Grooming business answers and Groomify tutorials

How much should you charge for a full groom? Hi, I'm the Groomify presenter, an AI host. Here's the honest answer first: the national guides don't agree. Bark puts the average at eighty-five dollars. Thumbtack says ninety-five to one sixty. HomeGuide says forty to seventy-five at a local shop. So the number that matters is yours, and in the next seven minutes we'll build it: what an hour of your table is worth, a price list by the minute instead of by the breed, and the surcharges that stop you working for free. There's a free calculator and a price-list template in the description. Okay, let's start with the mistake that costs the most.

Pricing by breed loses money because time and coat drive your cost, not the breed name. Picture two dogs on your table, both forty-five pounds. A Labrador: short coat, bath, blow-dry, nails, maybe fifty minutes. A Goldendoodle at the same weight: a curly coat that drinks water, a full dry, scissor work, two hours or more. Same size tier, more than double the time. Bark's own ranges show the gap. Curly coats run eighty to one hundred twenty dollars or more. Double coats, seventy to one forty. A medium dog with a short, smooth coat, thirty-five to fifty. If your menu has one medium price, the Lab is subsidising the doodle, and the doodle owner is getting your best work at a discount. So the first fix is simple to say: price by the minute, then add minutes for coat.

An hour of your table is worth your overhead, plus your supplies, plus your own time at a rate you choose. That's the floor. Let's build it with example numbers, so you can swap in yours. Say your fixed costs are four thousand dollars a month: rent, insurance, software, marketing, equipment reserve. You groom a hundred and twenty dogs a month. That's about thirty-three dollars of overhead per dog before you pick up a brush. Supplies, shampoo, blades, laundry: call it five dollars a dog. Now your time. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median wage for animal care workers at seventeen dollars and eight cents an hour. That's an employee wage. You carry the risk, the admin, the no-shows, so aim well above it. Say thirty dollars an hour. A two-hour groom is sixty dollars of your time. Overhead thirty-three, supplies five, time sixty. Your floor for that groom is ninety-eight dollars. Charge less than your floor and you're paying clients to groom their dog.

You build a price list by the minute by turning that floor into a rate, giving every size tier its minutes, and adding minutes for coat. Here's the maths from the example. Sixty dollars of your time plus thirty-three of overhead, over a hundred and twenty minutes, is about seventy-eight cents a minute. Now the minutes. A common way to set tiers is by weight: under twenty pounds, twenty to fifty, fifty to eighty, and eighty plus. Give each tier the minutes a bath and brush really takes you, then a full groom. Then the coat modifiers: add minutes for curly, for double coats, for drop coats. Watch the list fill in. A sixty-minute bath and brush: sixty times seventy-eight cents, plus five dollars of supplies, about fifty-two dollars. A hundred-and-fifty-minute doodle full groom: about a hundred and twenty-two. Every cell is minutes times your rate plus supplies, and no breed name appears anywhere. When you change your rate in January, the whole list moves with it. The template in the description does this arithmetic for you.

Write your surcharges into your policy before the dog arrives, not at pick-up. Three lines cover most of it. One: mild matting, a set fee. Two: severe matting, either an hourly de-matting rate or a flat shave-down fee, the owner's choice, agreed up front. Bark lists de-matting at ten to a hundred dollars or more, with severe cases adding fifty to a hundred on top. Three: a handling fee for dogs that need two people or extra breaks. That's real labour, and your record should say so. In Groomify a pet's safety flag sits right at the top of the record, so whoever's holding the clippers knows before the first stroke. Put the policy on your booking page, on your intake form, and in the reminder text. A surcharge nobody saw coming feels like a penalty. One they agreed to feels like a fair price.

Raise your prices once a year, every year, because a menu that stands still is a pay cut. The Bureau of Labor Statistics index for pet services rose three point six percent in the twelve months to September twenty twenty-six. If your prices didn't move, you earned three point six percent less in real terms. Pick a date, January or your opening anniversary, and make it routine. The increase doesn't have to be dramatic. Say you do twenty-five appointments a week for forty-eight weeks. That's twelve hundred a year. Add four dollars to every service and that's four thousand eight hundred dollars a year, for the same work. Give thirty days' notice in plain words: as of this date, our new rate for this service is this. Thank them. No apology, no essay. Clients leave over surprises, not over four dollars.

Check your local market the simple way: call three comparable groomers as a client and ask what a full groom costs for a medium dog. Write the three numbers down. Your ceiling is roughly the most expensive one, unless you have a story that justifies more. Then remember where you live. The Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes regional price parities, with the national average at one hundred. California sits at one hundred ten point seven. New Jersey, one hundred eight point eight. Arkansas, eighty-six point nine. Grooming prices won't track those exactly, but they tell you which direction your market leans. Floor from your costs, ceiling from your neighbours, and you price between them, towards the top if your work earns it. Being the cheapest groomer in town rarely attracts the clients you want.

In Groomify, the maths from this video happens once, in settings, not at the counter. Each service carries its minutes and its price. The price can change with the pet's size, so a small, a medium and a large full groom are three prices on one service. Add-ons like de-shedding sit beside it, and a de-matting charge can be its own line. When a client books online, they pick their pet first, so they only see services that suit that pet, at that pet's price. On the day, the appointment card already shows the service and the time it takes, and checkout totals the services, the add-ons and the tip. Change your minute rate in January, update the list, and every booking after that uses the new price.

So: price by the minute, add minutes for coat, write the surcharges down, and raise once a year. The free template in the description builds the list for you, and the calculator shows typical ranges for your breed, size and service. If you want the list to live inside your booking system, Groomify's fourteen-day trial needs no card. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.

Your phone rings while you're in the middle of a groom. Here's what happens when Groomify's AI receptionist picks up instead. This is a real call to the AI receptionist behind Groomify. The caller agreed to share it, and their name and number are bleeped.

It quoted the package, checked the calendar and booked the groom, while the groomer kept working. An AI receptionist for pet groomers answers your business phone, your texts and your website chat, and books appointments for you. In Groomify, it's built into the same app as your calendar, clients and pets, so there's nothing to connect.

First, it books straight into your calendar. While the caller is still on the line, it finds a real opening for the right groomer and service, books it, and texts the client a confirmation. It can reschedule and cancel the same way.

It knows your regulars. When a client calls from a number that's already in Groomify, it pulls up their pets, their notes and their preferred groomer, so it can ask, is this for Bella again, instead of starting from scratch. New callers get a new client and pet profile, filled in during the call.

For mobile groomers, it checks the caller's ZIP code against your service area before it offers a time, then offers a slot that fits the van's route that day. It quotes from the breed, size and add-ons the caller describes.

It handles texts and website chat too. If a call goes unanswered, missed-call text back sends the caller a text, so they can book or ask a question by text, and clients can move an appointment by text.

It can text a payment link, for example to take a deposit for a new booking or a boarding stay, so nobody has to read a card number out over the phone.

You decide when it answers: all day and night, only after hours, or only when your line is busy, and you can pause it whenever you like. It answers several calls at once, speaks twelve languages, replies in the language the caller speaks, and hands the call to you when someone needs a person.

Setup is self-serve. Add your hours, policies and prep notes to the Knowledge Base. Groomify already fills in your services, prices, staff and booking link. Test it in a chat, then connect your number, or port the one you already have.

The AI receptionist is an add-on to any paid Groomify plan. It starts at one hundred and nine dollars a month for one hundred and fifty minutes, with no setup fee. You can try Groomify free for fourteen days, with no card. Links are in the description.

Groomify is pet grooming software for mobile groomers, grooming salons, and boarding and daycare businesses. It runs your calendar, online booking, client and pet records, checkout and reports in one app, and it has an AI receptionist add-on that answers your phone. In this 2026 demo, we'll walk through each part on a sample business we set up called Demo Mobile Salon, so every name, pet and number you see is a placeholder. Okay, let's start with the calendar.

The Groomify calendar gives every groomer their own column, with their photo at the top, and every appointment card shows the pet, the service and the client. The day's appointment count and the money booked sit right up top, and a small tag on each card tells you whether the client has confirmed.

Switch to Week and you see the whole week at a glance. The buttons along the top filter by groomer, or by a table or a tub if you run a salon. And there's a List view, for days when you just want a plain list.

To book from the calendar, click New appointment, pick the date and the time, choose the groomer, then the service. Each service already carries its duration and its price, and the price can change with the pet's size, so there's no math at the counter. Pick the client and the pet, save, and it lands straight on the calendar.

Clients book online through a booking page that every Groomify business gets. You can link it from your website, your Google listing, or your Instagram bio. Clients pick their pet first, so they only see the services that suit that pet, at that pet's price. Returning clients verify their phone and their pets are already there. New clients just tell you about their pet.

On your side, the Online Booking settings control all of it. Turn booking on or off, set how far ahead clients can book, the minimum notice, whether clients can choose a groomer, and your branding. Changes go live straight away.

In Groomify, each client record holds the whole household, with every pet underneath. Search by name, email or phone. Tags show who's a VIP and who's new, and the At risk filter picks out clients who haven't rebooked.

Open a client and everything is on one page: their pets, the next visit, the full visit history including no-shows, texting and email consent, the card on file, memberships and packages, notes, and signed forms. Click Book, and the appointment form opens with their details already filled in.

Each pet has its own profile too, with a photo, handling and temperament notes, a grooming schedule that shows when the next groom is due, feeding, medications, the vet, and vaccination records with expiry dates. So whoever's holding the clippers knows exactly which dog they're getting.

Groomify's AI receptionist answers your phone twenty-four seven when you can't, books appointments straight into the calendar, and takes messages. Every call is logged with what happened, like this one that ended in a booking. Each location gets its own number, its own voice and its own hours, and you choose when it answers: always, after hours, or only when the line's busy. It speaks twelve languages, and when a caller needs a person, it can hand the call to you. It's an add-on to any paid plan, from a hundred and nine dollars a month for 150 minutes, with no setup fee.

The receptionist answers from a Knowledge Base, where you tell it about your business: opening hours, policies, deposits, prep instructions, and how you like to talk to clients. Groomify already pulls in your services, prices, staff and booking link, so you only add the rest.

You can test it in a chat before you connect a phone number. Ask whether you take walk-ins, or what a new client needs for a first visit, and it answers from your Knowledge Base, the same way it would on a call.

Groomify handles checkout in Sales. Start a new checkout, add the services and any products, take a tip, and close the sale. Open carts, closed sales and voids each have their own list, and every closed sale shows its number, the client and the total.

Groomify includes more than fifty reports, so you get the numbers without a spreadsheet. The Last week panel compares net revenue, clients seen, new versus returning clients, and the no-show rate against the week before. Below it, the reports are grouped by staff, sales, payments, memberships, inventory, boarding and more. Each one says what it's for, and every one exports as a CSV or a print-ready PDF.

There's more we won't go deep on today: Routes for mobile vans, Care for boarding, Daycare, Memberships, Gift cards, Forms, Products, and a Time clock. Each one gets its own tutorial.

Groomify is priced by business type. Mobile grooming costs from thirty-nine dollars a month per van. Salons cost from sixty-three dollars a month per location. Boarding and daycare starts at a hundred and sixty-eight dollars a month per location. Pay annually and you save twenty percent. The AI receptionist is a separate add-on, from a hundred and nine dollars a month.

Every plan starts with a fourteen-day free trial, and you don't need a card. Go to groomify.ai/start to set up your account. Thanks for watching. If this helped, subscribe, because we're making a tutorial for every feature next.