Monthly revenue and client mix

Net service revenue per month (bars) with new vs returning clients seated (lines), Apr 2025 – Oct 2026, both systems merged. Hover any bar for the month's numbers.

Week by week — last 12 covered weeks

Weeks run Mon–Sun, ending Nov 8, 2026 (the last complete week). Marks compare each week to the 12-week average: ▲ above (>+5%), ● within ±5%, ▼ below.

Trajectory

Growing year over year, slipping on momentum. Revenue for the last three complete months ran +57% above the same three months last year (the seasonal check) but -16% against the three months before (the momentum check). Part of that is the normal fall slowdown; the same months last year were also the soft season. What is not seasonal is the acquisition line below.

Divergence flag. New clients seated moved -40% on momentum and fell to 34 in October (vs 72 in October 2025), while leads kept arriving and returning visits held. The bucket is holding what it has but has nearly stopped filling: against the salon's own 12-month norm the gap is worth about ~$164,000 / yr. Cohort retention also drifted from 24.2% (2025) to 22.9% (2026), so the structural leak is still there underneath.

Paid acquisition

From the Meta ad account, snapshot pulled Nov 11, 2026. Blended CAC = ad spend divided by all new clients seated that month.

Spend held (October $2,476 vs May $2,760), but delivery efficiency slipped: frequency reached 4.01 (a yearly high), click-through fell to 5.06%, and lead volume dropped 43% from July — the signature of creative the audience has already seen. At the same time the share of followed-up leads that end up in a chair halved (16% (Jul) to 9% (Oct) of followed-up leads seated). The cost of a new client in a chair went from $20 in July to $73 in October. Against the observed 365-day client value of $616, trailing CAC gives 17:1 on revenue (365-day observed LTV $616) before commissions, so the economics are strong when both halves work.

Retention and client value

Constraints — ranked by annualized dollar cost

The single biggest constraint on growth right now is the new-client acquisition collapse that began with the August platform migration. Whatever the goal, these are the levers, largest first.

Not rankable from this data: the capacity ceiling (no staff-hours data; the roster shows ~10 active stylists on Phorest). Capacity is not the current bottleneck while appointments run below the summer level.

Notes — assumptions and data gaps

• Coverage. GlossGenius export spans Mar 30, 2024 – Nov 7, 2026; Phorest export spans Aug 5 – Nov 10, 2026. The salon migrated platforms in early August 2026, so the two are merged: GlossGenius through the migration, Phorest after it. Pre-Apr 2025 data is sparse, single-stylist (pre-buildout); kept so early clients are not miscounted as new, excluded from trend math.
• Revenue definition. Net service revenue = service line items + cancellation fees − discounts, pre-tax and pre-tip, identically on both systems. Excludes gratuity, processing fees, booking deposits (timing, not revenue), vouchers sold, and refunds. GlossGenius line items reconcile to its payment export within 0.49%.
• New client, two definitions. "Booked" = first ever order including booking deposits on either system (acquisition counts). "Seated" = first completed service checkout (retention, LTV and cohorts). 114 of 1,434 ever booked booked but never seated.
• Censoring. All retention and LTV windows observe only time before Nov 10, 2026. Mature cohort = first visit ≥ 90 days before data end.
• Wear-cycle check. Protective styles run 6–10 week cycles — but the median gap between actual visits is 52 days, comfortably inside 90 days. The wear cycle does not explain the retention gap.
• Deduplication. The two systems overlap from Aug 5, 2026; visits deduplicated on client + date and inspected within 3 days: 2 duplicate visits ($934) dropped in the migration overlap. Client identity matched on normalized name (neither export carries IDs), so true new-client volume is, if anything, lower than shown.
• Ad data. Spend and lead figures from the Meta ad account (snapshot Nov 11, 2026). CAC is blended: spend divided by all new clients seated. LTV:CAC uses net service revenue, not gross profit; the 3:1 working standard applies to the gross-profit version, which needs the commission split.
• Benchmark sources. Boulevard 2023 Salon Industry Client Retention Report (45% avg / 70% best ever-return; 39% reach a 3rd visit); Phorest Consumer Insights 2025 (29% 90-day rebook); Strategies (50% good / 60% excellent new-client; 75–80% existing-client). Published ranges, not targets set for this salon.
• Still missing. Commission split (owner economics), Phorest client list with IDs/email/phone, staff hours (utilization), no-show report.