Glow Pros Academy

Mini Module VIII

The price list you have not changed in two years

The Glow Edit. Business education for the aesthetic and wellness field, written from a working clinic.

Module specification

Framework: Cost-Plus Pricing, originator and year to confirm
Field: Management accounting
Duration: 10 minutes reading, 20 minutes practical
Prerequisites: Mini Modules II, III and VII
Strand: Pillar II, Profitability
Benchmark: National occupational standards for enterprise

On completion you will be able to

Calculate what inflation and cost rises have done to a price left unchanged
Set a price from cost and margin rather than from the salon down the road
Plan a price increase and state how it will be communicated

In one line

A price left alone for two years is not a stable price. It is a price that has quietly fallen, while every cost behind it went up.

Section A · The situation

Nothing changed, which is the problem

The price list has been the same since you printed it. It felt right at the time and there has never been an obvious moment to change it.

Meanwhile the rent went up. The insurance went up. The consumables order costs noticeably more than it did. If you employ anybody, the National Living Wage went up and so did employer National Insurance. The energy bill needs no introduction.

Every single cost behind that price has moved. The price has not.

So the margin has been absorbing the difference, quietly, for two years, which is why the business feels harder than it did while the diary looks much the same.

Section B · The theory

Where a price should come from

Cost-plus pricing is the oldest method there is. Establish what delivery costs, add the margin the business needs to survive, and that is the price.

It has real limitations. It ignores what a client will pay and what the market is doing, which is why nobody should use it alone. This module names the technique rather than a single author, because the card index does not yet record one.

But as a floor it is indispensable, because it answers a question no competitor comparison can. Not what could I charge. What must I charge before this stops working.

Three ways prices actually get set

ICopyingWhat the place down the road charges. The most common method in this sector and the one that guarantees you inherit somebody else's cost structure.

IIFeelWhat sounds acceptable to say out loud. Tracks your confidence rather than your costs.

IIICost plusWhat delivery costs, plus the margin the business needs. Unglamorous, and the only one that cannot quietly bankrupt you.

The point of the floor is not that you should charge it. It is that you should know it, so that every discount, every block and every friend rate is a decision rather than an accident.

Most practitioners discover the floor is above at least one of their current prices.

What happens to an unchanged price over two years

Price, unchangedCosts, upMargin

What she paysWhat it costs youWhat you keep, and where it went

And then there is the increase itself, which is where most of this falls apart. Not because clients object, but because practitioners expect them to and pre-emptively apologise.

The evidence from the sector is unambiguous on this. In 2025 a record three quarters of hair and beauty businesses raised their prices. Your clients have been through it everywhere else they spend money.

Announce it, do not justify it. A price is information, not a confession.

Before you go on

When did you last change your prices, precisely? If you cannot remember the month, that is the answer.
Which single treatment would you most dread putting up, and what does that dread tell you?
If you lost the three clients most likely to object, what would actually happen to the month?

Section C · Mini audit

Practical

The Price Floor Audit

Take one treatment. The one you do most, not the one you like most. If you have your figures from earlier modules this takes five minutes.

	Line	Figure
	1. Cost per available hourFrom Mini Module II, or fixed costs divided by bookable hours		£
	2. Hours this treatment occupiesTreatment, setup, turnaround, notes		hrs
	3. Fixed cost carried by this treatmentLine 1 times line 2		£
	4. Direct cost of delivering itConsumables, card fee		£
	5. Total costLine 3 plus line 4		£
	6. Your price floor at 30 per cent marginLine 5 divided by 0.7		£
	Your current price minus line 6		£

NegativeYou are below your own floor. Every one of these delivered at the current price makes the month worse. This is a pricing decision, not a marketing one, and it is urgent rather than delicate.

Small positiveThin. The treatment works while everything else holds. One cost rise removes the margin entirely, which is what has been happening for two years.

ComfortableGenuine headroom. Now you can discount deliberately, because you know exactly what it costs and when it stops making sense.

Section D · The reveal

What you have just done

That was a cost-plus price floor calculation, built on the activity-based costing you did in Mini Module II. You established total cost per unit of the constrained resource and derived a minimum viable price at a stated margin.

It maps to defining the product or service of your business, and to setting and monitoring financial targets. Both are national occupational standards for enterprise.

Eight modules ago you were told that being good at the work is a different skill from running the business. This is what the other skill actually looks like.

Section E · Your action step

Twenty minutes this fortnight. One price, and a date.

Choose one treatment where the headroom is thin or negative. Set the new price. Then set the date it takes effect, at least four weeks out.

Tell existing clients once, plainly, with no apology and no explanation of your costs. From the first of November the course of six will be four hundred and twenty pounds. Anything booked before then is at the current price.

That last sentence is not a discount. It is a courtesy, and it converts the announcement into a reason to book.

Type it here, or print the page and write it by hand.

Mini Module VIII at a glance

An unchanged price is a falling price, because every cost behind it rose
Copying local prices means inheriting somebody else's cost structure
Cost plus is a floor rather than a strategy, and you need to know it
Most practitioners find at least one price below their own floor
Announce an increase, give notice, and do not justify it

From the deck

Pillar IIProfitability

Card

Cost-Plus Pricing

· · ·

Not what could I charge. What must I charge before this stops working.

Defining Your Service

Every framework in the Glow Mastery Programme has a card. More than a hundred of them, one for each thing you learn.

The reverse carries the origin, the theory and the standards it maps to. That side comes with the deck, which arrives when you enrol.

That is eight you have earned.

Reply and tell me which price you are changing, and the date.

I read every reply myself, and it decides what gets taught next.

Next week: the last email in this seriesThat is the eight. Next week I will write once more, about what comes after them, and then this series closes.

Amelia x

Founder, Glow Pros Academy

The Glow Edit is the fortnightly mini module from Glow Pros Academy, the business education for practitioners across the aesthetic and wellness field. Written from a working clinic, not a coaching desk. This page prints on two sides of A4 if you would rather work on paper.