How to price tanning memberships and packages: unlimited, packs, off-peak, upgrades and tax

Start from your own numbers, not a market average

We found no government or other primary source that publishes tanning prices or price benchmarks, as of 2026-09-29. Even the official industry count does not separate tanning out: the Census Bureau's 2022 NAICS index files tanning salons under code 812199, Other Personal Care Services, beside day spas, saunas, hair removal and tattoo parlors. A figure quoted as the average unlimited price has no verifiable source behind it, so this guide gives you the arithmetic instead.

Three inputs decide a sound price list:

• Your cost per session: lamps, power, cleaning supplies and the desk time a visit takes. Lamp cost per session is the price of a lamp set divided by its rated hours, times the hours a session runs. See tanning bed lamp replacement.
• Your capacity: how many sessions each room can actually run in the hours you are open, allowing time to clean between clients.
• What clients nearby can buy instead. Look at the posted prices of the salons and gyms near you yourself, and write down the date you looked.

Build a price ladder: single visit, packs, unlimited

A simple price list has three rungs. A single visit is the reference price. A pack sells a set number of sessions for less per visit. An unlimited plan sells a period of time. Each step down in the per-visit price should be paid for with a bigger commitment.

• Per-visit price of a pack = pack price ÷ sessions in the pack.
• Pack discount = 1 − (per-visit price ÷ single-visit price).
• A bigger pack should never cost more per visit than a smaller one, and a pack should never cost more per visit than walking in.

The prices in this guide's tables and examples are made up to show the arithmetic. They are not typical or recommended prices. Put your own prices into the same formulas.

If your packs carry an expiry date, how much of each pack clients actually use before it expires tells you whether the discount is earning its keep, which is covered at the end of this guide.

Price unlimited from its break-even visit count

An unlimited plan is a bet on how often members come. Work out the visit count where the plan and paying per visit cost the same:

• Break-even visits = unlimited price for the period ÷ per-visit price of your best pack.
• Effective price per visit = unlimited price ÷ visits members actually make in the period.

With the made-up prices above, a $60 month of unlimited breaks even against the 10-pack at 3.75 visits ($60 ÷ $16). A member who comes 8 times pays $7.50 a visit; one who comes twice pays $30. Your average visits per member is the number that matters, and you can only get it from your own records.

Three things cap how many visits unlimited can mean. The plan's own daily or weekly limit. The gap your salon requires between UV sessions, which is your policy and in some states the law (see the 24-hour tanning rule and tanning laws by state). And your capacity: if most members want the same evening hours, a cheap unlimited plan fills the rooms at the times walk-ins would pay full price.

Off-peak packages: price the quiet hours

An off-peak package is usable only at set days and times, for a lower price. It works when it fills rooms that would otherwise sit empty, and it loses money when it only gives a discount to people who would have come anyway.

1. Find the quiet hours. Count sessions by hour of the day and by day of the week over at least a few months.
2. Set the window to those hours only, stated in plain words on the package: which days, from what time, to what time.
3. Test the trade: an off-peak plan pays off if (new visits it brings × (its per-visit price − your cost per session)) is more than (visits that move from full price × the discount they get).

In TanVision, the Time of day report shows sessions, tickets and takings by hour in the salon's own time zone, and the Day of month and day of week report shows the weekday pattern.

Level upgrades: price the gap between plans

Levels are how a salon groups its equipment into price tiers, and each salon draws its own lines. Clients on a lower-level plan who want a higher-level bed pay an upgrade for that visit. Two checks keep the ladder honest.

• Upgrade point = (higher-level plan price − lower-level plan price) ÷ upgrade price per visit. A member who upgrades more often than that in a period would pay less on the higher plan. Offer it to them.
• No cheaper package should open a room that a dearer package refuses, or clients will buy the cheaper one.

Example with made-up prices: if the higher unlimited month costs $30 more than the lower one and the upgrade is $6 a visit, the upgrade point is 5. From the sixth upgrade in a month, the member is overpaying.

In TanVision, the access matrix sets, per room or per category, whether each package includes a room, charges a set upgrade price, or does not allow it. The desk sees the upgrade price at check-in and rings it up as a real sale, and the screen warns you if a cheaper package opens a room a dearer one does not.

Tax-included or tax-added prices

UV tanning carries a federal excise of 10% of the amount paid, which the salon collects and files quarterly on Form 720, according to the IRS indoor tanning services tax center. Whether your posted price includes it changes what you keep.

Under the Treasury regulation, 26 CFR 49.5000B-1, the total amount paid "is presumed to include the tax if the tax is not separately stated." The regulation's own example: a $15.00 tan with the tax added carries $1.50 of tax, and a $15.00 tan with the tax included carries $1.36 ($15.00 × 10%/110%).

• Tax added: the client pays price × 1.10, and you keep the price.
• Tax included: you keep price ÷ 1.10, and the tax is price − (price ÷ 1.10).
• To keep the same amount after switching to tax-included prices, raise the posted price by 10%.

The same regulation counts joining, enrollment and similar fees for a membership, and fees to freeze one, as amounts paid for tanning. The IRS questions and answers add that a prepaid membership is taxed even if the member never tans in that period, and that spray tans and lotions are not taxed. State or local sales tax is separate and follows your state's rules. Packages that mix UV with other services are covered in tanning tax bundles and exemptions, and the tax itself in the 10% tanning tax guide.

In TanVision, each UV package can carry its own excise rate beside its sales tax, set to be added on top of the price or already included in it. See tax and excise.

Introductory prices on memberships that renew

A low first-month price that later rises is a pricing decision with legal strings when the membership renews on its own. California's automatic renewal law, Business and Professions Code sections 17600 to 17606, requires the terms to be shown clearly before the sale, including that the charge may change and the amount it will change to, if known. When a promotional or discounted price lasted more than 31 days, the business must send a notice 3 to 21 days before that price ends. The one exception is a contract not made electronically where the business holds no email address, phone number or other electronic way to reach the consumer.

Other states and federal law add their own rules. Read tanning membership auto-renewal laws before you advertise an introductory rate.

In TanVision, a package's price, sessions and expiry are locked onto the client's membership at the moment of sale, so a later price change never rewrites what an existing client bought. A scheduled sale price runs between its start and end dates and goes back to the regular price on its own.

Check your prices against what clients actually do

A price list is a guess until you compare it with real use. Review these every month or quarter:

• Share of pack sessions used before expiry = sessions used ÷ sessions sold. A low share means clients are paying for visits they never take, and may not buy again.
• Days to use up a pack, from its first session to its last. If packs take far longer than you expected to use up, the pack may be too big for how often your clients tan.
• Sessions owed = paid-for sessions not yet taken. It is a liability: money in the bank for visits you still have to give.
• Average price actually paid per package, after discounts, against its list price.

In TanVision, the Package revenue report shows, for each package sold in the range you pick, how many were sold, what they brought in, the average actually paid, how many are still live and the sessions still owed. The Package life report covers every package ever sold: the share of its sessions used and, for finished packages, the average days from the start date to the expiry date, or to today for a package with no expiry. Discounts given reads back what every sale took off. They are all in reports, and the tanning salon KPIs guide covers the rest of the numbers worth watching.