Chair rental vs. full-time employment: which is right for you?

Chair (or room) rental is common across New Zealand and Australian salons, and it works like running a small business inside someone else's shop: you pay a fixed weekly or monthly fee for the space, keep everything you bill your clients, and cover your own product, insurance, and downtime. Full-time employment means a regular wage or commission, someone else handling bookings and product costs, and considerably less admin — but a smaller share of what each client pays.

Rental tends to suit stylists and therapists who already have an established client base that will follow them, and who don't mind the business side — tracking income, paying your own tax as a contractor, marketing yourself. If your books are full and steady, the maths usually favours renting: most experienced operators net meaningfully more than they would on commission once their client list is solid.

Employment tends to suit people earlier in their career, or anyone who values consistency over upside. A wage doesn't disappear during a quiet month, a salon covers your public holidays and sick leave under NZ and Australian employment law in a way a rental arrangement generally doesn't, and you're not on the hook if a client no-shows.

A middle path worth knowing about: some salons offer a hybrid — low base wage plus commission — that gives you some of the safety of employment with more upside than a flat wage. If you're unsure which model suits you, this is often the easiest way to test the water before committing to a full rental arrangement.