Commission sounds simple — a percentage of what you bring in — but the details of how "what you bring in" gets calculated, and how the percentage itself is set, vary more than most groomers realize. Here's the mechanics behind it.
Commission is almost always calculated on the service price of each groom you personally perform — not on add-ons sold by someone else, not on retail products, and not on tips (tips are separate and go to you directly in most structures). If you groom six dogs in a day at an average of $65 per groom, your commission-eligible revenue for that day is $390, regardless of how long each groom actually took.
Many salons use tiered commission structures instead of a single flat rate — a newer or less-certified groomer might start at one percentage, with a higher tier available once they hit a certification milestone, a speed benchmark, or a tenure threshold. This gives groomers a visible path to a better rate rather than a rate that's fixed indefinitely.
Under a pure commission structure, you're paid only the percentage, with no floor — a slow week means genuinely lower pay. Under a hybrid "hourly vs. commission, whichever is higher" structure, the commission number only replaces your hourly pay when it's actually higher, meaning a slow week still guarantees your hourly rate. Under a blended base-plus-bonus structure, you always get your full hourly base, and commission only applies as a bonus on revenue above what your hours alone would have earned. These are meaningfully different outcomes for the exact same week of work.
Knowing which structure your salon actually uses changes how you should think about a slow day. Under hourly-vs-commission, a slow day is protected by your hourly floor. Under blended, it's protected even more directly since your base is guaranteed regardless. Under pure commission, a slow day is a slow paycheck, full stop — which is worth knowing before you agree to a pay structure, not after your first slow month.