Already operating a salon? → Pricing & Discount Analysis
1Your Build Inputs
Set the two numbers that drive a new-salon decision: how much you put in, and the steady-state volume you expect to reach. Everything below recalculates instantly.
Use your own projections (optional)
Have your salon's Great Clips budget or pro forma? Enter it here to override the derived ramp — leave any field blank to keep the GC-derived value (shown as the faint placeholder). The grand-opening model, break-even, payback, and every chart recalculate on top of whatever you enter. Exit value still uses your target mature revenue input above.
5-Year annual revenue
Year-1 monthly budget (optional)
For the 12-month budget. Any month you fill overrides that month; blank months fall back to the Year-1 figure above, spread on the front-loaded ramp.
Using the GC-derived ramp (no custom projections entered).
The Build Decision at a Glance
At $300,000 in and a $400,000 mature salon, here is how long your money is at risk, what it returns once stabilized, and what the salon is worth at exit at your selected 4x multiple. Adjust the inputs above to update.
2Investment & the First-Year Reality
A new salon does not open at full volume. Year 1 runs at roughly 73% of mature revenue, and it carries the grand-opening advertising burden up front. Plan for it to lose money — the question is how much cash you need to carry it there.
Year-1 revenue = ~73% of mature (from GC's YoY customer-growth ramp, inside the budget-model's 60–70% first-year range), spread front-loaded across the year (~66% of the mature run-rate in month 1 climbing to ~80% by month 12). Grand-opening advertising adds ~$7,000/month for the first three months (~$21K) above the ongoing ad ratio. Source: Great Clips "Budget Model for New Salons" ramp assumptions; 2026 FDD Item 7.
3The Revenue Ramp
A new salon typically takes 12–24 months to reach the system-average customer count. Modeled on the Great Clips 5-year growth assumptions, revenue climbs from ~73% of mature in Year 1 to full maturity by Year 3, then grows modestly.
Ramp factors of mature revenue by year — Year 1: 73%, Year 2: 87%, Year 3: 100%, Year 4: 110%, Year 5: 116% — derived from the Great Clips budget-model year-over-year customer growth (Y2 +20%, Y3 +15%, Y4 +10%, Y5 +5%), anchoring Year 3 to system-average maturity. Year 1 lands at ~73%, inside GC's stated 60–70%-of-system-average first-year range. The dashed line is the target mature revenue (Year-3 stabilized level).
4Cumulative Cash Flow & Break-Even
This is the headline. The line starts at your full investment (below zero) and climbs as the salon generates cash. Where it crosses zero is the month you have your money back.
How the cash flow is built: operating cash flow at maturity equals revenue × the 2026 FDD Item 19 system-average margin (~19.77%). Following the Great Clips Break-Even Analysis Model, only Cost of Sales (products / back bar, ~1.7% of revenue) is treated as variable; everything else — labor, rent, franchise fees, ad fund, overhead — is a fixed dollar base that does not shrink with lower early revenue, so early months carry it on thin sales and lose money. The split is anchored so the salon reconciles exactly to the system-average margin at maturity. Months beyond Year 5 hold the Year-5 cash flow flat (the GC growth model covers 5 years) and are shown only to locate the payback point. This is a system-average model; individual results vary.
Break-Even in Customers Per Week
The Great Clips Break-Even Analysis Model defines break-even as the weekly customer count needed to cover fixed costs at the salon's gross margin: Total Sales Needed to Break-Even = (Rent + Other Operating Expenses) ÷ Gross Margin %. Here is that milestone for your salon.
Mirrors the Great Clips Break-Even Analysis Model (for salons open at least six months). Gross Margin % = 1 − Cost of Sales % (products / back bar). Break-even customers per week = sales needed ÷ 52 ÷ average invoice. Source: Great Clips Break-Even Analysis Model; 2026 FDD Item 19 ratios as defaults.
5Grand-Opening Promotional Pricing
Great Clips opens new salons on a stepped promotional schedule (e.g. $5.99 → $7.99 → full) to drive trial. That discount costs revenue up front, but it also pulls a surge of customers — real openings have run 490–650 customers/week in the first weeks — and a share of them stick. Set the opening price, how it ramps, the traffic surge it drives, and how many convert, and see whether the surge and retained base pay for the discount.
Model: during the window the opening price escalates linearly to full price; customer traffic peaks at the surge multiple and decays to normal by the end of the window; a share of the incremental trial is retained as a permanent customer-count uplift afterward. Calibration from GC "Great Openings" franchisee results — weeks 1–8 averaged ~490–650 cust/wk (vs. a ~414/wk system average), settling to ~400–490/wk by week 20, with a ~44% new-customer return — and the GC grand-opening sample plan's stepped price schedule ($5.99 → $7.99 → full over ~16 weeks). Labor is held fixed, so surge customers carry high incremental margin; a real opening also staffs up (GC plans ~220 floor hours). Individual results vary.
6Returns Summary
The three numbers that decide whether the build is worth it. Exit value tracks operating cash flow at the multiple you selected above.
Simple ROI = Year-5 (mature) operating cash flow ÷ total initial investment — the annual cash-on-cash return once the salon is stabilized; it does not annualize the ramp years. Exit value = mature revenue × OCF margin (~19.77%) × your selected multiple. OCF excludes income taxes, depreciation, amortization, and debt service. Source: 2026 Great Clips FDD, Item 19.
7Where the Matured Salon Lands
Your target mature revenue places the stabilized salon in one of the system's revenue groups from the 2026 FDD. The chart shows the average annual cash flow at each level; your group is highlighted.
Source: 2026 Great Clips FDD, Item 19, Table 3 (2,376 reporting salons). Each bar is a revenue group's average annual operating cash flow; your group is highlighted. Reporting salons represent 2,376 of 4,158 eligible; non-reporting salons skew below the reported median.
8Year-by-Year Detail
The full 5-year build, in your own dollars.
| Year | Revenue | % of mature | Operating cash flow | Cumulative cash flow |
|---|
Year 1 cash flow includes the ~$21K grand-opening ad burden and the fixed-cost drag of low early volume. Cumulative cash flow starts at −investment.
Advanced inputs
Labor is set by floor hours × wage in Section 1. Override the remaining system-average expense ratios here. These feed every cash-flow and exit figure above.
Build-cost reference — Source: 2026 Great Clips FDD, Item 7: total initial investment $187,800–$419,900; leasehold improvements $70,000–$200,000; grand opening advertising $20,000–$25,000; initial franchise fee (single unit) $20,000.