group
Each brand has its own page on how its locations make money, with every figure set out against the brand’s disclosure document it comes from.
- Amazing Lash Studio Revenue by group · System-wide contraction with one disclosed operating metric explaining the range
- Blo Blow Dry Bar quartiles of gross sales, member counts and appointment counts with low/median/high and attainment · The ticket is the same
- Drybar Revenue by group · Visit counts differ, prices do not, a visit is worth about $61 everywhere
- European Wax Center quartile position is years open, and the fee curve is almost flat
- GLO Tanning 84 locations · Company salons ahead in every quartile, by a margin that widens as the quartiles weaken
- Great Clips 4441 locations · Sales bands with costs and cash flow
- Hair Success 0 locations · No Item 19, three formats
- Hammer & Nails Full P&L · Shop-level expense detail reduced to one two-line ratio that sorts profit from loss
- LashBar 18 locations · Fixed monthly amounts on top of a percentage stack
- Lemon Tree 36 locations · Quartile spread and minimum survey costs
- OVO Salon 2 locations · Salon revenue against customer spend
- Palm Beach Tan 324 locations · Franchisor reacquiring franchised salons at scale while franchised sales lead
- Sharkey’s Cuts for Kids 200 locations · Seven-day and six-day salons
- Sport Clips 1702 locations · Franchised sales bands with company-owned store costs
- Sun Tan City 156 locations · A build costing up to 2.87 times a year's revenue, and zero openings in two years
- The Barbershop A Hair Salon for Men 43 locations · Quartile table, gross sales
- The Lash Lounge Every location listed · Identical bed counts, three times the output, capacity is the same everywhere and what fills it is time
- Urban Waxx 2 locations · Rooms used
- V's Barbershop 62 locations · Three-year fixed cohort, gross sales
- Waxing the City Revenue by group · The membership line, not the waxing line, is where the quartiles separate
The figures, brand by brand
| Measure | Median | Brands | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average sales per unit | $558,094 | 18 of 20 | Median of each brand’s disclosed average |
| Median sales per unit | $489,562 | 14 of 20 | Median of each brand’s disclosed median |
| Initial franchise fee | $45,000 | 20 of 20 | |
| Royalty | 6% | 19 of 20 | Headline rate |
| Brand or advertising fund | 2% | 19 of 20 | |
| Fees paid to the brand | 9.7% | 17 of 20 | Royalty, brand fund and other fees paid to the brand or its affiliates, as a share of average sales |
| Cost to open, low | $333,902 | 20 of 20 | |
| Cost to open, high | $642,448 | 20 of 20 | |
| Profit margin | 22.8% | 5 of 20 | Each brand’s own profit line; definitions differ |
| Labor, share of revenue | 43.1% | 4 of 20 | |
| Building costs, share of revenue | 10.2% | 4 of 20 | |
| Unit growth over each FDD’s Item 20 period (2025, or 2023 to 2025) | 3.3% | 19 of 20 | (End − start) ÷ start |
| Customers lost over each FDD’s Item 20 period (2025, or 2023 to 2025) | 5.1% | 18 of 20 | Terminated, non-renewed, reacquired and ceased, ÷ opening units; transfers excluded |
Each figure is the median of the brands that disclose it, and the Brands column counts them.
How we calculated this
Revenue is each brand's own reported figure on its own unit basis, so the median describes the group and no single brand. Growth and customers lost are our calculations from each brand's outlet table. Where fewer than three brands disclose a figure, no benchmark is shown.
The model
The business model the top performers in salon, lash, wax and tan are running
What the top performers can do that others cannot
Eleven of the twenty brands here sell a membership. Four sell gift cards in volume, which brings cash in months before the service is delivered.
What the customer is buying
The customer buys a plan they pay for monthly whether they show up or not. A location at the middle brand sells $566,774 a year, and the median top group sells $947,345. The offer is the same at both ends of that range, so the difference is volume. At five of them the top performers widen the offer and keep the same building: retail and higher service tiers raise what an hour earns without adding an hour.
Who the customer is, and how often they come back
This is a retention business. The money is made in the second year of a customer, not the first month, so the number that decides the year is how many stay. Among the salon, lash, wax and tan brands that publish it, a median 44% of locations reach their own brand’s average. The top group sells $926,445 against $213,290 at the bottom. Trade area and site set that range before an owner takes a booking.
How the money works
Opening costs $184,794 to $4,668,600 across the group, and inside one brand the top of the range is typically 1.8 times the bottom. At the middle brand the cost stack runs wages 43.1%, occupancy 10.2%, cost of sales 12.3%, franchise fees 9.7% of sales. What is left runs 22.8% at the middle brand, which is $211,229 a year at the top group and $48,630 at the bottom. The percentage changes little between them; the dollars change a lot. Cash and earned revenue arrive in different periods here, so the cash forecast matters more than the profit line in any given month. Four of these brands publish how a new location builds up, so the first year can be read out of the document instead of guessed at.
Top performers
These are the things that separate top performers in salon, lash, wax and tan
Across the salon, lash, wax and tan brands that publish both figures, the median top group of locations sells $926,445 a year and the median bottom group sells $213,290. Across these brands, a median of 44% of locations reach their own brand’s average.
Decided before you open
- Opening cost against sales.The top group sells $926,445 a year against a build that tops out at $4,668,600, so at the heavy end of the range a location sells $0.20 for every dollar it cost to open.
Live operating levers
- Eleven of the twenty brands here sell a membership.
Business model attribute
- Service
- Monthly memberships
- Unit economics
- Members times monthly dues, less members lost
- Thirteen of the twenty brands here can widen what they sell without widening the building.
Business model attribute
- Service
- Retail or higher service tiers
- Unit economics
- Sales per room per hour
- Six of the twenty brands here sell gift cards in volume.
Business model attribute
- Service
- Gift cards paid for before the service
- Unit economics
- Gift card sales, counted as revenue when redeemed
- Four of the twenty brands here publish how a new location builds up.
Business model attribute
- Service
- The FDD’s month-by-month build-up of a new location
- Unit economics
- Months until sales cover costs
- Profit margin.Of the five brands that publish a profit line, the middle one keeps 22.8% of sales, from 12.0% to 26.0%. The cost lines above move by a few points between the highest-selling and lowest-selling locations while sales move by multiples. At a 22.8% margin, the top group earns $211,229 a year and the bottom group $48,630.
- Fees as a share of sales.Fees run a median 9.7% of sales across seventeen brands, from 6.3% to 13.7%. Where a minimum applies, lower-selling locations pay a higher effective rate. At $926,445 the fees cost $90,143 a year; at $213,290 they cost $20,753.
- Four brands here price their cost lines.Of these twenty filings, only Great Clips, OVO Salon, Sport Clips and Urban Waxx publish wages, rent or cost of sales, so for the others the operating gap between the top and the bottom cannot be read from the documents. For them, the sales figures are all you are given, and everything that turns those sales into earnings has to come from owners you call. Ask three at each end of the system for wages as a share of sales, rent as a share of sales, and what is left at the end.
Context you underwrite around
- First-year build-up.Four of twenty filings in this group show how a new location builds up. The others do not show it.
Operating levers
What each brand’s top performers actually work on
These are the levers each brand's filing supports. Each brand has three to five, read from its own 2026 FDD. Filter by type of business, or open a brand for the figures underneath.
20 brands
Amazing Lash Studio
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Membership drives the model. Track how many members join, how many cancel, and what each member spends beyond the plan.
- Gift cards. Gift cards are sold before the service is delivered, and sales peak around the holidays. A gift card is deferred revenue until it is redeemed, so cash and earned revenue arrive in different periods.
- Fees. Fees run about 13.7% of sales. No minimum royalty applies, so the charge rises and falls with sales.
Blo Blow Dry Bar
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Membership drives the model. Track how many members join, how many cancel, and what each member spends beyond the plan.
- Fees and the minimum. Fees run about 9.7% of sales. A minimum fee also applies, so lower-selling locations pay a higher effective rate. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum.
Drybar
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Membership drives the model. Track how many members join, how many cancel, and what each member spends beyond the plan.
- Gift cards. Gift cards are sold before the service is delivered, and sales peak around the holidays. A gift card is deferred revenue until it is redeemed, so cash and earned revenue arrive in different periods.
- Service and retail mix. Retail sales and the share of customers on higher service tiers raise revenue per hour without adding hours or rooms.
- Fees. Fees run about 12.9% of sales. No minimum royalty applies, so the charge rises and falls with sales.
- Cash needed in the first year. This filing shows how a new location builds up: the month sales cover costs, and how much cash you fund before then.
European Wax Center
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Membership drives the model. Track how many members join, how many cancel, and what each member spends beyond the plan.
- Service and retail mix. Retail sales and the share of customers on higher service tiers raise revenue per hour without adding hours or rooms.
- Fees. Fees run about 9.0% of sales. No minimum royalty applies, so the charge rises and falls with sales.
- Cash needed in the first year. This filing shows how a new location builds up: the month sales cover costs, and how much cash you fund before then.
GLO Tanning
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Membership drives the model. Track how many members join, how many cancel, and what each member spends beyond the plan.
- Fees and the minimum. Fees run about 10.1% of sales. A minimum fee also applies, so lower-selling locations pay a higher effective rate. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum.
Great Clips
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Fees. Fees run about 11.5% of sales. No minimum royalty applies, so the charge rises and falls with sales.
- Wages. Wages take 49.2% of sales, against 19.8% kept at the end. The levers are staff productivity, scheduling against demand hour by hour, and the balance of base pay to commission.
- Occupancy cost. Rent and building costs take 11.1% of sales here. The rent is fixed when the lease is signed, so this share falls only as sales per square foot rise.
- Service and retail mix. Retail sales and the share of customers on higher service tiers raise revenue per hour without adding hours or rooms.
Hair Success
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Visits. Track how many visits happen, what each one is worth, and how many customers book the next one before they leave.
- Service and retail mix. Retail sales and the share of customers on higher service tiers raise revenue per hour without adding hours or rooms.
Hammer & Nails
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Membership drives the model. Track how many members join, how many cancel, and what each member spends beyond the plan.
- Gift cards. Gift cards are sold before the service is delivered, and sales peak around the holidays. A gift card is deferred revenue until it is redeemed, so cash and earned revenue arrive in different periods.
- Service and retail mix. Retail sales and the share of customers on higher service tiers raise revenue per hour without adding hours or rooms.
- Fees. Fees run about 8.0% of sales. No minimum royalty applies, so the charge rises and falls with sales.
- Cash needed in the first year. This filing shows how a new location builds up: the month sales cover costs, and how much cash you fund before then.
LashBar
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Fees and the minimum. The brand’s charges are set dollar amounts, so they take a larger share of sales at lower-selling locations.
- Gift cards. Gift cards are sold before the service is delivered, and sales peak around the holidays. A gift card is deferred revenue until it is redeemed, so cash and earned revenue arrive in different periods.
- Membership drives the model. Track how many members join, how many cancel, and what each member spends beyond the plan.
Lemon Tree
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Fees and the minimum. Fees run about 9.7% of sales. A minimum fee also applies, so lower-selling locations pay a higher effective rate. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum.
- Sales depend on customers. The owner works on how many customers are won, how many are lost, and what each spends in a year.
- Service and retail mix. Retail sales and the share of customers on higher service tiers raise revenue per hour without adding hours or rooms.
OVO Salon
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Fees and the minimum. Fees run about 6.3% of sales. A minimum fee also applies, so lower-selling locations pay a higher effective rate. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum.
- Visits. Track how many visits happen, what each one is worth, and how many customers book the next one before they leave.
- Service and retail mix. Retail sales and the share of customers on higher service tiers raise revenue per hour without adding hours or rooms.
- Occupancy cost. Rent and building costs take 9.2% of sales here. The rent is fixed when the lease is signed, so this share falls only as sales per square foot rise.
Palm Beach Tan
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Membership drives the model. Track how many members join, how many cancel, and what each member spends beyond the plan.
- Service and retail mix. Retail sales and the share of customers on higher service tiers raise revenue per hour without adding hours or rooms.
- Fees. Fees run about 8.0% of sales. No minimum royalty applies, so the charge rises and falls with sales.
Sharkey’s Cuts for Kids
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Visits. Track how many visits happen, what each one is worth, and how many customers book the next one before they leave.
- Service and retail mix. Retail sales and the share of customers on higher service tiers raise revenue per hour without adding hours or rooms.
Sport Clips
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Fees and the minimum. Fees run about 13.7% of sales. A minimum fee also applies, so lower-selling locations pay a higher effective rate. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum.
Sun Tan City
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Membership drives the model. Track how many members join, how many cancel, and what each member spends beyond the plan.
- Fees. Fees run about 10.0% of sales. No minimum royalty applies, so the charge rises and falls with sales.
The Barbershop A Hair Salon for Men
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Fees. Fees run about 7.2% of sales. No minimum royalty applies, so the charge rises and falls with sales.
- Visits. Track how many visits happen, what each one is worth, and how many customers book the next one before they leave.
- Service and retail mix. Retail sales and the share of customers on higher service tiers raise revenue per hour without adding hours or rooms.
The Lash Lounge
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Membership drives the model. Track how many members join, how many cancel, and what each member spends beyond the plan.
- Service and retail mix. Retail sales and the share of customers on higher service tiers raise revenue per hour without adding hours or rooms.
- Fees and the minimum. Fees run about 8.0% of sales. A minimum fee also applies, so lower-selling locations pay a higher effective rate. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum.
Urban Waxx
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Fees and the minimum. Fees run about 13.5% of sales. A minimum fee also applies, so lower-selling locations pay a higher effective rate. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum.
- Wages. Wages take 40.2% of sales. The levers are staff productivity, scheduling against demand hour by hour, and the balance of base pay to commission.
- Occupancy cost. Rent and building costs take 9.0% of sales here. The rent is fixed when the lease is signed, so this share falls only as sales per square foot rise.
- Cash needed in the first year. This filing shows how a new location builds up: the month sales cover costs, and how much cash you fund before then.
V's Barbershop
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Fees. No minimum royalty applies, so the charge rises and falls with sales.
- Service and retail mix. Retail sales and the share of customers on higher service tiers raise revenue per hour without adding hours or rooms.
- Gift cards. Gift cards are sold before the service is delivered, and sales peak around the holidays. A gift card is deferred revenue until it is redeemed, so cash and earned revenue arrive in different periods.
Waxing the City
Salon, lash, wax and tan
- Membership drives the model. Track how many members join, how many cancel, and what each member spends beyond the plan.
- Gift cards. Gift cards are sold before the service is delivered, and sales peak around the holidays. A gift card is deferred revenue until it is redeemed, so cash and earned revenue arrive in different periods.
- Service and retail mix. Retail sales and the share of customers on higher service tiers raise revenue per hour without adding hours or rooms.
- Fees and the minimum. Fees run about 10.0% of sales. A minimum fee also applies, so lower-selling locations pay a higher effective rate. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum.
How fast new salon, lash, wax and tan locations build sales
None of the eighteen salon, lash, wax and tan brand pages in Averan Franchise shows how a new location's sales build after opening in dollars. Ask each franchisor for sales by months open, and ask current owners how long their location took to cover its costs.
Common questions
How much does a salon, lash, wax and tan franchise cost to open?
Among the twenty salon, lash, wax and tan brands in Averan Franchise that publish it, the cost to open runs from $184,794 at Lemon Tree to $4,668,600 at Hair Success, according to their 2026 FDDs.
Which salon, lash, wax and tan franchise costs the least to open?
Lemon Tree has the lowest starting cost of the salon, lash, wax and tan brands in Averan Franchise, at $184,794 to $277,939.
Which salon, lash, wax and tan franchise has the highest average sales?
Hammer & Nails reports the highest average sales of the salon, lash, wax and tan brands in Averan Franchise, at $929,020 in its 2026 FDD.
What do salon, lash, wax and tan franchise fees cost as a share of sales?
Across the seventeen salon, lash, wax and tan brands where Averan Franchise works out the figure, franchise fees take 6.32% to 13.74% of sales.
Questions owners ask next
The figures above raise these, and each one is answered on its own page.
- Money arrives before the service does. How should that be booked?It explains deferred revenue and why the bank balance and the profit line disagree.
- At what level of sales does a minimum fee stop costing me more than the percentage?It works out the sales level where a minimum fee stops applying.
- How much cash do I fund before a new location covers its own costs?It builds a 13-week forecast for the months before break-even.
- How much of Item 19 can I rely on?It explains what an Item 19 financial performance representation tells you and what it leaves out.
- What should I be looking at every week?It lists the handful of numbers that move before the P&L does.
Run your own numbers.
The Franchise Numbers Check runs the same checks on your own numbers. It scores where you stand and compares you with Item 19 of your brand’s FDD. It works out what one location earns and spends, and builds a 13-week cash forecast. It checks whether you are ready to open another one. It is free and it runs in your browser.
Launch the diagnostic →Where does your unit sit?
We review your unit economics, cash forecast and reporting and compare them with the brands in this guide.
Talk to AveranWhere these figures come from
Every figure here comes from the brands' 2026 FDDs and is unaudited by us. We are unaffiliated with the brands. The medians, growth and customers lost figures are our own calculations. The figures describe past performance at other businesses. They are not a projection of your results. This page is an educational summary and is not an offer to sell a franchise or financial, legal or tax advice. All trademarks belong to their owners. How Averan reads a Franchise Disclosure Document.