What Grooming Costs
Typical 2026 prices, and what actually moves them
What a Full Groom Costs
Ask three salons in the same town what a full groom costs and you can get three different answers, all of them honest. Grooming is sold by the hour even when it is priced by the dog, so the number on the board is really a guess at how long your animal is going to take.
Here is roughly where those guesses land in 2026.
| Size | Full groom | Roughly who that is |
|---|---|---|
| Under 25 lb | $40 to $80 | Most toy breeds, small terriers, small crosses |
| 25 to 60 lb | $70 to $110 | Spaniels, Border Collies, mid size crosses |
| 60 to 100 lb | $90 to $140 | Retrievers, Shepherds, Standard Poodles |
| Over 100 lb | $120 to $180 | Newfoundlands, Saint Bernards, Great Pyrenees |
A bath and brush with no haircut runs about $40 to $90 on the same scale. Mobile grooming, where the van comes to you and your animal is the only one in it, adds something like $20 to $40.
Why the Coat Matters More Than the Size
Weight is the first question a salon asks because it is the easiest one to answer over the phone. It is not the one that moves the price most.
A 70 pound Labrador can be washed, dried and out of the building in well under an hour. A 20 pound Doodle can take twice that, because a curly coat has to be brushed out to the skin before a blade touches it and then scissored rather than clipped. Curly and wavy coats commonly add 20 to 40 percent over a short coated dog of the same weight, and that is before anything has gone wrong.
Double coats are their own case. A Husky or a Golden in full coat blow is mostly drying and de shedding time, which is why salons often price that as its own service rather than folding it in.
Shedding, coat blow and what de shedding actually involves
If you are trying to work out which of these you have, the coat is the useful thing to look up rather than the breed name, and it works the same way on a cat.
What the Price Normally Covers
A quoted full groom almost always includes the bath, the blow dry, a brush out, nails, a wipe of the ears, a sanitary trim and a tidy of the feet and face. If a salon quotes noticeably below everyone else, that list is the thing to ask about.
These are usually charged on top:
- A de shedding treatment during coat blow
- Hand stripping on a wire coat, which is slow and skilled work
- Teeth brushing, nail grinding and flea baths
- Anything that takes a second pair of hands
None of that is padding. Hand stripping a terrier properly can take longer than clipping three dogs, which is why so few salons offer it and why the ones that do charge accordingly.
Matting Is the Charge People Argue About
This is the one that turns into a conversation at the counter, so it is worth knowing how it works before you are standing there.
Light matting is usually a flat surcharge, somewhere around $15 to $50. Past that, most salons stop charging a fee and start charging time, commonly $10 to $30 per fifteen minutes, or an hourly rate in the region of $50 to $90. That is not a penalty for turning up with a matted dog. It is the honest way to price a job whose length nobody can predict until the coat is wet.
The part that surprises people most: when a coat has felted to the skin, shaving it off is the kind answer and often the only legal one. Combing out a solid mat means dragging it away from skin it is already pulling on, and the skin underneath is frequently sore before the animal ever arrives. A groomer who shaves your dog and charges you for the time has done right by the animal, even though it does not feel that way in the moment.
Plenty of salons also work a three strike rule and will stop taking a dog that arrives badly matted a third time. Booking before the coat needs rescuing is cheaper than any of this.
Cats Cost More Than People Expect
Owners are often taken aback that a cat groom is dearer than a dog groom, and it usually is. A standard professional cat groom runs about $75 to $180, with a national average nearer $122. A sanitary trim on its own is $20 to $35. A lion cut, which is a full body shave leaving the head, feet and tail tip, runs $150 to $250.
The reason is handling rather than hair. A cat cannot be told what is happening, does not get talked round, and a groom that goes badly is dangerous for the animal and for the person holding it. Salons that take cats at all tend to be the ones with somebody trained specifically for them, and often work in pairs.
Long coated cats are also worse for matting than most people realize, because a cat grooms itself right up until the day it cannot. Mats behind the elbows and along the back end are usually the first sign that an older cat has stopped reaching.
How to Spend Less Without Cutting Corners
Almost every large grooming bill started weeks earlier, so the savings are back there rather than at the counter.
- Keep the interval. A coat groomed on schedule is a bath and a trim. The same coat left twice as long can be a de matting job at an hourly rate.
- Comb, do not brush. On a curly or double coat a slicker skates over the top and leaves the felt forming underneath. A comb that reaches skin is what tells you the truth.
- Say what has been happening. If the dog has not been combed in a month, say so when you book. It changes the slot you are given and stops the price changing on the day.
- Get the quote with the animal in front of them. A price over the phone is given without seeing the coat, and the coat is the job.
Working out how often your particular breed actually needs booking is the single biggest lever on the yearly total. That answer sits on each breed guide, because it is different for a Poodle and a Labrador and useless as an average. It is also the reason the four to six week rule of thumb costs some owners money and costs others a coat.
How often your breed actually needs booking · Starting a puppy off right · Keeping up with it at home
Prices Are Local, These Numbers Are Not
Everything above is a national picture, and nobody pays a national average. Two salons a mile apart can differ by thirty dollars on the same dog because one has a bigger drying room and the other does not take walk ins.
The only way to know is to ask two or three near you, with the same description of your animal and its coat each time.
Check the Breed
The schedule, the routine and what tends to go wrong on your own dog or cat.
Find your breed →Ask Someone Near You
Grooming salons by state, county and town, so you can compare two or three locally.
Find a groomer →