Quoted rates run from about 1% to 20%. These three trace to a named source. Under each: who measured it, and what it can’t tell you. Checked October 7, 2026.
4%
Zenoti 2026 Beauty and Wellness Benchmark Report
Read with care. Zenoti’s customers skew toward larger multi-chair shops. A solo barber’s rate may be higher or lower.
Source 12.02%
Booksy survey, reported by Salon Today, 2021
Read with care. The article doesn’t define a no-show. It describes clients who don’t give a heads-up before missing an appointment.
Source 267.8%→78.6%
Cochrane review: 7 randomized trials, 5,841 participants
Read with care. These are medical appointments, not haircuts, and the authors rate the evidence moderate quality. It supports the direction of the effect, not a number for a barber.
Source 3A 15% to 25% rate for salons and barbershops is repeated across vendor blogs. We couldn’t trace it to a primary dataset, so it isn’t one of the three above. The traced figures sit far lower, and they measure different things: shop software data versus a survey.
If you’re a solo pro, your own calendar beats all of them. Count the empty slots from the last 90 days.
Appointments a month, times no-show rate, times average ticket. An illustration, not a forecast:
100×4%×$34=$136
Change any of the three and the answer moves with it. The calculator runs it on your numbers, by trade.
Open the no-show cost calculatorFound a better primary source, or an error? Email nate@mside.co and we’ll fix the page. Morningside sells booking software with no-show recovery texts, so we have a stake in this topic. That’s why every figure is linked.
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