Salon Fitout Cost Calculator

Understanding salon fitout costs in Australia

What a salon fitout costs in 2026

Salon fitouts in Australia are mid range in per square metre terms but concentrate their cost in a small number of services heavy zones. A barber shop with simple finishes and one or two wash points typically runs $1,200 to $1,800 per square metre. A hair salon converting a retail shop, with a proper wash bay, colour bar, reception and six styling stations, sits at roughly $1,800 to $2,600 per square metre. A beauty or skin clinic with private treatment rooms runs $2,200 to $3,200. A 90 square metre hair salon with six stations therefore commonly costs $170,000 to $260,000, and taking over an existing salon can bring that to $80,000 to $130,000.

Wash bays decide whether a tenancy is viable

The wash bay is the single most important technical decision in a salon fitout, and it is what makes some tenancies simply unsuitable. Each basin needs hot and cold water, a graded waste connection and a hair trap, and drainage falls are unforgiving. If the tenancy is on an upper level, or the wash zone sits a long way from the existing sanitary stack, you are either cutting and coring the slab, which requires the landlord's and often an engineer's approval, or building a raised platform to achieve the fall, which looks awkward and eats ceiling height. A wash bay of three to four basins with the associated plumbing, hot water and joinery typically costs $20,000 to $40,000 where drainage is close, and considerably more where it is not. Establish the location of the existing drainage before you sign a lease, not after.

Hot water, power and ventilation

Three services quietly determine whether the salon functions on its busiest day. Hot water capacity is routinely undersized because it is specified against average use rather than peak simultaneous demand, and a salon running four or five basins through a Saturday morning will exhaust a domestic sized system. Have the plumber size the plant against realistic peak load and allow $4,000 to $12,000 for a properly sized commercial system. Electrical load rises quickly once you add dryers, straighteners, LED mirrors, a colour bar, washing machines and a dryer, and older strip shops often need additional circuits or a supply upgrade. Ventilation is the one most often skipped: colour, bleach, keratin treatments and acrylic nail work release fumes that recirculating air conditioning will distribute through the whole room, so dedicated mechanical exhaust to outside air at the colour bar and nail stations is both a comfort issue and a workplace health and safety obligation to your staff.

Stations, mirrors and the cost per chair

Styling stations are effectively the revenue units of the business and they price fairly consistently. A station including the mirror, joinery or wall unit, power, task lighting and the chair typically costs $3,000 to $6,000, rising well above that for custom joinery or premium chairs. Because the cost per station is close to fixed, the honest way to test a layout is to divide the total fitout cost by the number of stations and check it against the revenue each chair can realistically generate. A salon that spends $260,000 to deliver six stations is carrying about $43,000 of capital per chair, which is a very different business proposition to one that delivers eight stations for the same money. Cramming stations in beyond what the floor comfortably holds is its own mistake, because clients notice crowding, but underusing the floor is the more common error.

Finishes, lighting and why salons photograph

Salons are one of the few fitout categories where appearance directly drives revenue, because clients photograph their results and post them, and those posts are the marketing. That makes lighting disproportionately valuable. Warm, even, front facing light at the mirror flatters both the client in the chair and every image that leaves the room, whereas overhead only lighting casts shadows that make colour work look worse than it is. A good mirror lighting scheme for a six station salon costs $6,000 to $15,000 and outperforms far more expensive joinery in commercial terms. Floor finishes need to be practical as well as attractive, since hair, water and colour products all end up on them, so a sealed, slip resistant, easily swept surface beats an aspirational one that stains.

Approvals, registration and landlord consent

A salon in an existing retail tenancy is often a permissible use without a full development application, but this varies by council and by what services you offer. Beauty and skin clinics performing skin penetration procedures, including certain needling, tattooing and piercing services, must register the premises with the local council or state health department and meet infection control requirements covering finishes, dedicated hand basins, instrument handling and waste. Confirm which of your services trigger registration before you finalise the layout, because a hand basin in the wrong place is an expensive fix. You will also need landlord consent for the plumbing works, particularly any slab coring, and separate approval for a new shopfront or illuminated signage. Allow four to twelve weeks for approvals and eight to fourteen weeks on site for a full conversion.

The costs outside the construction contract

Beyond the build, salons need stock, tools and systems. Opening stock of colour, treatments and retail product commonly runs $10,000 to $30,000. Booking and point of sale software, networking and payment terminals add $4,000 to $12,000. Signage, branding, a website and launch marketing add $8,000 to $25,000. Professional fees for a designer, building surveyor and any mechanical or hydraulic consultant typically run 8 to 12 percent of construction. Then allow working capital for the ramp, because a new salon rarely fills its chairs in the first quarter and staff wages start on day one. A 10 to 12 percent construction contingency is prudent on a retail conversion, and the reason is nearly always drainage.