Nail Tech Price List Template UK: A Service Menu That Prices Itself

TL;DR: Most nail techs lose money at the chair, not on the booking page, because the price list never spells out the difference between an infill and a full set. This guide walks a UK nail tech through structuring a service menu so clients self-select the right service, add-ons stop being free, and the awkward "that's not what the board said" conversation never happens. Real numbers, an honest counterpoint, and where a printed list earns its keep.

A client books an "infill". She arrives with two lifted nails and last month's colour she now hates. Forty-five minutes later she is querying the bill, because in her head an infill was £25 and the work in front of you was closer to a full rebalance.

The booking was not wrong. The menu was. "Infill" meant one thing to you and something else to her, and nothing closed that gap before she sat down. Most disputes can be traced to exactly this: a service name the menu never defined. A menu that does its job answers these questions in the waiting chair, not at the card machine.

Your price list is not a poster. It is the one document every client reads, and it has three jobs that matter more than the look.

• Draw a clear line between infill, soak-off and full set, because that line is where most money leaks.
• Price the add-ons by name (nail art, gel removal, repairs), so they stop being freebies you resent giving away.
• Let the client choose the right service before the appointment, so the time you booked matches the work that walks in.

Get those three right and the design is easy. Get them wrong and the prettiest menu still ends in a billing query.

Before you write a single number, sort your services into a ladder a client can read top to bottom. For a typical UK nail tech that means four bands.

1. Quick services: file and polish, gel removal only, a single repair.
2. Maintenance: infills, rebalance, soak-off and reapply.
3. Full applications: full set of gel, BIAB, acrylic extensions, hard gel overlays.
4. Add-ons: nail art per nail, French, chrome, gems, foot soak.

The ladder matters because it tells a client why a full set is £40 and an infill is £25. The honest answer is time and product, and your menu should make that visible rather than hide it behind a flat number that invites a query later.

A quick worked example. Say your chair time is worth £30 an hour to the business once you have paid for product, booth rent and the slot you cannot resell. A full set of BIAB that genuinely takes an hour and three quarters cannot sit at £30, whatever the salon two doors down advertises. Price the time first, then sense-check against your local market.

To pressure-test those figures rather than eyeball them, a nail tech pricing calculator (P05 Pricing Calculator Premium, £14.99) is an Excel workbook where you plug in chair time, product cost and target margin, so the number on your menu is the number the business needs to charge.

Add-ons are where a nail tech quietly works for free. Nail art, a stubborn gel removal, a midweek repair, extra length: if these are not on the list, you give them away or spring them as a surprise. Put them in their own short section with a clear unit.

• Gel removal (not followed by reapplication): £10
• Nail art: £2 per nail, or £8 for two accent nails
• Chrome or cat-eye finish: £5
• Repair per nail: £4
• Extra length (XL): £5

With the add-ons written down, your client reads the cost before she asks for the design, and you stop apologising for charging.

This is the single highest-value line on a nail tech menu. Add a one-line definition under each: "Infill: maintenance on an existing set applied by us, within 3 weeks. Older or damaged sets may need a soak-off and full reapply." That moves the pricing conversation to the booking, not the moment you are buffing the last nail. You do not need to list every permutation, just to make sure nobody books the cheap thing expecting it to cover the expensive work.

Most solo UK nail techs never touch VAT, and the threshold worries people who are nowhere near it.

You only register for VAT once your taxable turnover passes the registration threshold, which is £90,000 in a rolling 12-month period as things stand. A single-chair or mobile nail tech is usually a long way off that. If you run a busy multi-tech studio and you are approaching it, that is the moment to speak to an accountant, because VAT changes how you price every set.

Check the current threshold on GOV.UK before assuming either way, because it could move. If you are not registered, the price on your menu is simply your price, with nothing to add at the till.

A handwritten card or a note in your Instagram bio is fine at first. You have outgrown it when:

• Clients regularly query the bill against what they thought they booked.
• You raise prices and have to rewrite the whole thing by hand.
• New designs and finishes never make it onto the list, so they stay free.

At that point you want a structured menu you can edit in minutes and print cleanly. That is the job of the nail tech price list and service menu (P11 Price List & Service Menu Premium, £4.99). It is an interactive HTML template pre-filled with nail service categories: manicures, gel, extensions, nail art and add-ons. You open it in your browser, click to edit the prices and your business name, then print to PDF. An editable DOCX version for Microsoft Word and a short How to Use Guide come with it. Three files, A4, so you fill in your numbers rather than build the layout from scratch.

It sits alongside your wider client paperwork. A proper nail tech business document set (P01 Business Documents Standard, £11.99) gives you the booking, consultation and aftercare forms that belong next to a price list. The Standard tier is a PDF set with a fillable header, so you add your business name at the top and complete the rest by hand.

Copy this skeleton onto your next version.

1. Header: business name, "prices effective from [date]".
2. Service ladder: quick, maintenance, full applications, grouped and in order.
3. Plain definitions: one line each for infill, soak-off and full set.
4. Add-ons: nail art per nail, removal, repairs, length, finishes, each with a unit.
5. One honest note: "Final price confirmed at your appointment, based on the condition of your nails."
6. Footer: booking and cancellation terms.

That is a menu that answers questions before they are asked. The design can be plain or polished; the structure is what stops the queries.

A printed menu is not the whole answer, and we'd say so plainly. If most of your bookings come through Instagram or an app where prices already show, your priority might be a clear caption set rather than a wall list, and you may make a different decision about where the menu lives. The point is not the format. The point is that the price is visible, the services are defined, and the client chooses correctly before she sits down.

If your bookings live on social, a nail tech social media content kit (P12 Social Media Content Kit Premium, £4.99) gives you caption and post templates that carry the same clear pricing language onto the feed where clients find you.

A price list is one piece of setting up properly. If the business itself is still getting off the ground, with HMRC registration, insurance and the mobile-versus-salon decision to sort, our guide to the essential documents every UK nail technician needs walks through registration, insurance and the paperwork to sort first.

If you do nothing else this month, write down your add-ons and define your infill. Those two lines settle more arguments at the chair than any other change you can make. Sort the structure first, confirm the numbers second, and let the template be the easy last step.

This article is general guidance, not legal advice and not a substitute for an accountant. It is written for UK nail techs. The VAT threshold and other figures change, so verify current rules on GOV.UK or with an accountant before making registration decisions.