By Adam Cortez, founder of ARC Creative Co. Built from the numbers in our own client accounts, linked below.
In one New York salon account, Google Ads cost $5.40 per booking action (a booking-widget open or a call over 60 seconds) on $1.6K a month. That’s not the same as cost per booked appointment: divide the cost per action by the share of actions that become bookings. If 1 in 2 becomes a booking, an appointment costs about $10.80. Whether that’s good depends on what a new client is worth to you.
The real numbers from one salon
| Measure | NYC blowout and makeup salon |
|---|---|
| Period | April 18 – May 17, 2023 |
| Google Ads spend | $1.6K |
| Clicks | 615 |
| Booking actions (widget opens + calls over 60 seconds) | 296 |
| Cost per booking action | $5.40 |
| Facebook/Instagram cost per click, 1–2 mile radius | $1.19 and $1.37 |
| Appointments from Meta retargeting, 30 days | 53 |
Treat this as a real reference point, not a benchmark. New York is an expensive ad market, and blowouts and makeup are frequent, lower-ticket services. Extensions, color correction or bridal work will cost more per booking and are worth more per client.
How to work out your own cost per booking
- Cost per booking action = ad spend ÷ tracked actions. Google Ads shows this as cost per conversion.
- Booking rate = new-client bookings in your booking software ÷ tracked actions, for the same month.
- Cost per booked appointment = cost per booking action ÷ booking rate.
Example (illustrative): at $5.40 per action and a 50% booking rate, each booked appointment costs $10.80. At a 25% booking rate it costs $21.60. You only know your rate if your tracking is honest; see how to track salon bookings when your software doesn’t connect to Google Analytics.
How much can you afford to pay?
Work from what a new client brings in, not one visit. If a new client spends $80 a visit and books three more times in a year, they’re worth $320 in revenue that year. Decide what share of that you’re willing to spend to win them; that is your ceiling cost per booked appointment. Most salons find Google Ads affordable once they measure bookings rather than clicks.
What makes a salon booking cheaper or more expensive
- Market: dense cities cost more per click than suburbs and small towns.
- Service: high-ticket services attract more competing advertisers.
- Radius: a tight radius around the salon wastes less money on people who won’t travel.
- Branded vs. new clients: people searching your salon’s name are cheap. Report them separately or they’ll flatter the numbers.
- Follow-up: retargeting on Facebook and Instagram turns visitors who didn’t book into appointments. It produced 53 in 30 days for this salon.
Questions salon and practice owners ask
How much does Google Ads cost for a salon?
In one New York salon account, $1.6K a month produced 296 booking actions at $5.40 each. Your cost depends on your market, services and how you track bookings.
What is a good cost per booking for a salon?
One you can afford given what a new client is worth over a year. Work out cost per booked appointment, not cost per click, and compare it to that value.
Should a salon use Google Ads or Instagram ads?
Both do different jobs. Google Ads reaches people already searching for your service; Facebook and Instagram can target people within a mile or two of the salon and retarget visitors who didn’t book.
Want to know what a booking costs in your market? See how we run salon marketing or book a call.
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