To better understand how confident beauty professionals and beauty schools feel about their businesses, the Professional Beauty Association (PBA), in partnership with PBA Business Member Pivot Point International, created the Pro Beauty Pulse.
This monthly index tracks industry sentiment across W-2 beauty professionals, 1099/independent professionals, salon owners, and beauty school leaders. We also include data from The KIM Report, providing real-world salon performance results to complement sentiment insights.
The chart above reflects industry sentiment collected in May, based on how professionals perceived their business conditions in April.
For additional context, the data below—sourced from The KIM Report—shows actual industry performance for April.
Together, these offer a clear, side-by-side comparison of salon industry perceptions versus real-world results.
Year-over-Year Performance (April 2026 vs. April 2025)
- Average Revenue Per Salon: +2.02%
Month-over-Month Performance (April 2026 vs. April 2025)
- Average Revenue Per Salon: +3.11%
KEY TAKEAWAY:
April continued the positive year-over-year trend that has held since February, marking the third consecutive month of revenue growth above 2%. The all-salon revenue average is the highest monthly reading of 2026 so far and the strongest
April since at least 2024.
Revenue growth is once again ticket-led, with service volume essentially flat and retail continuing to face unit pressure.
Among school leaders, future confidence has followed a downward trend since January, with May marking the lowest level recorded this year. Recent, well-publicized challenges related to potential changes in the availability of future student loans and grants may be contributing to this decline in confidence.
The KIM Report aggregates data from more than 10,000 salons and solopreneurs, each with 24 consecutive months on the same software platform to ensure data consistency and reliability.
KEY TAKEAWAY
April continued the positive year-over-year trend that has held since February, marking the third consecutive month of revenue growth above 2%. The all-salon revenue average is the highest monthly reading of 2026 so far and the strongest April since at least 2024.
Revenue growth is once again ticket-led, with service volume essentially flat and retail continuing to face unit pressure.
STAY INFORMED
Explore more insights in The KIM Report, your source for real-world data and monthly performance trends shaping the professional beauty market.
