There are two very different price tags here, and choosing between them is the real decision. A full salon with your own space, chairs, ventilation, and buildout runs $10,000 to $30,000. Renting a single booth or station inside an existing salon can cost a small fraction of that, because you skip the lease and the buildout entirely.
For most people starting out, the booth is the smarter first move. You pay a weekly or monthly rent for your chair, bring your own tools and supplies, and keep what you earn. It lets you build a book of regular clients before you gamble on a full space, and a full salon is far less scary once you already have people who follow you to it.
Licensing is the part you cannot skip. Nail technicians need a state license, and the salon itself faces health and ventilation rules because of the chemicals involved. Those are not optional, and a shutdown over a violation costs far more than doing it right the first time.
Your income comes down to two things, how many chairs are full and how often clients rebook. A gel fill every three weeks from a loyal client is worth more than a stream of one-time walk-ins, so the work is really about turning first visits into standing appointments.
The rest, the booth-versus-salon math, the licensing steps, and how to build a rebooking client base, is in the full plan:
See the full nail salon plan →
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