Thinking about a salon suite?
Ask them these 10 questions.

I get asked about salon suites almost every week. Usually by somebody ready to go independent, standing in front of two or three options, trying to work out which one is theirs.

So let me say the thing people don’t expect me to say. Salon suites are good. Plenty of beauty pros are happy in one, the door is the product, and if quiet is what you want most, go get one.

And going independent at all is a normal move now. Per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 48% of American hairdressers and cosmetologists already work for themselves. That’s nearly 600,000 people. You wouldn’t be taking a strange leap. You’d be joining half the profession.

Just walk in with your eyes open. The number on the lease is usually the smallest number in the deal.

What a suite actually rents for

Real numbers, so you have a baseline before any tour. IMAGE Studios, a national suite company, published its 2026 ranges: a single suite runs about $265 to $480 a week in smaller markets and $325 to $900 in big cities. Here in Austin they list singles at $385 to $625 a week, and doubles at $775 to $1,100.

For comparison, industry estimates from GlossGenius put booth rent around $400 a month on average, anywhere from $250 to $1,200 depending on the market. And in a commission salon, Vagaro’s guide puts typical splits between 40% and 60% of what you bring in, with 50/50 the most common.

Those three numbers describe three different jobs. That’s the real choice you’re making, and the lease line is only where it starts.

Price the whole thing

Behind your own door every line item is yours. Here’s what typically lands on top of a suite lease, with 2026 prices where a source publishes one:

Sometimes utilities and wifi are extra. Sometimes there’s a set-up charge before you’ve taken a single client. Behindthechair.com also flags the quieter lease terms: annual rent increases once you’re rooted, and exit clauses that can mean a buyout or paying the remaining balance if you need out early.

That’s just how the model works. It only bites when you budget the lease and forget the rest, which is what most of us do the first time.

Then count the hours

You’re the person restocking backbar on a Sunday, and the one getting up mid-color because somebody’s knocking. Count those hours before you sign. If you’ve never tracked them, ask somebody already in a suite what a week really looks like.

And the quiet is real

A door buys privacy. It also buys silence.

Some people thrive in that and would never go back. Others find out in month three that they missed having someone to ask “what would you do with this color?” between clients. Only you know which one you are, and that answer is expensive to get wrong.

Picture what your client walks into, too. A hallway of closed doors, or a room with work happening in it.

Worried your clients won’t come with you?

This is the fear that keeps most people in a chair they’ve outgrown, so here’s the one real data point anyone has. In a Phorest consumer survey, 84% of Americans said they’d be likely to follow their favorite stylist to a new location. Your regulars book you, and they’ll drive to keep you. Wherever you land, make the move easy for them and most of them come.

The 10 questions

Take these on every tour. Ask them of every option, including us. Any place worth your money answers all 10 without flinching.

You’ll make a better decision holding those 10 answers than holding a price.

One Texas note

The paperwork is lighter than people think. In Texas, TDLR licenses the space rather than the arrangement: a private room inside a licensed establishment needs a mini-establishment license ($70, good for two years, and either you or the owner can hold it), while working at a station inside a licensed salon requires nothing beyond the license you already carry. Wherever you are, check your own state board before you sign anything.

Why I built a third thing

Twenty years behind the chair. Commission first, then on my own. When I went independent there was commission or there was booth rent, and neither one was what I needed.

So in 2015 I built the third category and called it a Shared Workspace Salon™. One open floor. Your own station on it, your own key, 24-hour access. Towels, backbar and cleaning handled, so you walk in and work. Your prices, your clients, no long-term contract.

It supports beauty pros the way I needed to be supported and couldn’t find. That’s the whole reason it exists.

If you’re in the middle of this

Ask us the same 10 questions. Come stand in one, walk the floor, and ask the people working there anything you want. I’d rather you did.

And if a suite turns out to be right for you, go be great in it. The thing I’d hate is you signing something you never fully priced.