How to price yourself as a bridal beauty pro The Pricing Model That Made Me $142K

When I switched from a la carte pricing to packages, my bridal hair business went from having to work 70 to 100 weddings a year just to earn six figures to only having to work 35 weddings and still generate over $120,000. Yeah, I know. I thought only photographers could do it. I'm Marissa Grace. I spent a decade in the bridal hair industry, scaling my business from $6,000 a year to over half a million in just three years without having a team doing weddings without me. And now I've helped over 400 plus bridal hairstylists and makeup artists scale their own. Let's get into one of the biggest debates here, which is, should I do a la carte pricing or use packages? First, we want to understand the differences. What is a la carte and what is package pricing? A la carte pricing, Think your client puts together the services that she wants based off of her specific needs and wants. She picks and chooses the services that she wants to hire you for. Now, packages is a one all inclusive price. You pick the services that she hires you for. She's not charged separately for every individual thing. It is one package rate. Now, the reason that we adopted the a la carte pricing model was because. Tell me, are you some, anybody who came from the salon industry? I know I am. I worked in the salon industry for over five years, probably even a decade. I shampooed, I did cuts in color, went to cosmetology school, did the whole thing. Thought I was going to be a colorist for the rest of my life. And over the hundreds of bridal pros that I've worked with, majority of them start out in the salon or as a makeup artist. You'll start out working at like a cosmetics counter, like Sephora, Ulta, maybe even Mac. And what they use is the a la carte pricing model. So they have a list of their services in a service menu and then your client gets to pick and choose what they want. And this is actually one of the biggest mistakes I see with the wedding industry pros. When you're presenting your rates, you take everything you learn from the salon with the service price spacing model, and you move that over to bridal hair and bridal makeup. You list everything out, letting your bride pick and choose what she wants to hire you for, making sure to charge for every extra little fee, extension, placement, false lashes, literally everything. And this is acting like a salon, not a wedding vendor. We are literally the only wedding vendor who does not all offer package pricing. Like, it's crazy. Let it sink in. We, we are the only vendor who does not offer package pricing. Why? And when I constantly hear pros tell me like, oh, she's ghosting me because of my rates, when in reality, a lot of it has to do with how you're packaging it and you're designing it and presenting it over to her. Because when we use and stick to the salon pricing based model, the a la carte model, we are unintentionally creating choice paralysis for our brides and they don't make a decision at all. They actually did a case study in California at a grocery store where on two separate days they set out a certain amount of jams. On day one, they set out 24 jams jams. On day two, they set out only six different jam to see how many sold each day. The day where they only had six jam options was the day where they sold seven times more than the day where they had 24 options. And this actually ties into Hicks law, which states the more options you give somebody, the longer it takes them to actually decide. And not only that, the longer it takes them to respond and make that decision and it increases the chances that they won't make one at all. Think of it this way. Have you ever been to the Cheesecake Factory? You open up their like 5 page menu with 250 different options and you can't decide. So you wind up just ordering the same thing you always get. Or you don't order anything at all and you're just annoyed. This is you saying, I want a safe choice by going with something that you always get instead of looking at all of these other options because it's too many to choose from. You're like, I'm just going to go with the safe option or think about it. Have you ever been on Netflix and you're scrolling for like 30 minutes or an hour? You're watching all these previews, you're like, which one do I want to watch? You give up watching them all together, feeling like, I don't want want to waste my time so I'd rather not make a decision at all. Or when you're shopping online and there's nearly 50 identical options for sandals and you bounce without buying anything because you're like, I don't want to choose the wrong one. And that's how choice paralysis stops you from making a decision at all. And it's the same thing with your brides when you're giving her all of these service options, thinking we're doing her a favor of like, here's every service I have ever offered in my life. And you can pick and choose and create your own package of what you need instead. This is creating massive decision fatigue. So what you want to do is reduce that decision and make it for her. And that's why package pricing is the standard in the wedding industry. We create that for her. It gives that all inclusive feel. And big businesses use package pricing and pricing psychology all the time to make the decision for you. For example, when you go to a restaurant, have you ever noticed that on their menus they will likely have one or two menu options that are highlighted with a separate color around it. Maybe it says something like chef's choice or most popular. They're making the decision for you of what they want you to order. For a majority of businesses, when you go online to their website specifically like in the tech industry or subscription models, they always have three different options that you can choose from and they'll select the one that'll say most popular. So this will increase your chances of making a decision because they're deciding it for you by selecting their most popular and giving you those choices and only reducing it down to 3 options versus having 7, 10, 15 options. Now let's cover the pros and cons of a la carte pricing versus packaging, starting with a la carte pricing. So with a la carte, it does give you flexibility for when you're starting out and you don't really know what services or bridal party sizes that you want to start servicing. Like if you're really new to the industry and you're like I don't know if I really like bridal only or I like bigger bridal parties or I like somewhere in the middle or how many bridesmaids you can actually handle on your own. That's where the flexibility and control for when you're starting out is great. With a la carte, another pro is it gives your clients flexibility and control over what services they want versus which ones they don't want. They're in the driver's seat of the budget and the pricing. And again, the pro. It helps you understand which bridal parties you like working with. Sizing wise, intimate, small, bridal only, you'll be able to be in control of that. Now some of the cons when it comes to a la carte pricing specifically for bridal hairstylists and bridal makeup artists is you're likely going to see a ton of add ons for day of that you're going to have to charge for they're going to have to find and source money for when they're in your chair. So add ons like if you're not including false lashes or hair extension placement into your rates and then somebody sits in your chair and they're like, hey, here's my extensions, can you put them in? And you're like, oh, it's actually an extra $30. And they're like, oh, I don't have that. And then you're like, oh, okay, well can you venmo me? And then it's like this whole thing where all these people are adding on these additional add ons and you have to collect for it versus with a package and with pricing where you already have that baked in. You don't need to worry about any of that extra stuff a la carte pricing. You don't have control over your income. Which one of the biggest cons in my opinion, your bride can come in and she's like, oh, I only want just myself or myself plus one. And let's just say that's only $500 for you. Well, you could have taken another wedding or had a booking minimum or a package minimum where it's bride plus four and your minimum is $1400 versus only $500. So you don't really have stability when it comes to your income because you're like, well, I don't know what any bride's going to book me for. These are all my services. So I hope they book that without having a minimum and a package minimum. You never know what your br to book you for. And another con for a la carte pricing is. They're going to exclude things that you know that they need just so they can make it cheaper. So again, going back to pricing everything out and let's just say you really want your brides to have a trial, but they see it as an extra expense and they're like, I don't know why I need that. So they don't include that. And they only book you for wedding day of and maybe three guests. And you're like, well I really want the trial. So then that would have to be like a back and forth conversation of you selling on her on why she needs the trial versus if you had it in a package and you're like, this is a non negotiable. She would see it as like, okay, I, I need this. Now let's talk about the pros and cons of package pricing. With the number one pro being you are in total control of your income and you can create predictable Stable income. When you do package pricing, you include everything that they need, giving an all inclusive rate. So it's not like she's picking and choosing what she needs. Everything is there for her. So for the example, with a la carte, if she only wants to book wedding day of and three other people and let's just say it ends up being like $500 versus if you had a package or everything's included, you have the trial wedding day of and your guest minimum count being like bride plus four. And now that's sitting around fourteen hundred dollars. You know, at the bare minimum, whenever you pack up and leave your house, you will be making fourteen hundred dollars. That creates stability, predictability and a booking minimum so you're able to earn more. This is also more organized and streamlined on your back end when you're doing invoices. I found when I was doing a la carte, I constantly was having to add additional things on to my bride's invoices. And it was a lot more emails back and forth versus when I did packaging, everything was all included. I even included the travel in there. So it was never like, hey, can I add this on? Hey, can I do this? Hey, can I take off that? No, it was so much less work for me and for my bride because she already knew. Okay, this is everything I signed up for. Everything is listed out for me here and it's all included for this rate. And another pro, when you do package pricing is it's so clear what you offer. It's not like your bride goes to your page and she's like, okay, what am I going to get with her? What do I get with this bride? And you have to understand in your bride is likely comparing you with like three to five other wedding hairstylists and wedding makeup artists. And our brain is lazy. We like to skim through things to know within an instant exactly what we're going to want to get. So when she's going over to your page and she sees all of these services and she's like, okay, I have to pick and choose. I don't really know which ones I want. Versus she goes to somebody else's page and it's like dialed in clear. Okay, with this, you get exactly this and she can see where she identifies and which one she can pick. It's an easier decision and it's clear for her what she needs. Okay, let's talk about the con when it comes to package pricing. And the only con that I can see is that we're scared. Because when you Add everything up, it's a bigger total pricing. It's scary for us to start because of that high price tag.

We're like, oh my God, I don't think she's gonna want to book with me. Oh my God, it's too expensive. Oh my God. Nobody else in my area charges this.

Because when you add up all of your services and you put them into one package, you see that fourteen hundred dollar price tag versus when everything's broken up and it's like 200 for the trial, 200 day of 150 for a bridesmaid and it doesn't see that big price tag. You're like, oh, I'm definitely going to get booked. When in fact it's actually the exact opposite. Because if you're here, I know you know that just because XYZ in your area charges this rate doesn't mean that that's what you should be charging, okay? That CEO energy. We don't price ourselves based on somebody else, okay? And here's the facts. When I switched to package pricing, I was able to create predictable stable income. It wasn't me working wedding to wedding wondering, oh my God, how much am I going to make? Am I going to be able to pay my bills with this? This? No, I knew exactly how much I was going to make. I went from having to work 70 to 100 weddings in order to earn six figures to only having to work 35 weddings and still earn over six figures just doing weddings. Because I switched to package pricing, my average spend with my brides went up to like 30 $300. And I didn't need to charge for all those little extra fees like early morning start extension placement because I price myself to profit. So here's three steps you can start to start getting your packages. Step one, you want to review all of your services that you got booked within the last 12 months, heck even the last two years. And look at all of the services that you had. Step two, you want to find your most booked services, AKA what brides were booking you for the most? Look at your services and find the pattern. Did you get hired a lot for bridal only? What were the bridal party sizing? If you do both services, Were you hired for hair and makeup the most? Were you hired for hair only? Makeup only. And ask yourself if you see a pattern with the bridal party sizing. Is it a lot of bridal only? Is it a lot of intimate bridal parties? Are you bringing on an assistant for majority of your weddings? What are the trends? So for me. When I did this, I found that I booked a lot of bride plus seven. So naturally that would be a great package for me because a lot of brides were already hiring me for that. And now the third step is going to be review all of that data and ask yourself what bridal party sizes and services do I love to offer? What are my favorites, what are not my favorites, what are my favorite locations, bridal party sizes, services, and what are my non negotiables. So for me, when I did this, my non negotiable was a trial. The travel that I typically did was typically an hour each way. So I included that in my packages. You want to get really clear on what brides are already hiring you for that you love and that you don't love. Because when you package up your services, you want to be doing the stuff that you love, your non negotiables and trashing the rest. And inside Bridleboss Academy, I'll walk you through step by step, how to price your services with a calculator, package them all up and actually get booked at rates your competition would drool over. With brides that are dying to work with you, it's time you start creating predictable and stable income for your bridal business in2026. Package up those services, my girls. I'll see you in the next one. Bye.