The 2026 Industry Guide
The fourth annual BeautyCouncil Industry Guide is here, with four years of BC pricing data, commission trends, and rental benchmarks to help you run a smarter business.
Ever wonder if you’re charging enough? If your commission split lines up with what other shops are doing? If the rent on that chair or treatment room is fair?
You’re not alone. These are the questions we hear most often from members, and they’re the reason this guide exists.
Here is our fourth annual BeautyCouncil Industry Guide. It’s the only survey of its kind in British Columbia, built from real numbers reported by salons, spas, and barbershops across the province.
What’s in it
The guide focuses on the numbers you actually need to make decisions:
- Commission rates across different service categories
- Booth, room, and chair rental rates, plus what’s typically included in those agreements
- Retail sales performance
- Who’s raising prices this year, who’s holding steady, and by how much
We also include a loose recommendation on price increases for the year ahead. It’s a benchmark drawn from the industry itself, and members tell us it’s useful when they need to explain a price change to their clients. Having a number from the provincial association makes the conversation easier.
Four years of trends
This year’s edition is the first to offer long-term comparison data. You’ll be able to see how rental rates have shifted since our first guide in 2023, where commission splits have moved, and how retail sales are tracking over time.
That kind of trend data is hard to come by in our industry. Most pricing conversations happen one shop at a time, often based on guesswork or what someone heard from a friend. The guide gives you something more reliable: actual numbers from your peers across BC.
Who it’s for
Whether you own a single-chair barbershop, run a multi-location spa, or rent a chair or room, and want to know if your deal is fair, the guide is built for you. It’s also a useful resource for managers thinking through commission structures and for anyone planning a price adjustment in the months ahead.
See the full guide below
Pricing, rates & trends for 2026
How do your prices, rent, retail, and pay setup compare to other salons, spas, and barbershops across British Columbia? We pulled together four years of data to help you find out — and to make this year’s pricing decisions a little easier.
The 2026 industry, at a glance
Six numbers that show how the year is shaping up for BC’s salons, spas, and barbershops — and how things compare to where we were last year.
This year tells the story of an industry that’s adjusting in real time. More salons are raising prices than last year, and the increases themselves are bigger — averaging close to 9%. At the same time, how salons pay their teams is changing. Hourly and salary just became the most common setup for the first time in our four years of asking, while rental arrangements have moved in the other direction. The full story on each is below.
More salons are moving on prices than this time last year
The “wait and see” group from 2025 is shrinking. This year, nearly two-thirds of BC salons have either already raised their prices in the last year, or are planning to before the year ends.
Looking across the past four years, the pattern has shifted in interesting ways. 2023 was a catch-up year — more than half of salons had raised prices in the previous twelve months, absorbing the cost shocks of the post-pandemic period. The next two years brought a breather, with the “kept prices the same” group climbing to 45% in 2025.
This year flips the pattern back. The “kept the same” group is down to 37%, while the share who raised prices in the last year is back up to 47%. Add the 16% who plan to raise their prices before year-end, and you have roughly two out of three BC salons moving their rates upward this year.
If you held your prices steady through 2025, you’re now in the minority. 63% of BC salons have raised, or plan to raise, their prices this cycle.
How big are the increases?
2026 is shaping up to be a bolder year for price moves. The most common bracket among salons planning a raise is now 9–12%. Last year, the most common bracket was 1–4%. Very few salons are going above 13% — most owners are still being careful about what their clients will accept — but the typical move is clearly bigger this year.
Our suggested 2026 price adjustment
If you haven’t raised your prices since December 2025, here’s how we’d think about catching up — separating retail from services, and factoring in BC’s wage and energy realities.
A split adjustment beats a single number
Here’s the reasoning: not every cost is rising at the same rate. Personal care supplies have gone up faster than general inflation, which means your retail margins shrink faster than your service margins. Adjusting them separately lets you protect your retail profit without making your service prices feel out of step with the rest of the market.
These are starting points, not formulas. Every shop has different costs, different clients, and a different pricing history. The most important number is the one you can stand behind when a client asks.
Big cities are still steady, large suburbs are split
Retail product sales have been a quiet story over four years — mostly stable, with about a third of salons seeing growth each year. The 2026 picture has one twist: large suburbs are split right down the middle.
The big pattern from 2025 still holds: bigger cities are the most stable market for retail. Big-city salons had the smallest share reporting drops — fewer than one in five — and the biggest share reporting steady sales.
The most striking story this year is in the large suburbs. 37% saw retail sales go up, and exactly the same number saw them drop — split right down the middle. There’s no quiet middle ground here. Suburbs are seeing big wins and big drops in roughly equal measure. Smaller towns are quieter: nearly half kept retail right where it was.
If you’re in a large suburb and your retail dropped, you’re not alone. But you’re not stuck either — the same share of suburban salons saw growth, which suggests the difference is in how you’re working it, not the market itself.
For the first time, hourly and salary is the most common pay setup
In 2023, 40% of BC salons were rental-based. By 2026, that’s down to 18% — and hourly or salary pay has taken the top spot. The change has been steady, and it’s a real one.
This is the biggest change we’ve seen in four years. A few things are likely behind it. BC’s minimum wage now goes up each June with inflation, so owners know what to plan for. Hiring has gotten harder, and salaried jobs offer the kind of stability that helps people stay. And the chair rental model — which worked beautifully when commercial rents were steady — has become harder to run as those rents have moved.
Worth noting: commission pay has held remarkably steady at around 28–30% over all four years. That model isn’t going anywhere — it just isn’t growing the way it did a decade ago.
“Seven in ten BC salons and spas no longer pay primarily on commission. The industry has more pay variety than at any point in the past four years.”
Commission rates have drifted upward
Among shops that pay commission, the average rate has climbed from 47% in 2023 to almost 49% in 2026. And the typical (middle) rate has hit 50% on the nose.
The most common rate in 2026 is between 50% and 54%, with about one in three commission-paying salons in this range. That’s tighter than a year ago, when the same band held closer to one in four. Higher rates (55% and up) have nearly doubled their share since 2025, while rates under 40% are still uncommon.
Put it together with the bigger shift away from commission: as fewer shops run on commission overall, the ones that do are pushing rates up — most likely to keep great people from leaving in a tight job market.
Suburb rental rates have caught up to the city
The big-city rental rate has stayed about the same from 2025 to 2026. What changed is the suburbs — large suburb rentals jumped from $942 to $1,075, narrowing the gap with the city.
For renters in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island’s bigger centres, the takeaway is simple: the suburb savings on rent aren’t what they used to be. A few hundred dollars a month used to separate a Vancouver chair from a Burnaby or Coquitlam chair. That gap is now closer to fifty dollars.
What’s actually included in rent?
Laundry tops the list at 71%, followed by workspace cleaning supplies (63%) and capes and towels (61%). What’s surprising is what isn’t usually included. Only 29% of rental agreements include reception services, and just 45% include a dedicated retail space. For an independent professional looking at a chair, those two things are often the difference between a thriving practice and a frustrating one.
Ask specifically about reception services and retail space. They’re the items most commonly missing — and the ones that make the biggest difference in how smoothly your day runs.
Where prices stand in your community
Province-wide averages can hide something important: where you work really does matter. Here’s how 2026 service prices break down across BC’s four community types, with the year-over-year change beside each.
Women’s haircut
| Community | 2026 average | vs. 2025 | Top rate seen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big city (100,000+) | $70 | ≈ flat ($71) | $145 |
| Large suburb (50,000–100,000) | $55 | ↓ from $59 | $125 |
| Smaller town (5,000–50,000) | $58 | ↑ from $51 | $95 |
| Rural area (under 5,000) | $50 | ↑ from $41 | $65 |
Full head of highlights
| Community | 2026 average | vs. 2025 | Top rate seen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big city (100,000+) | $216 | ↓ from $244 | $400 |
| Large suburb (50,000–100,000) | $171 | ↓ from $214 | $400 |
| Smaller town (5,000–50,000) | $188 | ↑ from $184 | $400 |
| Rural area (under 5,000) | $178 | ↑ from $139 | $230 |
Big city and large suburb highlight averages have both come down from last year. It’s worth keeping an eye on — it may signal a real softening in what cities can charge for colour services.
Basic facial
| Community | 2026 average | vs. 2025 | Top rate seen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big city (100,000+) | $155 | ↑ from $142 | $225 |
| Large suburb (50,000–100,000) | $164 | ↑ from $115 | $200 |
| Smaller town (5,000–50,000) | $121 | ↑ from $112 | $150 |
| Rural area (under 5,000) | $144 | ↑ from $112 | $200 |
Facial pricing is the standout story this year. Across every community size — rural, town, suburb, and city — average facial prices climbed. The biggest move is in the large suburbs, where the 2026 average is now higher than the big-city average. Last year we flagged that suburban facials looked underpriced compared to the city. This year, it looks like suburban estheticians caught up.
Chemical peel / skin rejuvenation
| Community | 2026 average | vs. 2025 | Top rate seen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big city (100,000+) | $159 | ≈ flat ($158) | $300 |
| Large suburb (50,000–100,000) | $239 | ↑ from $180 | $310 |
| Smaller town (5,000–50,000) | $150 | ↓ from $160 | $340 |
| Rural area (under 5,000) | $155 | ↓ from $190 | $220 |
Chemical peel pricing in 2026 puts large suburbs at $239 — higher than any other community size, and a big jump from $180 last year. It’s the same story as with facials: suburban skincare pros are moving their pricing on specialty services this year, while big-city prices have stayed about the same.
The numbers behind the numbers
Three numbers worth knowing as you plan your 2026 prices and pay.
Three things worth keeping in mind as you plan. First, the $0.40 per hour minimum wage increase on June 1 affects more than just minimum-wage workers — when the floor goes up, your team members earning $19–22 may need a bump too, just to keep their seniority feeling valued. Second, personal care costs in BC have been going up faster than general inflation. That’s why our retail recommendation (8–10%) is higher than our service recommendation (5%). Third, the 3% national wage projection is a starting point, not a ceiling — competitive shops in tight markets are paying more.
Pricing is a conversation with your market, your team, and yourself.
The averages on this page are useful as a sanity check — but no average should make your decision for you. The right number for your shop depends on your clients, your costs, your team, and how recently you last raised your prices. Use this guide as a starting point, not the final word.
If you’re a BeautyCouncil member and you’d like help thinking through a price change, reach out — we’d be glad to talk it through.