Dog Grooming Price List Template UK: A Practical Guide

TL;DR: A grooming price list has one hard job that a hairdresser's menu does not: it has to handle the fact that coat and size change the time, and time is the cost. A flat breed list quietly underpays you on every long groom. This guide shows a UK groomer how to structure a service menu, range prices by size and coat honestly, name the add-ons, and keep the conversation off the awkward moment at collection.

Most dog grooming price lists are a breed-by-breed wall of numbers. It looks thorough, and it is exactly how groomers end up doing the time-heavy grooms at a loss. A breed name is a rough guess at how long a dog takes, and a rough guess is what gets you underpaid.

Your price list is the document an owner reads before they book and squints at when they pay. Structure it so it sells the right work and prevents the till-side surprise.

A service menu has three jobs, and looking tidy is the least important.

• It has to set a fair price for the time a groom genuinely takes, not just the breed.
• It has to make the money conversation happen at drop-off, not at collection.
• It has to let anyone on the table quote with confidence, including a new groomer.

Get those three right and the layout follows. Most grooming disputes trace back to a list that promised a single number for a job whose time was never fixed.

Two dogs of the same breed can take wildly different amounts of time depending on coat length and condition. Price purely by breed and you win on the easy dogs and lose on the long, matted, time-heavy ones, which tend to fill your day.

Structure the menu around the thing that actually drives cost: time. A workable order:

1. Full groom, by size band: small, medium, large, with a clear "from" and a realistic top.
2. Bath and tidy / maintenance groom, the lighter service between full grooms.
3. Breed styling, where a specific clip genuinely takes longer.
4. Add-ons, each priced and named.

Lead with the full groom because it is your core service, and let the lighter options sit beneath it. The size band sets expectations; the coat-and-time note (below) handles the variation.

Coat condition is only visible when the dog arrives, so a single fixed number per breed will sometimes be wrong. The fix is ranged pricing stated openly, not a flat promise you quietly break.

Two small things keep it clean: show a band ("medium full groom £45 to £70, depending on coat and condition") and add one line of context, "final price confirmed at drop-off, based on size, coat and time." A longer-coat or extra-time charge stated up front reads as fair. Sprung at collection, the same number reads as a markup.

To set the bands from your own costs rather than the salon down the road, our guide on how much a dog groomer should charge walks through the table-hour, and a dog grooming pricing calculator (P05 Pricing Calculator Premium, £14.99) is an 8-sheet Excel workbook that turns it into per-service numbers.

Add-ons are where a grooming list leaks margin. Nail clipping, ear cleaning, de-shedding, teeth-brushing, a longer hand-strip: if these are not written down, they get thrown in or sprung as a surprise. Give them a short block with clear prices so the menu does the awkward part. (Keep the language to the grooming service itself; a price list is not the place for any health or welfare claim.)

A typed list is fine on day one. You have outgrown it when:

• Owners query the bill against a list that does not mention coat condition.
• A new groomer guesses at add-on prices.
• Raising prices means rewriting the whole thing.
• You offer a dozen services but the list shows five.

At that point you want a structured menu you can edit in minutes and reprint clean. The dog grooming price list and service menu (P11 Price List & Service Menu, £4.99) is an A4 template, pre-filled with grooming service categories, that you edit in your browser as an interactive HTML file or in Microsoft Word using the editable DOCX, then print to PDF. It is three files including a How to Use Guide, so you fill in your prices rather than build the layout.

1. Header: salon name and "prices effective from [date]".
2. Full groom by size band, with "from" and realistic top.
3. Bath/tidy and breed styling.
4. Add-ons block, each priced.
5. One honest note: "Final price confirmed at drop-off."
6. Footer: booking details and your cancellation notice.

A price list works best when it agrees with your other paperwork and your posts. When you promote a groom on social, the figure should match the list, which is where a dog grooming social media content kit (P12 Social Media Content Kit, £4.99) helps you plan around quiet days. And once the groom is done, our dog grooming invoice and receipt guide covers getting paid cleanly.

Range by time, name the add-ons, and let the template be the easy last step. A clear menu that prices the work honestly beats a tidy one that quietly costs you on every long groom.

This article is general guidance, not legal advice and not tax advice, written for UK dog groomers. Verify current VAT registration thresholds and rules on GOV.UK before making registration decisions.