Start with the relationship, not the percentage
Before entering a rate, write down who sells the service, who receives the client payment, and whether the studio owes practitioner compensation or the practitioner owes a venue fee. Cash collected on someone else’s behalf is not automatically the collector’s revenue.
Owner-operator
The owner sells and provides services. Planning focuses on service pricing, available hours, direct costs, fixed costs, space expense, and owner earnings targets. Rent and payroll setup should remain optional.
Managed team
The studio normally sells the service and records compensation owed to the person who delivers it. Compensation may be hourly, salary-based, a percentage of eligible revenue, a fixed amount per completed service, or an explicitly defined combination.
Example: if the studio sells a $100 eligible service and owes 60% compensation, practitioner earnings are $60 and $40 remains before other costs. That $40 is not automatically profit.
Independent-practitioner rental or venue fee
The practitioner business sells the service. The studio may charge fixed rent, a percentage support/space fee, usage-based rent, or a hybrid. Client sales should not be recorded as the venue’s service revenue unless the venue is actually the seller.
Example: an independent practitioner sells a $100 eligible service and owes a 25% studio fee. The practitioner sale is $100 and the studio fee is $25. The remaining $75 is not employee wages.
Combination studios
Different arrangements can coexist. The same studio might employ one practitioner, rent a suite to an independent business, and offer part-time room access to another. Agreements belong to each practitioner or business and can change by service, resource, location, and effective period.
Define “eligible” before calculating
Write down how discounts, refunds, packages, membership credits, tips, taxes, deposits, cancellation fees, payment processing, and sales bonuses affect the formula. Tips and taxes should not silently become a generic revenue-sharing base.
Preserve history
Future changes should create a new agreement version with an effective date. An approved prior statement should stay locked; refunds or corrections discovered later belong in an auditable adjustment rather than a rewritten past.