Commission or booth rent? Find the number where the answer flips.
The shop
The two structures
At 6.0 cats/day · 120 grooms/month · $11,400 billed
Commission (50%)
Booth rent ($900/mo)
At 6.0 cats/day, booth rent pays the groomer $4,800 more a month. Booth rent takes over past 0.9 cats/day — because rent is fixed, every cat past that point is kept in full instead of split.
How the math works
Monthly grooms = cats per day × working days per month. Revenue = monthly grooms × average ticket.
Commission take-home = revenue × commission rate, minus supply cost if the groomer carries it. The salon keeps the remainder.
Booth-rent take-home = revenue − rent, minus supply cost if the groomer carries it. The salon keeps the rent.
Break-even is where those two are equal. Setting them equal and cancelling the supply cost that appears on both sides leaves rent = grooms × ticket × (1 − rate), so grooms = rent ÷ (ticket × (1 − rate)). Dividing by working days gives the cats-per-day figure. Below it commission wins, above it booth rent wins — because rent is fixed and every additional cat past that point is kept whole rather than split.
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Common questions
Which pay structure is better, commission or booth rent?
Neither is better in the abstract — it depends entirely on volume. Commission pays the groomer more at lower volume because there is no fixed cost to cover. Booth rent pays more above a certain number of cats, because the rent stops scaling while the revenue keeps going. The calculator shows you where those two lines cross for your specific ticket and rent, which is the only version of this question that has an answer.
What is a typical commission rate for a cat groomer?
Commission splits vary widely by market, by who supplies the product, and by whether the salon or the groomer owns the client relationship. Rather than anchoring on someone else’s percentage, put the rate you are actually being offered into the calculator alongside the booth rent you could get instead, and compare the take-home at the volume you realistically run.
Why does the break-even ignore supply cost?
Because in the default setup the same person pays for supplies under both structures, so the cost subtracts identically from both sides and cancels out of the crossover. It still changes each column’s take-home — which is why it is an input — but it does not move the point where the two structures meet. If a real offer splits supplies differently between the two arrangements, compare the take-home columns directly rather than reading the break-even.
Does this tell me whether to classify someone as an employee or a contractor?
No, and that is the most important limit of this tool. It does arithmetic on take-home pay. Whether a given arrangement is legally a commission employee or an independent booth renter is a worker-classification question that depends on control, scheduling, equipment and your jurisdiction — and getting it wrong carries tax and liability consequences. Run the numbers here, then take them to an accountant or employment attorney.
Is my data saved anywhere?
No. Every number stays in your browser, nothing is sent to a server, and nothing is stored. Reload the page and it resets. There is no signup and no email gate on any of the free tools.