Dog Grooming Price List Template (Free Download)

The phone rings at 9:10. A woman wants a price for her doodle. You ask how big, what coat, when was the last groom. She says he’s medium, “a bit fluffy,” and was done “a while ago.” You quote $85.

At pickup he’s 58 pounds, and under the fluff there is a mat the size of a paperback behind each ear. The groom took two and a half hours. She looks at the bill and says you told her $85.

You did. Nobody lied. The price list just didn’t have enough in it to make the price true.

A good price list does the arguing for you before the dog arrives. If you want a head start, the free dog grooming price list template is a Word document with the tables, add-ons, matting and handling lines and a policies block already laid out. Every price is blank, because the right numbers are yours to set. The rest of this post is how to fill it in.

Price by size and coat

A grooming price is really a time estimate. Size and coat are the two things that decide how long a dog is on your table, so they are the two axes of the list.

The template uses four sizes:

• Small: up to 20 lb
• Medium: 21 to 50 lb
• Large: 51 to 90 lb
• XL: over 90 lb

And three coat types: short, medium, and long or double. Double-coated breeds go in the long column even if the hair isn’t long, because the blow-out and de-shedding take the time.

Why not price by breed? “Poodle” covers a ten-pound toy and a sixty-pound standard. Weight is on the vet paperwork, and coat shows in a photo.

You get two tables: full groom, and bath and tidy. The second is for dogs that don’t need a haircut, and it keeps clients from asking for a full groom price on a dog who only needs a wash.

Set the numbers by the hour

This is the step most price lists skip.

Start with one number: what an hour of your table time needs to earn. Work backward from your costs and what you want to take home, then divide by the hours you can realistically book in a week. Not the hours you’re open, but the hours a dog is on the table.

Then check every cell: how long does that dog really take, start to finish, times your hourly number?

Here is what that looks like. This is an example layout with placeholder prices, using a made-up target of $60 an hour. It is not a market rate and not a recommendation. Swap in your own target and your own times. For what salons actually charge by size, coat and region, see how much to charge for dog grooming.

Now look for cells that don’t earn their place. If a medium dog with a long coat takes two hours but you’ve priced it at $95 because that “feels right,” you are working below your own target.

Time two or three real appointments of each type before you trust your estimate. The time you think a groom takes and the time it takes are usually different numbers.

If you’re still working out your costs, the pet grooming business plan walks through where an hourly target comes from.

What goes in add-ons, and what goes in every groom

Add-ons are where price lists get messy. Two rules keep them clean.

Put in the base price anything every dog needs. Nail trim, ear cleaning, a brush-out of normal tangles, sanitary trim. If you do it on every dog, it is part of the groom. Charging $12 extra for something every client gets just makes the list longer and the bill feel like nickel-and-diming.

Make add-ons things only some dogs need, or only some clients want. Teeth brushing, blueberry facial, de-shedding treatment, specialty shampoo, paw balm, a nail grind instead of clip. Each one should have a flat price you can say out loud in three seconds.

If more than half your dogs get an add-on, fold it into the base price. A clean list with fewer lines beats a long one nobody reads.

Show matting and handling so it doesn’t cause an argument

Matting is the single most common source of price arguments, and almost all of them come down to the client not knowing the rule existed.

The template handles it three ways:

• Dematting, per 15 minutes. A time rate, not a vague “extra.” The client can see what a quarter of an hour costs, and you can tell them how many you expect.
• Matted shave-down charge. For a coat that is too matted to brush out safely. Brushing through a tight mat hurts the dog, so the kind option is usually to clip it short. That takes time and skill, and it needs a line on the list.
• Handling fee. For dogs that need extra patience or a second pair of hands.

Print the unit next to each number: “per 15 minutes,” “flat.” A figure with no unit is what gets disputed. Say it before the groom, not after: on the booking page, when they book, and with a photo and a call if you find something. The script for that call is in matted dog markup: why groomers lose thousands a year.

A short version for the front of the list:

Matting, tangles and handling needs are charged separately from the base price, because they take extra time. We’ll tell you before we start.

What the policies block is for

At the bottom of the template there is a short block: deposit, cancellation, rabies, payment, late pickup.

It exists so the list answers “what will this cost me?” completely. A client who sees $90 and later meets a late pickup fee will feel the price changed. Keep it to one line each and put the detail elsewhere:

• Deposit: whether you take one, and how much. The thinking is in grooming deposits: how to charge them without losing clients.
• Cancellation: the notice window and the fee. There’s a copy-paste version in the grooming cancellation and no-show policy template.
• Rabies: the vaccine record you require before the first groom.
• Payment: when you collect, and what you take.
• Late pickup: a per-interval fee, so a dog waiting an hour in a kennel isn’t free.

How often to review, and how to tell regulars

Set a date, twice a year or at least once, and put it in your calendar. A review takes twenty minutes: check your hourly target against your costs, time a few appointments, and adjust any cells that have drifted.

Small, regular rises go down better than one big jump after years of nothing.

When you do raise prices, tell your regulars yourself, in writing, with a date:

Hi [Name], a quick note that from [date] our grooming prices are going up. [Dog]‘s full groom will move from $[old] to $[new]. Our costs have gone up. Appointments booked before [date] stay at the current price. Any questions, just reply. Thanks for coming to us.

Three things in that message do the work: a firm date, the exact new price for their dog, and a short honest reason. No apology. Give at least 30 days of notice. A few clients will grumble.

Where to put the list

Put it in three places:

1. Front desk or wall. Printed, readable from where a client stands.
2. Your website. A page of its own, so a search for your salon’s prices finds it.
3. Your booking page. This is where the price matters most, because it is the moment someone decides. If the booking page and the printed list say different things, the booking page is the one the client will quote back to you.

On that third one, in Packyard you can set each size up as its own service with its own price and length of time, and limit a service to certain animal types or breeds. Customers booking online see each active service with its name, description, length and price, so the number they see when they book is the number you put on the list. You set the sizes up yourself, and Packyard doesn’t work out a price from the dog’s weight, so the list and the services need to be kept in step when you review.

Opening a salon? How to start a dog grooming business covers the groundwork. If your income swings with the seasons, read how to handle the grooming slow season before you reprice.

Do it this week

• Decide your hourly target.
• Fill in the full groom table, then check each cell against the hourly target.
• Add matting, dematting and handling lines with their units.
• Fill in the policies block, one line each.
• Print it, put it on your website and match your booking page to it.
• Put a review date in your calendar.

The dog grooming price list template is below if you haven’t grabbed it yet. Fill in the blanks and you’ll have a list you can stand behind the next time somebody says “a bit fluffy.”

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• grooming

Himani Agarwal Founder, Packyard

Ran two pet shops with grooming salons, got fed up with software built for hair salons, and built Packyard with a team of groomers. Still on the floor most Saturdays. Writes about the parts of grooming nobody taught you.

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