How much should I pay receptionists?

Well I have talked to 4 of our larger salon owners with a spa component and one business manager with the same set up.

 All are from 1.6 to 4 million a year.

 The rule of 5% for front desk and spa coordinator looks about right.

 The average pay for front desk is about $10.50 an hour.

 Example

 So a million dollar salon/spa would have 50k for budget and could have about 80 hours a week of coverage at the hourly average.

 So a million dollar salon example has 12 productive people. The salon is open 65 hours so 25 hours is covered by one person and 40 hours are overlapped by 2 people.

 The million dollar salon/spa also has admin and accounting costs of 2% or 20,000 a year. 2 day a week bookkeeper does vendor pay, payroll and some inventory for a yearly cost of $14,000 at the average cost of $16 an hour and the balance is paid in accountant costs and some part time help.

 This looks pretty scalable and the larger accounts were very close to these figures.

 Example

 2 million dollar salon/spa would have 100k for budget and could have about 170 hours a week of coverage at the hourly average.

 The 2 million dollar salon example has 22 productive people. The salon is open 70 hours so 10 hours are covered by one person, 22 hours are covered by one/two people and 38 hours are overlapped by 3 people.

 The 2 million dollar salon/spas also have admin and accounting costs of 2% (does not seem to be an economy of scale or maybe inventory and staffing time is more) or 40,000 a year. 4 day a week bookkeeper does vendor pay, payroll and inventory for a yearly cost of $27,000 at the average cost of $16 an hour and the balance is paid in accountant costs and some part time help.

 A stylist/education director seems to become viable above the 1.5 million mark. And after 2 million an associate or assistant program seems to come into play.

 Fred