Fifteen to twenty percent is standard for a barber in Canada. On a $35 haircut that is about $5 to $7. On a $50 cut and beard it is $7.50 to $10.
Below fifteen reads as “something was wrong”. Above twenty is for a cut you are genuinely pleased with, or for a barber you have been going to for years.
The quick version
| Cut | 15% | 20% |
|---|---|---|
| Line-up, $15 | $2.25 | $3 |
| Beard trim, $20 | $3 | $4 |
| Kids cut, $25 | $3.75 | $5 |
| Haircut, $35 | $5.25 | $7 |
| Skin fade, $40 | $6 | $8 |
| Cut & beard, $50 | $7.50 | $10 |
The Ontario shortcut
If you are somewhere that adds HST to the bill, that line is 13% of the pre-tax total. Match it and you have tipped about thirteen percent. Add half again and you are at roughly twenty.
It is a rough mental trick rather than a rule, but it beats doing percentages in your head while somebody holds a card machine.
Cash or card
Either is fine and nobody minds. Cash reaches the barber immediately and in full, which is the only real difference. If you are tipping on the machine, the prompts will usually offer a few percentages — the middle one is almost always about right.
Do you tip the owner?
Yes, if you want to. There used to be a convention that you did not tip a shop owner, and it has more or less gone. Nobody will be offended either way.
Where it genuinely matters is a barber who rents their chair rather than owning the shop, which is very common. They are paying the shop for the space whether the chair is busy or not, so the tip is going to the person who cut your hair rather than into a business that already took its cut.
If you did not like it
Say so, in the chair, before you get to the till. That is the useful thing — not the tip.
A reduced tip communicates nothing except that you were unhappy about something, and the barber will not know what. Most will fix a cut there and then for nothing if they know it is not right, and almost all of them would rather do that than have you leave quietly and not come back.
If it is already too late for that, tipping the normal amount and simply not returning is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. There is no obligation to reward work you did not like.
What actually matters more than the tip
Rebooking. A customer who books their next cut before standing up is worth far more to a barber than a good tip on this one, and it costs you nothing.
Saying where you got it done when somebody asks. That is how a chair stays full.
See what each cut costs · What a haircut actually costs in Sudbury · Book a chair