PetGroomBossPro Blog — Billing, Tips & Payments

Size and Coat on the Grooming Invoice: Pricing a Giant Double Coat Differently From a Toy Poodle

Every groomer knows a full groom on a Toy Poodle and a full groom on a Giant double-coated dog are not the same job. The bigger dog takes more shampoo, more drying time and more of your back. Most groomers price for that. The trouble is keeping the pricing consistent once you have dozens of repeat clients and a few vans.

The Pet Record Carries the Size and Coat

Pricing per pet starts with the home, and homes with several pets were covered in Multi-Pet Homes on One Grooming Invoice: Two Doodles and a Cat, One Bill. Each of those pets needs its own size and coat to be priced right.

In PetGroomBossPro, every pet on a job is saved with a size — Toy, Small, Medium, Large or Giant — and a coat: Short / Smooth, Medium, Long, Double Coat, Curly / Doodle, Wire or Hairless. Those details sit on the job and carry forward to the next visit, so the groomer, the office and the invoice are all looking at the same dog.

Building a Price Structure That Holds Up

There is no single right way to price by size and coat. A few common structures, with example numbers:

• Base price plus a size add-on. A full groom starts at $85 for a small dog, with $15 more for medium, $30 more for large and $45 more for giant.
• Separate services by size. “Full Groom — Small,” “Full Groom — Large” and so on, each with its own price on the service list.
• A coat charge on top. Curly or doodle coats and heavy double coats carry an extra charge for the extra time.

Pick the one you can explain to a customer in one sentence. If you cannot explain it, they will not understand the invoice either.

Online Booking Shows the Same Logic

The PetGroomBossPro online booking page asks new customers for each pet's name, breed and size, along with the service, add-ons and how often they want to come. You set base prices per service, a price add-on per size, a minimum, frequency discounts and add-on prices. The customer sees their price instantly, and the booking lands in Leads with everything they picked and the quoted price.

That matters for billing, because it means the price a new customer sees when booking is built the same way as the price on their first invoice. The quote and the bill tell the same story. More on carrying that price through is in From Estimate to Grooming Invoice: Keeping the Quoted Price All the Way to Payment.

When the Dog Is Not the Size the Customer Said

Customers are not always accurate about size. A “medium” dog turns out to be a large one, or the “short coat” is really a double coat. This is one of the most common reasons a first grooming invoice surprises a customer.

The fix is to correct the pet record on the first visit. The groomer updates the size or coat, the job reflects it, and the invoice uses the right price. It is worth a quick word with the customer, or a text from the office, before the bill goes out: “Rocky is closer to large than medium, so his price is the large-dog price going forward.” Because the pet is saved, every future visit uses the corrected size without anyone remembering to change it.

Puppies Grow and Coats Change

A puppy intro groom is priced for a puppy. A few months later that puppy is a Large doodle with a full curly coat. If the pet record never changes, the price never changes either, and you end up grooming a big dog at a puppy price.

A simple habit fixes it: when a pet has clearly moved up a size, update the size on the pet. Coats work the same way. A dog whose owner switches from a short summer cut to a long, full coat may move into a different price. Update it on the pet and the invoice follows from the next visit on.

For a repeat client whose price changes, the Recurring Clients list lets you change the price on upcoming visits as well, so the whole schedule moves together.

Clear Lines Make Size Pricing Easy to Accept

Size and coat pricing is fair, but it only feels fair when the customer can see it. An invoice line that reads “Full groom — Bear, Bernese Mountain Dog, Giant, Double Coat” explains itself. The customer sees why it costs more than their neighbor's terrier.

When the groomer taps Complete, the invoice is built from the pets on the job, at the prices on your service list, and the card on file can be charged before the van leaves. To see how size pricing works with add-ons, sales tax and the customer app, visit the pet grooming invoicing software page.