Great Clips franchise cost: $187,800 to $419,900 per the 2026 FDD, a $20,000 fee, 6% royalty, 5% ad fund, and a $390,685 median across 4,158 salons.
Quick answer A Great Clips salon costs $187,800 to $419,900 to open per Item 7 of the 2026 FDD, including a $20,000 initial franchise fee and a $5,000 initial ad contribution. The royalty is 6% of gross sales and the ad fund 5%. Item 19 reports $390,685 median total sales across 4,158 salons open all of 2025.
A Great Clips salon costs $187,800 to $419,900 to open, per Item 7 of the Great Clips, Inc. 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document (issuance date March 30, 2026). That includes a $20,000 initial franchise fee and a $5,000 initial advertising contribution. Once open, you pay a 6% royalty and a 5% advertising contribution on gross sales.
What sets this FDD apart is Item 19. Great Clips reports 2025 sales for 4,158 franchised salons, a median of $390,685, and then goes further than most franchisors: a line-by-line operating cash flow statement for 2,376 of those salons, plus a table showing how labor, rent and cash flow change as sales rise. That lets you check the cost of entry against what an operating unit actually keeps.
The short version: the median reporting salon generated $75,896 of operating cash flow in 2025. A salon below $250,000 in sales lost money. The rest of this guide shows each number, where it is in the FDD, and what it leaves out.
Item 7 (pages 15 to 18) prices a single salon under a standard Franchise Agreement. A typical salon is 900 to 1,200 square feet, usually in a shopping center, and the estimate assumes the landlord delivers it in “vanilla shell” condition with HVAC, electrical and plumbing in place.
| Item 7 line | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Initial franchise fee | $20,000 | $35,000 |
| Initial advertising contribution (MDAF) | $5,000 | $5,000 |
| Training travel and expenses (per participant) | $1,500 | $2,500 |
| Architecture fees | $100 | $3,800 |
| Leasehold improvements, including labor | $70,000 | $200,000 |
| Rent and security deposits | $1,000 | $10,000 |
| Fixtures, signage, furnishings, salon technology | $40,000 | $55,000 |
| Freight | $4,000 | $7,000 |
| Sales tax on fixtures and furnishings | $0 | $3,200 |
| Opening inventory and supplies | $4,700 | $6,400 |
| Grand opening advertising | $20,000 | $25,000 |
| Insurance | $1,500 | $3,000 |
| Lease liability and lease review fees | $0 | $4,000 |
| Additional funds, 3 to 6 months | $20,000 | $60,000 |
| Total | $187,800 | $419,900 |
The $35,000 at the top of the fee line is not a higher price for one salon. It is the Three Star Program Fee, which covers three franchise agreements, and Item 7 applies it to your first Three Star salon. A single-salon buyer pays $20,000.
Leasehold improvements, $70,000 to $200,000, are the swing. Note 4 says the cost depends on the condition of the space at handover. A new build with utilities already where a Great Clips space plan needs them lands near the low end. An existing space where HVAC, electrical and plumbing must be moved lands higher, and those changes are “typically at the tenant’s expense.” Conversions of freestanding buildings are “too individually variable to be realistically predicted and may cost more.”
Grand opening advertising, $20,000 to $25,000, is required under the Grand Opening Policy for your first salon. Note 7 adds that it does not include the cost of discounted opening prices or extra staffing.
Additional funds, $20,000 to $60,000, cover the 3 to 6 months around opening and explicitly exclude any owner’s salary or draw (Note 10). Great Clips does not finance any part of the initial investment, directly or indirectly (Note 11).
Two cost items sit outside Item 7. Item 6 (page 14) requires a salon remodel every seven to 10 years, currently estimated at $20,000 to $80,000, and ongoing maintenance of $3,000 to $9,000 a year for painting, carpet, graphics and fixture repair. On a 10-year term, budget for at least one remodel. Our Item 7 walkthrough explains how to pressure-test each line.
The initial franchise fee is $20,000 for a single salon (Item 5, page 9). On your first agreement it is due at signing. On later agreements you pay $10,000 at signing and the remaining $10,000 when you place your equipment order, which you typically do only after signing a lease. Great Clips says the fee “should not be financed.”
Every agreement also requires a $5,000 Initial Advertising Contribution to the Market Development Advertising Fund (MDAF), non-refundable.
Great Clips can cancel the agreement, and keep a first-time franchisee’s fee, if you do not open within 24 months, do not complete training, or are judged to be using the agreement “for speculative purposes.”
Item 5 then describes three ways to pay less per salon, each in exchange for a commitment:
Item 5 also lists the Expediter Program, a rebate of up to $20,000 against what you pay a third party to secure a specific real estate location, and a Deferral Program that postpones (but does not waive) the fee on a salon opened near one you already own.
The initial purchases from Great Clips for fixtures, signage, flooring and opening inventory are estimated at $48,700 to $71,600 (page 12). Architecture fees run $100 to $3,800, a lease review fee $2,200 to $2,500, and a lease liability fee of $1,500 applies if Great Clips guarantees or assigns your lease.
See the full Great Clips data sheet
Item 6 (pages 12 to 14) sets two percentage fees, both on biweekly gross sales and both drawn automatically:
Gross sales include “all revenue from the sale of all services, products and goods,” less sales tax. At the 2025 median of $390,685, the two fees come to about $42,975 a year.
The FDD then says something most franchisors leave out: “In order to stay competitive in the market, you will likely need to spend a minimum of 1-3% of your Gross Sales on incremental advertising in addition to the 5%.” Item 19 confirms that “virtually all franchisees” spend on discretionary local advertising. Budget 12% to 14% of sales for royalty plus marketing, not 11%.
The fixed fees are small next to the percentages:
| Item 6 fee | Amount |
|---|---|
| Local co-op dues | System average of $100 a month |
| Recruiting Technology Fee | $750 a year per salon, capped at the greater of $750 or 1% of sales |
| Training Fee | $200 a year per salon, capped at the greater of $200 or 1% of sales |
| Franchisee program and event fees | $345 to $550 per event |
| Renewal fee | $1,750 per salon |
| Assignment (transfer) fee | $1,500 per salon |
| Late payments | 14% annual interest or the legal maximum |
Unlike many brands, Great Clips’ transfer fee is modest, which matters in a system where 175 salons changed owners in 2025.
Item 19 (pages 50 to 59) has two parts, and the difference between them matters.
Section I covers sales for nearly the whole system. Of the 4,441 salons eligible to be open at December 31, 2025, the 4,158 eligible to be open for the full year are included. The 283 excluded salons either were not open for all of 2025 or changed owners during the year.
| 2025 sales, 4,158 salons | Average | Median | Low | High |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Service sales | $400,667 | $381,782 | $27,439 | $1,037,494 |
| Product sales | $10,116 | $8,484 | $0 | $86,446 |
| Total sales | $410,783 | $390,685 | $28,036 | $1,082,803 |
Source: Item 19, Table 1, page 53. 1,848 salons (44.44%) met or beat the average. The $28,036 low comes from a salon that was closed for 36 weeks of the year but remained eligible to be open.
This is a haircut business. Product sales are about 2.5% of revenue, so the salon’s economics are stylist hours times ticket.
Section II covers costs for a smaller group. 2,376 salons submitted financial statements complete enough to include. The other 1,782 did not, and Great Clips discloses how that skews the sample: 1,019 of the non-reporting salons had sales below the reporting group’s median and 763 above, and including them would have lowered the median total sales by 2.8%.
| Reporting salons, 2025 | Average | % of sales | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total sales | $422,283 | 100.00% | $402,271 |
| Labor | $207,978 | 49.25% | $196,393 |
| Occupancy | $46,850 | 11.09% | $45,711 |
| Products | $7,116 | 1.69% | $6,460 |
| Continuing franchise fees | $25,435 | 6.02% | $24,261 |
| Advertising | $22,422 | 5.31% | $21,408 |
| Other | $28,978 | 6.86% | $27,709 |
| Total expenses | $338,778 | 80.23% | $324,531 |
| Operating cash flow | $83,504 | 19.77% | $75,896 |
Source: Item 19, Table 2, page 54.
Labor is half of revenue. Rent is about 11%. Royalty and advertising together are about 11%. What remains is roughly 20 cents on the dollar.
Read the definition before you treat $75,896 as income. Operating cash flow excludes income taxes, depreciation, amortization and “any reserve for future capital expenditures” (Note 11), and it is before any loan payments on your build-out. Labor excludes, “if identifiable,” the cost of a general manager or the franchisee. If you plan to manage the salon yourself, the median figure is roughly what you are paid for doing so, before debt service.
By cohort, the spread is wide. Table 3 (page 55) groups the 2,376 reporting salons by sales:
| Annual sales | Salons | Share | Labor | Occupancy | Avg. cash flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $250K | 188 | 7.91% | 58.81% | 19.90% | ($5,248) |
| $250K to $300K | 268 | 11.28% | 53.22% | 16.03% | $23,321 |
| $300K to $350K | 354 | 14.90% | 50.78% | 13.53% | $46,711 |
| $350K to $400K | 368 | 15.49% | 48.88% | 12.38% | $68,492 |
| $400K to $450K | 333 | 14.02% | 49.20% | 11.42% | $82,502 |
| $450K to $500K | 250 | 10.52% | 48.01% | 9.85% | $106,798 |
| $500K to $600K | 341 | 14.35% | 47.52% | 9.09% | $133,950 |
| Over $600K | 274 | 11.53% | 47.52% | 7.39% | $188,148 |
The pattern is operating leverage. Rent is close to fixed, so it falls from 19.90% of sales in the bottom band to 7.39% in the top. Labor falls from 58.81% to 47.52%. A salon at $350,000 to $400,000 averages $68,492; one at $500,000 to $600,000 averages nearly twice that. The 456 salons under $300,000, about 19% of the sample, averaged $23,321 or less.
One sentence on page 59 matters more than any table for a new owner: “Newly opened GREAT CLIPS salons tend to have average sales and cash flows significantly below the average.” The FDD adds that this is “especially true” for new franchisees in markets with few existing salons, because markets with many salons fund larger co-op advertising budgets. Underwrite your first year against the lower bands, not the median. The Great Clips Item 19 deep dive works through the earlier cohort, and the Great Clips financials page keeps the disclosed figures in one place.
| Year | Start | Opened | Terminated | Non-renewed | Ceased, other | End |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 4,427 | 98 | 3 | 6 | 89 | 4,427 |
| 2024 | 4,427 | 115 | 4 | 1 | 98 | 4,439 |
| 2025 | 4,439 | 110 | 3 | 2 | 103 | 4,441 |
Source: Item 20, Tables 1 and 3 (pages 60 and 68). Great Clips owns no salons.
The system has stopped growing in unit count. Over three years it opened 323 salons and lost 309, for a net gain of 14. Closures run about 2.4% of the base a year. Some of the “ceased, other” column is relocation rather than failure: Great Clips notes that it includes salons closed and in the process of relocating, and that 23 salons closed and reopened elsewhere within 2025. Item 19 separately reports that 108 salons permanently ceased operations in 2025, and that none of them had been open less than 12 months.
Transfers are steady. 164 salons changed hands in 2023, 207 in 2024 and 175 in 2025 (Table 2, page 64). With most owners running several salons, many transfers are multi-unit packages.
The pipeline is large relative to openings. Table 5 (page 70) reports 903 signed franchise agreements for salons not yet open, against 85 projected franchised openings in the next fiscal year. Texas alone has 132 signed and unopened. That gap reflects how development agreements are sold, but it also means a new buyer is competing with existing commitments for sites. Ask how long the average signed agreement takes to open.
| Brand | Item 7 investment | Royalty | Item 19 median sales (sample) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Great Clips | $187,800 to $419,900 | 6% + 5% ad | $390,685 (4,158 salons, 2025) |
| Sport Clips | $236,800 to $580,500 | 6% | $416,189 (1,645 mature stores, 2025) |
| Supercuts | Up to $323,460 | 4% first year, then 6% | $297,216 (1,661 franchised salons, FY 2024 to 2025) |
| Cost Cutters | Up to $323,140 | 6% | $260,529 (323 franchised salons, FY 2024 to 2025) |
Figures are from each brand’s current FDD on file.
Great Clips sits in the middle on entry cost and near the top on disclosed sales. Sport Clips reports a slightly higher median, but on a narrower sample of stores open more than two years, and its Item 7 ceiling is $160,600 higher. Supercuts and Cost Cutters cost less at the top end and report lower medians. What Great Clips adds beyond the median is the cash-flow statement by sales band, which lets you see where in the range a salon starts to pay its owner.
For the head-to-head on concept and territory, see Sport Clips vs Great Clips vs Supercuts. The best hair salon and barbershop franchises ranking covers the wider field, and the health and beauty category lists every brand in our database. For the qualitative case, read Great Clips pros and cons.
Great Clips publishes enough to build a real model. Use it: start from the band your market’s new salons actually reach, take labor at 50% or more, and subtract your debt service and a remodel reserve from operating cash flow before you decide what the salon will pay you.
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About this analysis The franchise data in this article is drawn from VetMyFranchise's structured analysis of 2,300+ Franchise Disclosure Documents filed with U.S. state regulators. See our data & methodology.
The 2026 FDD estimates $187,800 to $419,900 for one salon (Item 7). The largest lines are leasehold improvements at $70,000 to $200,000, fixtures, signage and furnishings at $40,000 to $55,000, additional funds for the first 3 to 6 months at $20,000 to $60,000, and grand opening advertising at $20,000 to $25,000. The estimate assumes a 900 to 1,200 square foot shopping-center space delivered in vanilla shell condition.
$20,000 for a single salon, plus a non-refundable $5,000 Initial Advertising Contribution to the Market Development Advertising Fund (Item 5). On a first agreement both are due at signing. On later agreements, $10,000 of the fee is due at signing and the other $10,000 when you order equipment. The Three Star Program replaces three $20,000 fees with one $35,000 Program Fee if you sign leases for all three salons within 24 months. Qualifying veterans get a $5,000 rebate on their first salon.
6% of biweekly gross sales, called the Continuing Franchise Fee, plus a Continuing Advertising Contribution of 5% of biweekly gross sales (Item 6). Both are drawn automatically. The FDD adds that to stay competitive you will likely need to spend another 1% to 3% of gross sales on local advertising, plus local co-op dues that averaged $100 a month system-wide.
Item 19 of the 2026 FDD reports operating cash flow for 2,376 franchised salons that submitted financial statements. The median was $75,896 a year and the average $83,504, on median total sales of $402,271. Operating cash flow is before income taxes, depreciation, debt service and any capital reserve, and it excludes identifiable franchisee and general manager labor. Results by sales band ranged from an average loss of $5,248 for salons under $250,000 to $188,148 for salons above $600,000.
Across the 4,158 franchised salons eligible to be open for all of 2025, median total sales were $390,685 and average total sales were $410,783 (Item 19, Table 1). Service sales were $400,667 on average and product sales $10,116. The highest salon reported $1,082,803 and the lowest $28,036. About 44% of salons reached the average.
4,441 franchised salons in the United States and Canada at the end of 2025, and no company-owned salons (Item 20, Table 1). Franchisees opened 110 salons in 2025 while 108 left the system through closures, terminations and non-renewals. Great Clips reports 903 signed franchise agreements for salons not yet open and projects 85 franchised openings in the next fiscal year.
The FDD sells a single-salon agreement, and Item 7 prices one salon. The system runs on multi-unit owners, though: Item 19 states that franchisees who have operated Great Clips salons for more than five years own 8.5 salons on average and 5 at the median. The Three Star Program and Master Development Agreement both discount fees for committing to more than one salon.
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