Hi I’ve recently opened a parlour with my partner. We have set a percentage split of 70/30 with our artists. I have noticed that the guest artists we’ve had in were shocked when said what the split was. Being mew to the industry I need your advice. We supply of disposables everything other than machine, inks and needles. We are finding the split we decided is not financially working out for us with all. We took the split percentage decision from the first artist we let in our studio and am now wondering if our lack of knowledge has is effecting us or this is completely fair. Can you advice?,

Hi Charmaine, great question!

We have found that a 70/30 or 60/40 split is pretty much the average nowadays. Long gone are the 50/50 split days (unless the shop is providing ALL supplies to the artist).

This question/answer does also depends on the location of your shop, the quality/skill/experience of your artists, the quality of the supplies being used or provided which are all contributing factors to how much you/your artists charge.

In most cases, the studio/shop owner or owners are also tattoo artists, making their main income from tattooing and therefore they do not need a profit on the shop once bills/rent is paid. If you and your partner are NOT tattoo artists this is probably why you are finding the shop not financially viable as you are both trying to pay yourself a wage on top of the supplies, bills and rent.

If this is the case, we would advise focusing on creating a happy, clean and organised tattoo studio for your artists and guest artists to work in and in time (not overnight, mind) the shop will become a good success financially via the increase in new clients and returning clients.