Guide
Most experienced groomers say they would not hire again. Here is when hiring actually makes sense, what a groomer really costs you, and how to keep the good ones.
We asked a room of experienced groomers what they wished someone had told them before opening. When the conversation turned to staff, the answer was not what hiring guides usually say.
Do not open a brick and mortar. Do house call, or set up in your basement. Your overhead will be so much less, and you'll make so much more. You don't want employees.
Ty B.
He was not an outlier. In that thread of 194 comments, a striking number of groomers who had built a team said the growth move was to stay small, go mobile, or work from home. Amanda G. had tried both: "I did a big salon for a couple of years, and then went back to doing it alone. I couldn't keep my doors open and pay myself too."
Most hiring guides skip this part. We're starting with it, because if you hire for the wrong reason the rest of this guide can't save you — and because the groomers who regret hiring regret it loudly, while the ones it worked for tend to be quieter about why.
There was a real counter-position, and it's the one worth learning from. Logan B.: "Hire good teammates, good software, a good CPA/bookkeeper, and stay positive. Create policies, and stick to them." Jordan C. offered the middle path: "wait until you can hire help."
This guide is about being in Logan's group rather than Amanda's.
Almost every owner who wants to hire describes the same symptom — booked out too far, turning work away, working late. That symptom has three possible causes, and only one of them is solved by hiring.
Cause one: your prices are too low. This is the most common by a distance. If you're booked eight weeks out, the market is telling you that you're cheap, and the cheapest fix is a price rise — no payroll, no liability, no management. Our pricing guide covers how to do it without losing the clients worth keeping.
Cause two: your mix is wrong. You may not be short of hours; you may be spending them on the wrong dogs. If your longest appointments are also your worst-paying, adding a groomer just buys more capacity to lose money with. Work out your revenue per chair-hour before you work out a job ad.
Cause three: you genuinely have more well-priced demand than one person can serve. This is the only one that a hire fixes.
Pro tipRaise your prices before you hire, never after. A price rise thins demand slightly, which tells you how much genuine overflow exists. Hiring first and repricing later means training someone on a book that may shrink under them.
There's a fourth reason people hire that's worth naming honestly: exhaustion. Wanting your life back is a completely legitimate reason to build a team. But it's a reason to hire deliberately — because a hire made in exhaustion is usually the wrong person, hired too fast, on terms you didn't think through.
The wage is the part everyone plans for. It's not the part that catches people out.
Take a groomer on a 50% commission doing six dogs a day at a $75 average ticket, working 48 weeks:
| Revenue they generate | $108,000 |
| Their commission (50%) | −$54,000 |
| Employer's half of FICA (7.65%) | −$4,131 |
| Workers' comp (typical for pet care) | −$1,160 |
| Consumables at ~$8 a dog | −$11,520 |
| Contribution before premises | ≈ $37,200 |
That $37,200 is what's left to cover their share of rent, utilities, insurance, software, admin time and your own wage for managing them. On a good lease it works. On an expensive one it doesn't.
Now watch what happens if your average ticket is $60 rather than $75 — the same groomer, the same six dogs, the same commission rate:
| $75 ticket | $60 ticket | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue generated | $108,000 | $86,400 |
| Contribution before premises | $37,200 | $27,200 |
A $15 difference in average ticket cuts the value of employing that person by 27%. This is the single most important thing on this page: you cannot hire your way out of underpricing. A second groomer multiplies whatever margin you already have. If the margin is thin, you have just bought a bigger thin margin, plus a payroll obligation that arrives whether or not the dogs do.
Turnover is the other number to know before you start. SHRM estimates that replacing an employee costs somewhere between 50% and 200% of their annual salary, and commonly six to nine months of it. Even at the conservative end of general HR estimates — $3,500 to $10,000 to replace an hourly worker — a groomer who leaves after five months has cost you real money on top of the training you'd not yet recovered.
In grooming the figure skews worse than average, because a departing groomer often leaves with something no other industry loses so directly: their clients. Which is why the retention half of this guide matters more than the hiring half.
This is where grooming salons get into genuine trouble, and it's worth more of your attention than the interview process.
Many salons "rent a table" to a groomer, pay them on a 1099, and assume that makes them a contractor. It usually doesn't. The IRS doesn't care what your agreement says it is; it cares who controls the work.
The IRS applies three categories of common-law control:
Read the third one again. Grooming is the key aspect of a grooming salon's business, which makes the "contractor" claim harder to sustain here than in most industries. If you set the schedule, set the prices, and supply the shampoo and the table, you have an employee — whatever the paperwork says.
Getting it wrong is expensive. Misclassification can trigger back wages, unpaid overtime, years of employer payroll taxes that were never withheld, and penalties from the IRS, the Department of Labor, or a state agency — sometimes all three. Liability for employment taxes falls under IRC section 3509, and where a business had a reasonable basis for its classification, Section 530 relief may limit the damage — but it doesn't retroactively make the worker a contractor.
Pro tipIf you genuinely can't tell, file Form SS-8 and let the IRS determine the status. It takes at least six months, which is a good reason to ask the question before you hire rather than after an audit asks it for you.
One live caveat, accurate as of this update. The federal test is genuinely in flux. The Department of Labor's 2024 rule is still technically on the books but the DOL has instructed its own investigators not to apply it, and on 26 February 2026 it proposed replacing that rule with a streamlined economic-reality analysis focused on two core factors — control over the work, and the worker's opportunity for profit or loss. The comment period closed on 28 April 2026. None of this changes the IRS test above, and none of it makes a controlled worker a contractor. If your arrangement only works under one particular rule, it doesn't work.
A true booth renter sets their own prices, keeps their own money, chooses their own hours, brings their own tools, and books their own clients. If that describes what you want, it's a legitimate model — but understand you are becoming a landlord, not an employer, and you don't get to direct the work.
There is no queue of qualified groomers waiting for your advert. Every salon owner discovers this at the same moment. You have two routes, and they fail in different ways.
Route one: hire someone already trained. Fastest, and the obvious choice when you're drowning. The problems are that qualified groomers are scarce and usually already employed, that you'll be competing on pay against salons that may be better priced than you, and — most importantly — that you inherit their habits. A groomer trained badly for ten years is harder to work with than someone trained from scratch.
Route two: train your own. This is what the thread recommended, and it's what most successful multi-groomer salons actually do. Megan F. put it plainly:
Don't hire your best friend to work for you. Train your next person — don't just hire someone who thinks they want to do it.
Megan F.
The standard path is bather → prep → groomer, and it takes six months to eighteen months depending on the person and how much table time you can give them. It's slower than hiring, and it's cheaper and stickier: someone you trained is loyal to you in a way a lateral hire isn't, and they groom the way your salon grooms.
For context on the alternative, formal grooming school runs roughly $6,000–$17,000 for in-person programmes lasting two to six months full-time, with online courses starting far lower. NDGAA certification testing costs around $125 per exam for members and takes a full day. Knowing these numbers is useful in two directions: it tells you what a certified applicant has already invested, and it tells you what you'd be giving someone if you sponsored their training — which is one of the strongest retention tools available to a small salon.
Pro tipHire the bather first, not the groomer. A bather relieves the part of your day that doesn't need your skill, pays for themselves faster, is far easier to replace if it doesn't work out, and gives you a year to find out whether they should become your next groomer.
Before you advertise, write down what the role actually is. Most grooming job ads are interchangeable, which is why they attract whoever is available rather than whoever is good.
A usable dog groomer job description covers six things:
1. The work itself. Full grooms, bath and brush, breed-standard trims, nail and ear care, de-shedding. Say which coat types you see most — a salon that's 60% doodles is a different job from one that's mostly short-coated small dogs.
2. The daily volume and the time per groom. "Five to six full grooms a day, 60–90 minutes each." This is the single most useful line in the ad and almost nobody includes it. It filters hard in both directions, and it prevents the most common early failure — a new groomer judged against a target nobody told them.
3. The pay structure, stated plainly. The commission split or hourly rate, and the realistic daily dog count behind it. "Competitive" tells a groomer you're below market.
4. The equipment. Hydraulic tables, adjustable tubs, high-velocity dryers, cordless clippers. Groomers read this as whether you expect them to still be working in ten years.
5. Who handles difficult clients. If the answer is "the owner does," say so. It's a genuine differentiator, and it's free.
6. Requirements, honestly separated into must-have and nice-to-have. There's no legal grooming licence in most US states, so certification is a preference rather than a gate — say which you mean. Handling ability and safety judgement are the real must-haves.
Pro tipWrite the job description before you need it. The good groomer becomes available for about a fortnight, and the salon with an advert ready is the one that gets them.
Commission is the dominant structure in grooming — typically 40–60% of the ticket, most commonly 45–50% — but the structure matters less than most owners think, and the arithmetic behind it matters more.
We cover this in depth in what a groomer should make per hour, and the finding that matters for hiring is this: a groomer's effective hourly rate is set by how full you keep their book and what you charge, not by the split you offer them. At a $75 ticket and a 50% split, a groomer earns $18.75 an hour on a four-dog day and $28.13 on a seven-dog day. Offering 55% instead of 50% is worth less to them than keeping their calendar full.
That has a direct hiring consequence. Competing for staff on commission percentage is the weakest offer you can make, and it's the one most salons lead with. Competing on a full, well-priced book is a much stronger offer — and it costs you less.
Three structures are common:
Whatever you choose, be certain that commission-based pay still satisfies minimum-wage and overtime obligations for an employee. Commission does not exempt you from either.
Retention in grooming has a physical dimension that most industries don't, and it's the reason experienced groomers disappear from the trade entirely rather than moving to a competitor.
Ask groomers about their careers and they describe injuries, not aches:
I'm 32 and I'm going to hospital for scans on my bad back and losing strength in my legs. That's what 13 years of doing big dogs has done.
Samantha G.
Mary M., after 29 years: "I wonder why I am so damaged. Lifting 40kg dogs will do that. Get a lift table." Nicola D., after 15 years: "I'm getting told I won't be able to do this job much longer."
The other reasons are more familiar, and are what people actually say in exit conversations: long days with no real breaks, no cover so time off is impossible, an owner who is never satisfied, pay that doesn't move, and the accumulated weight of difficult clients that nobody shielded them from.
Notice how many of those are cheap to fix. Almost none of them are pay.
Buy the equipment that protects their body. This is the most underrated retention tool in grooming and the one owners consistently defer. Hydraulic and lift tables, adjustable tubs, cordless clippers, ear protection. A hydraulic table is a few hundred dollars against a groomer's career and the $3,500–$10,000 it costs to replace them. Dena C., 41 years in, framed it as a purchase decision: "They may be costly, but they will save your back in the long run."
There's a counter-example in the thread worth repeating to your team. Charmaine C., 20 years in, is in the best shape of her life — because she treats recovery as a line item: massage every one to three weeks, resistance training two to five times a week, for over a decade.
Protect them from clients. Groomers rarely quit over dogs. They quit over owners. If your staff are absorbing the arguments about matting fees, pickup times and price rises, you have outsourced the worst part of your job to the person least able to refuse. Set the policy, publish it, and enforce it yourself.
Give them a full, well-priced book. The most valuable thing you control. It raises their pay without raising your commission rate.
Give them predictable time off. The single most common structural complaint in grooming is that time off is impossible because there's no cover. Two groomers who can cover each other is worth more to both than a slightly better split.
Let them own something. A specialism — hand-stripping, cats, seniors, show trims — is career progression in a trade that otherwise offers very little of it. It also builds a client base that asks for them by name, which is the retention mechanism and the risk in one.
Pay on time, and show the maths. Commission disputes destroy trust faster than low pay does. Every groomer should be able to see how their number was calculated. This is largely a systems problem — schedules, hours, tips and commissions that are visible to the person they belong to rather than living in the owner's head.
Most grooming hires that fail, fail early, and usually for reasons that had nothing to do with skill.
Write down what you actually expect. Dogs per day at what quality, in what time. New groomers are routinely fired for being slow when nobody ever told them the target.
Start them slower than you need to. Give a new groomer four dogs a day for the first fortnight, not seven. Speed comes from confidence; rushing it produces bad grooms and injured people.
Have someone check the first grooms before pickup. Not to criticise — to prevent the client conversation that damages a new groomer's standing before they've built any.
Introduce them to clients deliberately. "This is Sam, she's excellent with doubles" is worth more than a month of them proving it unaided.
Do a real 30-day conversation. Not "how's it going." Ask what's slower than they expected, what equipment is missing, which dogs they're dreading. You will hear the resignation reasons three months before the resignation.
And write the boring things down early: hours, breaks, holiday, notice, who owns the client relationship, what happens to a client who follows them out. The last one is worth settling in writing at the start, when it's abstract and nobody is angry.
One note on non-competes, since salon owners often ask. The FTC's nationwide ban was struck down in court and the Commission has formally rescinded it, so enforceability is governed by state law, which varies enormously and has been getting more restrictive in several states. Do not assume a non-compete you copied from the internet is enforceable where you are. In practice, the reliable protection is not a clause — it's being the salon a groomer doesn't want to leave.
Six things: the work itself and the coat types you actually see; the daily volume and time per groom, stated as a number; the pay structure with the realistic dog count behind it; the equipment you provide; who handles difficult clients; and requirements honestly split into must-have and nice-to-have. The volume line is the one most ads omit and the one that filters best — "five to six full grooms a day, 60–90 minutes each" tells a good groomer more than any adjective.
In most US states there's no legal grooming licence, so certification is your preference rather than a legal requirement — Connecticut and Colorado are the exceptions, and they licence facilities and workers rather than setting a hiring standard. NDGAA certification exists and costs around $125 per exam for members, but plenty of excellent groomers never sat it. Handling ability and safety judgement matter more, which is why a paid working interview beats a CV.
When you have more well-priced demand than you can serve — not simply when you're busy. Raise your prices first and see how much overflow survives; if you're still turning away work at healthy rates, and your average ticket can carry the roughly $37,000 of annual contribution a commissioned groomer needs to produce beyond their own pay, you're ready. Hiring to fix exhaustion or low prices makes both worse.
More than the commission. A groomer on a 50% split doing six dogs a day at a $75 average ticket generates about $108,000 a year, of which $54,000 is their pay, roughly $4,100 is the employer's half of FICA, around $1,160 is workers' comp, and about $11,500 is consumables — leaving roughly $37,200 towards premises, admin and your own time. Replacing them if they leave costs 50–200% of salary according to SHRM, or $3,500–$10,000 on more conservative hourly-worker estimates.
Only if they genuinely operate independently — setting their own prices, hours and client list, and providing their own tools. The IRS looks at behavioural control, financial control and the type of relationship, and it treats grooming as a key aspect of a grooming salon's business, which makes contractor status harder to defend here than elsewhere. If you set the schedule and supply the equipment, you have an employee regardless of the paperwork, and misclassification can mean back wages, unpaid payroll taxes and penalties from multiple agencies at once.
Train, if you can afford the time. Experienced groomers are scarce, usually already employed, and arrive with habits you'll spend longer correcting than teaching. The bather-to-groomer path takes roughly six to eighteen months, produces someone who grooms the way your salon grooms, and is markedly stickier. Hire the bather first regardless — they relieve the part of your day that doesn't need your skill.
Typically 40–60% of the ticket, most commonly 45–50%. But the split matters less than the book: at a $75 average ticket, a groomer earns $18.75 an hour on a four-dog day and $28.13 on a seven-dog day at the same 50%. Keeping their calendar full and your prices healthy is worth more to them than five extra percentage points, and costs you less.
Rarely for a competitor's commission rate. They leave because their bodies are failing and the salon never bought a hydraulic table, because time off is impossible with no cover, because they absorb every difficult client conversation the owner avoids, and because pay never moves. Many leave the trade entirely rather than move salons — which is why equipment and scheduling are retention tools, not overheads.
Mostly, you don't — and the legal route is weaker than owners assume. The FTC's national non-compete ban was struck down and rescinded, so enforceability depends entirely on state law, which varies widely. Settle in writing at the start who owns the client relationship, keep client records in the business rather than in a groomer's phone, and accept that the real protection is being a salon people don't leave.
It's set by your table count, your bathing capacity and your front desk far more than by demand. Most single-location salons find the bottleneck isn't grooming hours but drying and bathing space, which is why a bather often adds more capacity than a second groomer. Work out which physical constraint binds first before adding a person.
See whether your prices can carry a second groomer — free, about two minutes.
Run your numbersThe best groomers are already employed — where they actually look, and how to test one.
The test the IRS actually applies, and what misclassification costs when it fails.
Who handles the angry client, and whether you bought the lift table.
Why most experienced groomers say they would not hire again.