BIAB Pricing: What to Charge in 2026

BIAB (Builder In A Bottle) is now on almost every Irish nail tech's menu. Which is great — except half the industry is still pricing it like it's 2021.

Product prices have gone up. Your skill has gone up. Your rent has gone up. Your BIAB price, probably, hasn't. Let's fix that.

What you're actually selling

A BIAB service is:

• Prep (cuticle work, filing, dehydrate)
• BIAB application (1–2 coats + top layer)
• Colour or finish (if included)
• Cure time
• Your skill and sanitation overhead

A proper BIAB full set takes 60–90 minutes for most techs. Anything under 60 is usually rushed. If you're charging €35 for a 75-minute job, you're making €28/hour before product, rent or tax. That's not sustainable.

The 2026 Irish BIAB pricing ranges

Based on nail techs across Dublin, Cork, Galway and regional Irish towns:

• BIAB overlay, natural (no colour, no extension): €40–€55
• BIAB with gel polish colour: €50–€70
• BIAB with basic nail art / french: €55–€80
• BIAB with extensions (tip-based): €65–€95
• BIAB infill / rebalance (3–4 weeks): €35–€55
• BIAB removal and soak-off: €15–€25 (separate line)

Dublin city and high-end studios sit at the top of each range. Regional and home-studio techs trend to the middle. Below the bottom of the range, you're undercharging almost certainly.

How to move your prices without losing clients

The fear of a price rise is worse than the reality. Every nail tech who has done this with their existing client base tells you the same thing afterward: maybe 5% grumbled, maybe 1% left, 94% didn't even comment.

The mechanics:

1. Give 4 weeks' notice in a friendly message
2. Post it on Instagram stories once, plainly
3. Explain the why briefly — product costs, time, etc.
4. Grandfather nothing — clean break works better than carve-outs

Script:

"Quick heads up — from 15 May, my BIAB full set is going from €50 to €60, and infills from €40 to €45. Product prices have gone up and so has the time I spend on each set. Thanks for understanding — see you at your next appointment!"

Do this every 12–18 months. A €2 annual increase quietly beats a €10 jump every five years.

Infill pricing logic

A common mistake: charging infills 40% less than a full set even though they take 75% of the time. Do the maths:

• Full set, 75 mins, €55 = €44/hour
• Infill, 55 mins, €35 = €38/hour

The infill is actually your worse revenue line. Flip that:

• Full set, €55
• Infill, €45 (roughly 80% of full set)

Clients don't flinch at this. They compare infill prices to nothing because they don't price-shop infills.

Add-ons, properly priced

Add-ons are where margins live:

• Nail art (simple, 2 nails): €5–€10
• Nail art (elaborate, full set): €15–€40
• French / ombre: €10–€15
• Chrome / cat-eye: €5–€10
• Removal (from previous): €10–€20
• Repair (per nail, mid-cycle): €5 each

List these as specific line items, not "extras". Clients will pick them more often when they see the exact price. Mystery pricing kills upsells.

Deposit and no-show economics

Even a €15 deposit on a €60 BIAB set cuts no-show rates by roughly two thirds. That math: at 10 bookings/week, even a 5% no-show rate saves you €30/week or €1,500/year — on deposits alone, ignoring the fact that the slot can now be rebooked.

Chairpilot lets you set different deposit rules per service — a flat €10 on infills, 25% on full sets, 50% on correction work. Takes two minutes to set up, pays for itself in a month.

The retention maths

A €55 BIAB client rebooking every 4 weeks = €715/year. Times 50 regulars = €35,750/year in recurring revenue. Retention isn't a nice-to-have — it's the entire business.

Nudge at week 3, book them in before they leave the studio, keep the cadence tight. If you lose 10 of those regulars over a year because your rebooking flow is weak, that's €7,000+ gone.

Set your prices. Set the deposit. Set the rebooking rhythm. The rest is showing up and doing the work.

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