How Much Do Dog Groomers Make? How Grooming Income Works

How much a dog groomer makes depends less on the job title than on how the work is set up. An employed bather in a busy salon, a senior stylist on commission, a mobile groomer with a fully booked van and a home groomer working school hours can all call themselves dog groomers, and their incomes have little in common. Anyone who quotes you one "dog groomer salary" is averaging over all of them.

The honest answer comes in two layers. First, what official statistics say, with their limits, because they mostly count employees and group groomers with other animal care roles. Second, how grooming income is actually built: hours, services, prices, travel, costs and whether you work for someone else or for yourself. The second layer is the one you can change. Figures checked September 2026.

What official statistics say about dog groomer pay

Governments publish pay data for broad occupation groups, not for "dog groomer" as such. Read each figure with its category in mind. All amounts are gross, before tax, in the local currency.

United States

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts groomers inside Animal Caretakers (SOC 39-2021), a group that also includes kennel attendants, pet sitters and shelter workers. In its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for May 2025, the median annual wage for animal caretakers was USD 35,360. The lowest 10 percent earned less than USD 27,250 and the highest 10 percent more than USD 50,060. Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Animal Care and Service Workers, pay.

Two cautions. The survey does not include the self-employed, and many groomers are self-employed. And because kennel roles sit in the same group, the figure says little about an experienced stylist.

United Kingdom

The National Careers Service dog groomer profile gives an average salary of GBP 15,000 for a starter and GBP 23,000 for an experienced groomer, with typical hours of 30 to 37 a week. The profile does not state a reference year.

The Office for National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (2025 provisional results) puts dog groomers in Animal care services occupations n.e.c. (SOC 2020 unit group 6129), alongside dog walkers, kennel assistants and stable hands. The median gross annual pay for full-time employees in that group was GBP 25,067. Source: ONS, ASHE Table 14. ASHE covers employee jobs only, not the self-employed.

Canada

Job Bank places dog groomers in Pet groomers and animal care workers (NOC 65220), which also covers kennel, shelter and clinic animal care staff. For Canada as a whole it shows a low of CAD 15.00, a median of CAD 18.00 and a high of CAD 25.50 an hour, for the reference period 2023-2024 (wages updated November 19, 2025). Source: Job Bank, dog groomer wages in Canada.

Australia

Jobs and Skills Australia shows median weekly earnings of AUD 1,276 for Animal Attendants and Trainers (ANZSCO 3611), a group that includes pet groomers, dog trainers, kennel hands and zookeepers. The figure is for full-time non-managerial employees paid at the adult rate, before tax, from the ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025. Source: Jobs and Skills Australia, Animal Attendants and Trainers. The site notes that these ANZSCO figures will not be updated again. Its newer profile for Pet Groomer, based on the 2021 Census, shows 65.5 percent of pet groomers working part time, which is one reason annual incomes vary so much.

How grooming income is built

The statistics describe employees. What a groomer earns in practice comes from a handful of choices.

Employed, commission or self-employed

• Employed on a wage. Predictable pay, no equipment costs and often training on the job. Your income is set by the hourly rate and your hours.
• Commission. Some salons pay a share of each groom. Your income then rises with speed, skill and a full diary, and falls in a quiet week.
• Self-employed. You keep what clients pay, but you pay for everything: premises or a van, equipment, insurance, products, software, marketing, and the time you spend on admin. Revenue is not income.

Hours and dogs per day

Grooming is physical work. The number of dogs you can groom well in a day is limited by coat type, size and temperament, and by drying time. A day of large double-coated dogs is very different from a day of small short-coated ones. Pushing more dogs through to raise income tends to cost quality and safety, and our guide to grooming safety with heat and dryers explains why rushing drying is a real risk.

Services and specialisms

Hand stripping, breed-standard trims, cat grooming and handling anxious dogs all take extra skill and often justify a higher price. So do add-ons that fit within a groom, such as nail care or de-shedding treatments. Specialising lets you charge for what fewer groomers can do well.

Salon, home or mobile

Each setup has a different cost base. A salon has rent; a home business has conversion costs and possibly planning or licensing rules; a mobile van has vehicle, fuel and water costs, plus travel time between clients. Our guide to starting a mobile dog grooming business walks through those costs.

Seasonality and rebooking

Demand can rise before holidays and in shedding seasons and dip at other times. Regular clients on a fixed rebooking cycle smooth this out: a diary full of dogs booked every six or eight weeks is steadier than one filled with one-off visits.

What certification can and cannot change

A certification does not set your wage. What it can do is show clients and employers that you know coat types, skin health, safe handling and when to send a dog to a vet, which helps you win trust and justify prices. It cannot prove hands-on skill: your finished dogs do that. Our comparison of grooming school, apprenticeship and certification sets out what each route proves.

A worked example: pricing a groom from your own numbers

The method below is the one used by the free pet service price calculator. The inputs are made up to show how the method works. They are not typical earnings, costs or prices, and they are in no particular currency.

Working through it:

1. Profit needed: 2,400 ÷ 0.75 = 3,200.
2. Monthly target with costs: 3,200 + 600 = 3,800.
3. Grooms that fit: 120 hours at 2 hours each is 60 grooms. At 75 percent booked, that is 45 grooms.
4. Price per groom: 3,800 ÷ 45 + 4 = about 88.44.
5. Break-even: 600 ÷ 45 + 4 = about 17.33, the price that covers costs and pays you nothing.

Now change one input. If the same groomer fills 90 percent of slots, the grooms rise to 54 and the price falls to about 74.37. That is why rebooking and a full diary matter more to a groomer's income than almost anything else. Compare your own result with what clients near you actually pay, and adjust the inputs, not just the price.

How to increase grooming income responsibly

• Fill the diary before raising volume. Rebook every client before they leave. Empty slots cost more than a slightly lower price.
• Price by coat and time, not only by size. A matted or double-coated dog takes longer. Price for the time it takes, and explain why.
• Add skills that are in short supply. Hand stripping, cat grooming or low-stress handling for anxious dogs can justify a higher price.
• Control travel. For mobile groomers, grouping clients by area turns driving time back into grooming time.
• Keep dogs safe. Never raise throughput by cutting drying safety, breaks for older dogs or time with a nervous dog. One injury can cost more than a month of extra grooms.
• Review prices once a year. Costs rise; your prices should keep up, with notice to clients.

Where to go next

If you are still deciding whether grooming is for you, start with our guide to how to become a certified dog groomer. To see what the knowledge side of the job looks like, try the free dog grooming sample questions, or read about the Professional Dog Groomer certification. Then run your own numbers through the pet service price calculator before you set a single price.