Is this mobile nail appointment actually paying you? Free, no signup.
What the client pays for the service before any travel fee.
Each art nail is +2 min and +$2 of your time in the math.
Travel is the mobile tech's unpaid hole. Either bill it as a fee or the recommended price bakes it in.
Mobile nail appointments die on unpaid travel. An $85 gel set looks fine until the drive across town, the free French add-on, and the unbilled soak-off quietly eat it, so this calculator prices every appointment from every minute. Start with your bar: the minimum dollars per hour you will work for (45), plus a day take-home goal. Pick a preset: Gel full set ($85, 90 minutes), Acrylic fill ($65, 75), Spa pedi ($75, 75), or Press-on set ($55, 60). The add-ons card is the point of the tool: soak-off, French or ombre, chrome or cat-eye, hand-painted art by the nail, and charms, each with its minutes and fee, so gifted time shows up in amber. The getting-there card takes round-trip miles at vehicle cost, drive minutes, setup plus teardown plus admin, and the travel fee you charge. Results show a line-item breakdown, true cost at your bar, the recommended price rounded up to the nearest $5, and your true hourly rate with LOSING MONEY, UNDERPRICED, CLOSE BUT LEAKING, or PRICED RIGHT verdicts. The gut check grades your instinct quote, and the day planner turns the goal into appointments. No signup; runs on your phone.
Example only, not typical pricing. Gel full set preset at a $45 bar: $85 quote plus French (+15 minutes, +$10) plus a $15 travel fee. Committed time is 90 application + 15 add-on + 36 drive + 30 setup = 171 minutes = 2.85 hours. Revenue = 85 + 10 + 15 = $110. Vehicle cost = 18 x 0.67 = $12.06. True cost = 2.85 x 45 + 8 products + 12.06 = $148.31, so the recommended price is $150, rounded up to the nearest $5. Revenue of $110 is under true cost, so the verdict is LOSING MONEY, and the true rate is (110 - 8 - 12.06) / 2.85 = $31.56 per hour. Quoting $150 instead pays (175 - 8 - 12.06) / 2.85 = $54.36 per hour, which fires PRICED RIGHT. A $200 day goal at a $150 quote needs 200 / 26.69 = 7.49, rounded up to 8 appointments, which is 22.8 committed hours.
**Q** Why does travel time count as work?
Because a mobile appointment starts when you leave the house. In the example above, 36 of the 171 committed minutes are driving, plus 30 of setup and admin. Pricing only the application minutes is how techs end up working for $31 an hour.
**Q** How much should a travel fee be?
Enough to cover the vehicle cost and drive time, or zero if you bake it into the price. The tool prices both: a $15 fee shows as its own line, and the recommended price includes travel either way, so you can see exactly what free travel costs you.
**Q** Should soak-offs be free?
A soak-off is 20 minutes of your time with zero revenue unless you charge for it. The tool has a checkbox for soak-off included and a fee field (15 default). If the box is checked and the fee is zero, those 20 minutes land in amber as time you give away.
**Q** How do I price hand-painted nail art?
Enter the art nail count. The tool adds 2 minutes and $2 per nail to time and revenue automatically, so a 4-nail design shows up as 8 minutes and $8 instead of free. Chrome or cat-eye and charms work the same way with their own minutes and fees.
**Q** What does the day planner assume?
That every appointment today looks like this one. Eight gel sets to hit a $200 goal is a different day than eight press-on sets. Run each service type separately for honest numbers. ---