Structure your pricing by size, coat, and add-ons, plus sample rates and tips

A clear, professional price list is one of the most powerful tools in your grooming business, and one of the most overlooked. It sets client expectations, reduces awkward haggling, signals professionalism, and quietly protects your margins by making your pricing logic visible and consistent. Yet many groomers run on vague, in-their-head pricing that changes by mood and invites negotiation. This guide gives you a ready-to-use dog grooming price list template, sample rates to anchor from, and the structure that makes pricing fair to clients and profitable for you.
When pricing is visible and structured, three good things happen. Clients arrive knowing roughly what they'll pay, so checkout is smooth and trust is higher. You stop negotiating, because the list is the list. And you price consistently across every client and every dog, which protects your income from the slow creep of "just this once" discounts. A price list turns pricing from a recurring stressful conversation into a simple reference.
The cleanest structure prices a base groom by size and coat, then adds à la carte services and condition surcharges. This handles the reality that grooming time varies enormously.
These are illustrative starting numbers, adjust to your market, costs, and skill. Use them as a structure, not a rule.
A few principles that separate profitable price lists from money-losing ones. Price doodles by coat, not size, their dense coats take far longer than their weight suggests. Always show "starting at" prices to leave room for condition surcharges. Bundle add-ons into packages (a "spa package") to lift your average ticket. And review your list at least annually, costs rise and so should prices. For the full strategy behind these numbers, see our guide on how to price your grooming services and our breakdown of what groomers earn.
A price list is most useful when clients see it at the moment they book. Building your services and prices into your booking software means clients select what they want and see the cost up front, fewer surprises, smoother checkout. A platform like Teddy lets you set up services, add-ons, and surcharges so they appear during request-based booking, then handles payment through Square POS at checkout. MoeGo and DaySmart offer similar service-and-pricing setup. The point: a clear price list plus a booking system that uses it removes friction and protects your margins.
If you want to build your services and pricing into a smooth booking-to-payment flow, Teddy was made for groomers who want the business side handled. See it at tryteddy.com.
Price a base groom by size, add a surcharge for coat complexity (double or curly coats), then list à la carte add-ons like nail grinding and de-shedding, plus condition surcharges for matting, fleas, behavior, and extra time. Always show "starting at" prices.
Sample starting prices range from about $50–$65 for small dogs to $110+ for extra-large, before coat surcharges and add-ons. Adjust to your local market, costs, and skill, and anchor prices to an hourly income target rather than competitors' rates.
Doodle and other curly, non-shedding coats are dense and fast-matting, taking far more time than their size suggests. Pricing them like an average medium dog is a common way groomers lose money, so add a coat-complexity surcharge for them.
Yes, showing "starting at" prices sets expectations, reduces haggling, and signals professionalism. Note that final pricing depends on coat condition, behavior, and time, which protects you when a routine groom turns into a longer job.
Review it at least once a year. Costs rise over time and your skill grows, so regular modest increases keep your pricing profitable. Building prices into your booking software makes updates easy to roll out consistently.