The lash industry is known to have highly inconsistent pay. Some lash artists make minimum wage while some lash artists make over $100,000. We'll go over what might be causing the large differences in pay and what to expect as a lash artist. But if you're looking for a quick answer, the average esthetician salary in Nevada is $36,275 according to the NV Board of Cosmetology.
Pay Types
The first reason why the lash industry has such variable pay across different lash artists is the type of pay structures they are given. Here are the most common pay structures that a lash artist could have.
Commission
Commission plus tips is the most common pay type that we see in the salon industry. This means that you will receive a percentage of the service sale. For example: If you are at a 30% commission rate and the service you provided costs $100, you will receive $30 plus tips.
Tiered-Commission
This is similar to the commission pay structure. The only difference is that you will have tiers of commission based on your own performance (revenue that you brought to a salon within a time period). For example: a salon might have a 30%, 40%, 50%, tiered-commission system based on weekly performance. If you bring in anything less than $1000 in a week, you receive 30% commission ($300). If you revenue between $1000 - $1500 in a week, you would receive 40% ($400 - $600). If you revenue $1500+ in a week, you would receive 50% ($600+).
I picked common numbers for the percentages and the revenue per week, but they can realistically be any number that the salon sets.
Hourly Wage
Another common pay type is an hourly wage plus tips. Similar to most other jobs, you will receive a standard hourly rate whether you take clients or you do not. If you're hourly wage is $20 / hour and you work 40 hours, you will make $800 plus tips before taxes per week.
Salary
You do not see this pay structure often or ever in the salon industry as a service provider. If you do have this pay structure, you would get a set amount of money annually. For example, if you have a $60,000 base salary, you could take 100 clients or 1,000 clients in a year, but you would still receive $60,000 plus tips.
Independence
As an independent lash artist, you don't have any pay structure. You would act as your own business and your "salary" would just be the profit of your independent business. Your profit is your revenue (how much money you receive) minus expenses (the cost to run the business).
These pay structures all change how much you can make as a lash artist. Commission, tier-commission and independence can make you the most money, but can also make you the least amount of money. You could even lose money as an independent lash artist after your business expenses. Hourly wage and salary, are the safest options, but you can only make more money by receiving more tips. But you can always make more money by taking more clients, no matter the pay structure you're in.
Service Based Industry
The lash industry is also a service-based industry. Whether you are an independent lash artist or work for a salon, the amount of clients you have is up to you. In all pay structures, especially independent, tiered-commission and commission, the amount of clients that you take makes a difference on how much money you take home.
Here is a breakdown of each pay structure:
| Pay Structure Type | Riskiness | Opportunity | Comments |
| Commission | Medium | Medium | The amount of clients you take matters. |
| Tiered-Commission | Medium | Medium | The amount of clients you take matters. |
| Hourly | Low | Low | The amount of clients doesn't matter as much as the others, but taking more clients means you can get more tips. |
| Salary | Low | Low | You will most likely never encounter a service provider job with a salary. |
| Independent | High | High | The amount of clients you take matters greatly. Either you make profit, or you lose money, but your financial incentive is the greatest. |
Learn to lash better by taking our courses so you can take and handle more clients wherever you work.