New York salons expand mandatory service fees as hidden-charge scrutiny grows

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Highlights

Hair & Co BKLYN recently increased its mandatory service fee from $8 to $9, applied on top of advertised haircut prices and now linked to business costs beyond sustainability.
U.S. consumers annually spend over $90 billion on surcharges and junk fees, with such charges growing common in salons as inflation persists and businesses seek revenue-maximizing strategies.
The Federal Trade Commission's 2025 all-in pricing rule will apply to ticketing and hospitality, but proposed New York City regulations on mandatory fees in advertised prices for salons remain pending.

Salon fee disclosure and pricing structure

As reported by Business Insider, a customer who booked a bang trim at Brooklyn-based Hair & Co BKLYN for an advertised $20 found an additional $8 "environmental service fee" added at checkout, bringing the actual charge to $28 before any tip.

The fee did not appear prominently in the customer's emails or texts, and a stylist initially said it should have been disclosed in a confirmation message. After reviewing the salon's website, the customer found mention of the charge under policy information rather than in the main advertised service price.

Hair & Co owner Allyson Hurley says the charge is a mandatory cost of doing business and says it is disclosed in the booking form customers sign. She also says rising post-pandemic expenses in New York City make it difficult to absorb those costs into the listed haircut price while keeping services affordable.

The salon had previously linked the charge on its website to Green Circle Salons, a sustainability program for beauty businesses focused on waste recovery and recycling. Green Circle says by email that Hair & Co is part of its movement but that its program is currently paused; since then, Hair & Co has removed that reference and now says the fee, no longer labeled environmental, relates to water-conserving showerheads and color management software. The salon has also raised the charge to $9.

Broader fee trends across consumer services

Surcharges and so-called junk fees remain widespread across the U.S. economy, with one estimate putting annual consumer spending on such charges above $90 billion. These fees appear across ticketing, hotels, banking, telecommunications, flights, food delivery and car rentals, and they are increasingly showing up in salons as well.

Stanford economist Neale Mahoney says less-transparent pricing is spreading as businesses copy revenue-maximizing tactics, online shopping creates more chances to add fees, and inflation pushes companies to seek new ways to cover or exceed rising costs. He says current laws do not fully address these practices, while research indicates consumers are more likely to complete purchases when extra charges appear late in the process.

That structure, often called drip pricing, makes comparison shopping harder and can discourage customers from abandoning a purchase after they have already invested time in the transaction. Columbia Business School marketing professor Vicki Morwitz says consumers tend to overestimate the hassle of starting over and underestimate the benefits of finding a better offer.

Regulators are responding unevenly. The Federal Trade Commission implemented an all-in pricing rule in 2025 for ticketing and hospitality platforms including Ticketmaster, StubHub and Airbnb, while California requires most businesses to include mandatory fees in advertised prices. In New York City, a proposed rule would bar businesses from misrepresenting the nature, purpose, amount or refundability of fees and would require charges to be included in advertised prices, but that rule is not yet in effect.

Mandatory salon surcharges are also becoming more common industrywide. One recent industry survey finds about one in four salons nationwide are sharing a green fee with clients, averaging $2.98, suggesting the practice is moving beyond isolated operators and becoming part of a wider beauty-sector pricing strategy.

Earlier, we reported that U.S. toy prices rose 6.6% year-on-year as tariffs and shipping costs pressured shelves ahead of the holidays.

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