Hourly vs. commission, whichever is higher
Know which side of your pay is winning this week.
Set your rates below, log your hours and grooms, and watch your crossover point update live.
Set your base hourly rate so the numbers match your pay.
Tap a common rate or type your own. Whatever is in the box is what the math uses.
Your guaranteed hourly wage before any commission. This sets the base your pay is measured against.
Prefills the price on a new groom, and estimates how many more dogs it takes to hit your goal.
Prefills the tip on a new groom so you only change the ones that differ.
Estimates only. Taxes and deductions will reduce your actual paycheck. Set your own commission rate and hourly figure in the settings panel so the numbers match your salon.
How to use it
Open the settings panel above and set your commission rate and base hourly rate. Then, for each day, log your hours worked and tap "Add Groom" once per dog, entering that groom's price and tip. The week's totals, your crossover point, and your take-home update automatically as you type. Use the arrows next to "Current Week" to move between weeks -- everything you log is saved on this device.
Whichever number is bigger, that's your pay
Each pay period your salon calculates two numbers: your hours times your hourly rate, and your commission percentage times the grooming revenue you generated. You're paid whichever is larger. Tips are separate and yours either way.
The hourly side is a floor. On a slow week, bad weather, a light book, three no-shows, you still get your hours. The commission side is the upside -- on a busy week a percentage of real service revenue climbs much faster than a flat hourly rate does.
Your crossover point is a single number
There's one specific level of grooming revenue where commission finally passes hourly. Below it, your hourly rate is your actual pay no matter how hard you work. Above it, every additional groom is worth your commission percentage of its price, directly to you.
The math is short: hours times hourly rate, divided by your commission rate. At 38 hours and $17 an hour that's $646, and at 50 percent you'd need $1,292 of grooming revenue to match it. This calculator shows you that number and how far into it you are, live, as you log grooms.
What it means if you rarely cross it
Plenty of groomers run this and find they only commission out in busy season. That's not unfair -- it's the floor doing its job. But it tells you where your effort actually pays. If a normal week leaves you short of the line, working faster inside that week changes nothing about your check. What moves it is the things that move the line itself: a higher commission tier, higher service prices, or add-ons that count toward commissionable revenue.
Not on this pay type?
No hourly floor at all, commission and tips only? Use the commission only calculator. Straight hourly with no commission? Use the hourly only calculator.