Run it with less chaos · Every business
Peak and Off-Peak Pricing for Appointment Businesses
Off-peak pricing can fill slow hours, but only when it is framed as a lower price for quieter times, limited to specific slots, and used by a business whose busy hours are already full.
Off-peak pricing works for a salon or other appointment business when the peak hours have a waitlist, the discount applies to named slow slots (for example Tuesday to Thursday before 3 p.m.) and the price is shown as a lower off-peak rate rather than a peak surcharge. Research on perceived fairness found that customers accept time-of-day pricing and judge demand-based pricing presented as discounts to be fairer than the same pricing presented as higher prices.
The off-peak pricing checklist
- Confirm that peak is full. Off-peak pricing pays when the customers it moves are replaced at full price; if Saturday has no waitlist, it mostly lowers prices for people who would have come anyway.
- Name the slow slots from your own calendar. Use four weeks of bookings and pick the days and hours under about 60% booked.
- Set one modest rate. A single off-peak price, such as 10% below the menu price, is easier to explain and to hold than a sliding scale.
- Publish the regular price as the standard and the off-peak price as the exception, on the menu and in online booking.
- Limit which services qualify if some services already fill midweek or carry thin margins.
- Offer it first to people who can move, such as regulars with flexible schedules, students, retirees and anyone on the weekend waitlist.
- Review after eight weeks: off-peak fill, peak waitlist, total weekly revenue and any complaints.
The menu line to copy:
The note to regulars:
Hi [first name], we've added a weekday daytime rate at [business name]: [service] is [price] on Tuesday to Thursday before 3 p.m. If your schedule has room, it's an easy way to save, and it opens up weekend time for clients who can only come then.
| Scenario (10% off-peak discount, illustrative) | Weekly revenue change |
|---|---|
| 3 clients move from Saturday and their slots are refilled from the waitlist; 2 new off-peak clients | $312 |
| No one moves; 2 new off-peak clients | $96 |
| 3 clients move from Saturday and their slots stay empty; no new clients | -$72 |
Why it works
Customers judge price differences by how they are framed. A study of perceived fairness in the U.S. golf industry, published in the Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, found that golfers rated time-of-day pricing as fair and that demand-based pricing presented as discounts was generally seen as fairer than the same pricing presented as surcharges, so an off-peak rate is a gentler change than a weekend premium even when the price gap is identical.
Capacity research suggests when peak time is full enough to justify the change: a hospital simulation in the BMJ found shortages beginning at about 85% average occupancy, and a salon whose Friday and Saturday run well above that level is almost certainly turning clients away.
The arithmetic matters as much as the framing. In the illustrative salon above, the six clients who already book weekday daytime appointments cost $48 a week in discount, so the program only pays when it brings new off-peak clients or frees Saturday chairs for full-price clients from the waitlist; a salon without a weekend waitlist is usually better served by rebooking and reminders than by a lower price.
Sources
- Kimes, S. E. and Wirtz, J. Perceived Fairness of Revenue Management in the US Golf Industry. Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management 1:332–344, 2003.
- Bagust, A., Place, M. and Posnett, J. W. Dynamics of bed use in accommodating emergency admissions: stochastic simulation model. BMJ 319:155–158, 1999.
Related reading: How to Stay Booked in the Slow Season Without Discounting · What a Discount Really Costs You, Shown in Margin Math · How and When Salons Should Raise Their Prices · Pricing Salon Services by Stylist Level · Running a Waitlist That Fills Cancellations
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