What going independent as a beauty pro really costs.

The expensive surprises in this industry all show up after the signature. So let’s find every one of them now, while you’re still calm and holding a calculator instead of a lease.

I budgeted exactly one number when I went independent: the rent. Then the first backbar order landed, then the insurance quote, then a tax bill I’ll never forget. Every number below is the line I wish somebody had shown me, with a source you can check yourself.

Four buckets. Here we go.

Bucket 1: The space

Your biggest recurring line, and the one with the widest range. Industry estimates from GlossGenius put booth rent around $400 a month on average, ranging $250 to $1,200 by market. For a private suite, IMAGE Studios, a national suite company, publishes 2026 ranges of roughly $265 to $900 a week, with Austin singles at $385 to $625 a week.

Notice those units. Booth rent is usually quoted monthly and suites weekly, and comparing them raw is how people fool themselves. Convert everything to a month before you compare anything.

Bucket 2: The supplies

When the shelf is yours, stocking it is too. Vagaro’s guide estimates $3,000 to $5,000 a year for backbar and product, and that’s before towels, capes, cleaning supplies, and the laundry that somebody has to run every week. Behind your own door, that somebody is you, on your day off.

Ask every space you tour exactly what’s included, item by item. The answers differ far more than the rent lines do.

Bucket 3: The business

The steady drips. Individually small, always on:

The sneaky one is card processing, because it’s a percentage. At $6,000 a month in services, 2.6% is about $156 a month, which quietly makes it one of your bigger business lines. Insurance is the opposite: nearly free, and the worst line on this page to skip.

Bucket 4: The taxes

The one that gets first-year stylists. As an employee, payroll taxes came out before you ever saw the money. Self-employed, YOU are payroll: the IRS self-employment tax is 15.3% of your net earnings, on top of regular income tax, paid through quarterly estimated payments.

The fix is a habit, and it’s boring on purpose: a separate account, 20 to 30 percent of every payout moved automatically, never touched. April stops being scary when the money already exists.

Now compare totals, never lease lines

Here’s the point of all four buckets. Two options with identical space costs can be a thousand dollars a month apart once you add what’s included and what isn’t. The only honest comparison is your projected TOTAL, per option, on one page.

This is also the fairest way to look at a membership model like ours. At bex+Co., buckets one and two mostly collapse into the membership: your chair and full workstation on one open floor, backbar, towels, capes, cleaning handled, plus business education and your profile on a site clients actually find. You bring color and tools, keep your prices and your clients. When you tour us, make us give you the same total-cost answer you’re demanding from everyone else. Here’s how the model works if it’s new to you.

Your homework, one sitting

An hour of this beats a year of surprises. The 10 questions are in this tour guide. And once you know your total, the natural next question is how many clients it takes to carry it. We did that math too, on a receipt.