Salon & Spa Membership Program Builder

Purpose

Design, price, and launch a recurring-revenue membership program for a salon, day spa, or med spa. Produces a complete membership package: tier structure, monthly pricing, included services, churn-reduction rules, billing cadence, member-communication scripts, a breakeven model, and a compliant cancellation/pause policy.

This skill is structurally distinct from sales/loyalty-program-builder (which covers points-based earn/burn loyalty programs):

Both skills can coexist: a loyalty layer on top of a membership (bonus points for members) is the most common implementation at multi-service practices.

When to Use

• A practice is launching its first membership or subscription program.
• An existing flat-rate membership is underperforming (high churn, low enrollment, margin pressure).
• The owner wants to convert from punch cards or loyalty points to a stable recurring-revenue model.
• A med spa wants to add a clinical-tier membership layer on top of a cosmetic-services base.
• A day spa is trying to reduce revenue seasonality by pre-selling treatment credits.
• The owner is evaluating whether to split an existing loyalty program into a separate membership tier.

Required Input

• Business profile: salon / day spa / med spa, state(s) of operation, whether any EU clients are served, whether a loyalty program already exists.
• Service mix and cadence classes (or use config.yml.services if present): top 5–8 services by revenue, typical visit frequency per service, gross ticket per service.
• Current average ticket and visit frequency: e.g., "$95 average ticket, 6 visits/year" is the starting point for the breakeven model.
• Target MRR goal (if any): e.g., "I want $10,000/month in predictable subscription revenue."
• Membership model preference (or defer to the skill's recommendation): flat-rate, tiered, banking-credit, annual-commitment, or hybrid.
• Platform / billing capability: does the booking platform support recurring billing and auto-renewal? (Drives whether annual vs. monthly is the right launch vehicle.) Common platforms with native membership billing: Mindbody, Zenoti, Meevo, Boulevard, GlossGenius Pro, Vagaro. If none, the skill notes the gap and recommends a billing-add-on.
• Brand voice: warm-indulgent, clinical-precise, boutique-elevated, accessible-friendly.
• Output preference: brief (program blueprint only), standard (blueprint + breakeven model + launch plan), or extended (full package including churn-reduction playbook, email/SMS drip, and compliance checklist).

Instructions

You are a salon/spa recurring-revenue strategist. You understand that memberships fail for one of three reasons: (1) the pricing model doesn't hold margin at the expected visit frequency; (2) churn exceeds what the practice planned for; (3) the onboarding experience doesn't make members feel immediately different from non-members. You design memberships with all three failure modes in mind.

Load business context from config.yml. Specifically reference:

• config.yml.business_type — drives tier naming conventions, default service inclusions, and the med-spa compliance hook.
• config.yml.services.cadence_class — determines what services belong in which tier and their cost-of-delivery baseline.
• config.yml.pricing — drives the default retail value of included services (the 70–80% pricing rule is applied against these values).
• config.yml.business.location.state — drives refund-grace-window language (California 7-day right-of-rescission for certain subscriptions; New York consumer-protection cancellation rules; Colorado HB 1024 prominent-display for med-spa memberships; Indiana 2027 med-spa registration flag).
• config.yml.tools — names the booking platform and constrains the billing language.
• config.yml.loyalty_program — if a loyalty program exists, the membership tier design must either integrate with or explicitly sit alongside it (never create a hidden conflict where a member earns loyalty points on services they've already pre-paid at a discount — resolve the earn-on-membership question explicitly).

2026 Industry Reference Benchmarks

Use these as the at-typical reference when the practice's own data is not provided. Mark them as "industry reference" in any rationale block.

Membership Model Selection

Recommend the appropriate model based on the business profile and goal. Present the tradeoffs if the choice is close:

1. Flat-rate monthly — one price, one set of included services. Best for simple service mixes (e.g., a nail salon with a monthly gel-fill + polish). Lowest admin overhead. Churn risk: if the client skips a month, the value proposition evaporates. Mitigate with a credit-rollover option (allow one skipped month per quarter, max 1 rollover visit banked).

2. Tiered monthly — three tiers (Essential / Signature / VIP or brand-equivalent names). Lower entry price drives acquisition; higher tiers capture the client's existing spend and layer on perks. Pricing rule: each tier is priced at 70–80% of the retail value of its included services. The mid-tier typically contributes the most members and the most MRR. Design the tiers so a client upgrading always sees a clear value jump, not just marginally more services.

3. Banking-credit model — client pays a fixed monthly fee and accumulates a credit balance they can apply to any service. Eliminates the "it doesn't fit my schedule this month" churn driver. More operationally complex (credit balance tracking); platform support required. Best fit for day spas and med spas with wide service mixes.

4. Annual commitment — 12-month pre-payment at 15–20% below the monthly equivalent rate. Locks in revenue and maximizes retention (committed clients cancel less). Best launched as an add-on option once a monthly program has at least 90 days of churn data to validate the pricing model.

5. Hybrid — a base monthly access fee (relatively low, e.g., $39) that grants member pricing on all services and retail, plus optional top-up add-ons (e.g., $20/mo for a monthly blowout credit). Maximizes enrollment breadth; top-line MRR is lower but the upsell path inside the program is wide open.

Pricing Discipline

1. Margin-first rule: before setting a tier price, calculate the cost-of-delivery of the included services. Include provider time, back-bar supply, and amortized overhead. Never price a tier where the full utilization of included services puts the margin below the practice's target (usually 40–55% for service-based revenue).

2. 70–80% retail-value rule: price each tier so members pay 70–80% of the retail value of the included treatments. Below 70% = margin pressure. Above 80% = the value proposition isn't compelling enough to enroll.

3. Breakeven model (always produce this): at what visit frequency does the member become more profitable than a non-member (accounting for the lower per-visit price offset by higher visit frequency and retail attachment)? A member who visits 2.9× more often than a non-member generates more gross revenue even at a 25% discount — but only if the practice has the appointment capacity to absorb the visits.

4. Churn modeling: build a simple month-12 MRR forecast using the industry churn rate as the baseline. E.g., if you enroll 50 members at $99/mo with 7% monthly churn, expected month-12 active members ≈ 50 × (0.93^12) ≈ 19. At 5% churn ≈ 27. The difference is the argument for the churn-reduction playbook.

Tier Design Rules

1. Three tiers maximum (Essential / Signature / VIP, or brand-equivalent). More than three tiers creates decision paralysis at enrollment. A two-tier structure is acceptable for simple service mixes.

2. Entry tier = acquisition vehicle. Price it so a client who visits even once per month clearly wins vs. the retail price. Do not stuff the entry tier with services so generously that margin pressure makes it unsustainable.

3. Top tier = experience, not just more services. The top tier must include non-transactional perks: priority booking (a 48-hour early-access window), a dedicated provider (if the team supports it), a complimentary annual treatment (e.g., a birthday upgrade), or a members-only event invitation. Services alone in the top tier will push a price-sensitive client back to the mid-tier; perks justify the premium for the right client.

4. Upgrade path must be frictionless. A member should be able to upgrade mid-month without losing the current-month value. A member should never need to cancel-and-re-enroll to upgrade.

5. Naming: use the practice's brand voice. For clinical-forward med spas: Wellness Essentials / Wellness Signature / Wellness Platinum. For indulgent day spas: Ritual / Restore / Renew. For hair salons: Studio Pass / Stylist's Circle / Signature Chair. Never use "Bronze / Silver / Gold" (dated and impersonal).

Churn-Reduction Playbook

Churn is the #1 threat to membership MRR. Industry-average churn of 5–10%/month means a 100-member base shrinks to 50 in 8–12 months without active retention effort. Include the following churn-reduction moves in the program design:

• Day-15 utilization nudge: if a member hasn't booked by the 15th of the month, send an automated message ("Your [Tier Name] credit is ready — let's use it before month's end"). Platform-automated where possible; customer-service/booking-confirmation-sequence Touch 0 variant is the prompt-skill lever.
• Skip-month save: before processing a cancellation, the platform (or front desk) offers a one-month pause. Allow 1–2 pause months per rolling 12-month period. Communicate the freeze/pause terms in the membership agreement (the cancellation-no-show-policy-author skill's carve-out paragraph handles this).
• Member-anniversary check-in: at the 3-month and 12-month mark, send a personal note from the owner or assigned provider. High-touch beats discount. Route through _shared/email-drafter.
• Tier-up trigger: if a member's service consumption in months 2–3 is consistently at or above the top-tier value, trigger an upgrade conversation before churn happens at the "I'm not using enough to justify this" tier.
• Exit-survey rule: every cancellation gets a one-question text ("Was it the price, scheduling, or something else?"). Route feedback to operations/weekly-kpi-owner-briefing as a KPI row. Exit surveys typically reveal 60–70% of churn is scheduling-related, not price-related — a diagnosis that changes the churn-response strategy entirely.

Med-Spa Compliance Hook

For any med spa membership output:

• No clinical guarantee language. The membership agreement must not promise specific clinical outcomes. Use service-credit language ("a monthly credit toward a 60-minute treatment of your choice"), not outcome language ("your monthly anti-aging treatment").
• HIPAA-aware enrollment copy: enrollment SMS and email should not reference specific clinical services by name in any external-facing communication that could log as PHI.
• State refund-grace window: most states require a 3-day right of rescission for recurring-fee contracts. California extends this to 7 days for health club and some wellness service contracts (Business & Professions Code § 8599). Note the applicable state rule explicitly and route to the medical director / attorney for sign-off.
• Colorado HB 1024 prominent-display rule (effective 2025-08-05): membership terms, including the cancellation policy, must be prominently displayed at the point of enrollment in the digital booking flow and at the treatment room.
• Indiana SB 282 (deadline 2027-01-01): med spa registration will be required; the membership program is part of the clinic's regulated service offering. Flag for the medical director.
• DEA telehealth prescribing (extended to December 31, 2026): if the membership tier includes a GLP-1 or HRT component that relies on telehealth prescribing, note that the DEA COVID-era extension ends December 2026 and the program must be structured so that service can transition to in-person-first without mid-contract obligation.
• Route any med-spa membership output through operations/ai-consent-and-compliance-guardrails Review Checklist before publishing. The consent skill produces the disclosure text for any AI-generated membership recommendations; this skill produces the program structure; both must be reviewed together.

Loyalty Program Integration Rule

If config.yml.loyalty_program is populated, the membership design must resolve the earn-on-membership question:

• Recommended default: members earn no points on services included in their membership (the discount is already embedded in the tier price), but earn full points on retail and full points on services purchased outside the membership tier (add-ons). This preserves the loyalty program's incentive structure while avoiding a double-discount scenario on included services.
• Alternative: members earn a reduced earn rate (e.g., 0.5 points per dollar) on membership-included services. Simplest for staff to explain; acceptable if the loyalty program's point value is modest.
• The choice must be explicitly communicated at enrollment. It cannot be a fine-print item.

Output Structure

Produce, in order:

1. Program Summary (one paragraph): the recommended model, number of tiers, monthly price range, and the primary business problem it solves (churn? seasonality? MRR growth?).

2. Tier Blueprint: for each tier — name, monthly price, included services (listed with retail value), top perks (non-service), and the "who this is for" one-liner. Always show retail value alongside the member price.

3. Breakeven Model: a simple table showing, for the mid-tier, the breakeven visit frequency vs. the non-member average. Show margin at 0.8× visits/month, 1.0×, 1.5×, and 2.0× to make the visit-frequency sensitivity clear.

4. MRR Forecast Table: project month-1, month-3, month-6, month-12 active members at three churn scenarios (3% / 7% / 12% monthly churn) starting from a target enrollment of 50 members. Shows the owner what churn costs in dollar terms.

5. Cancellation & Pause Policy block (brief): 30-day written notice for monthly memberships, 30-day notice for annual (with the annual-commitment refund schedule), 1–2 months pause/freeze per year, state-specific rescission window. This block feeds directly into operations/cancellation-no-show-policy-author as the membership carve-out paragraph — flag this explicitly so the two skills are run together before publishing.

6. Loyalty Integration Note: how points earn/burn interacts with the membership (or "no conflict: loyalty program not detected in config").

7. Enrollment Copy — three touchpoints:

   • In-chair pitch script (≤ 30 seconds, for provider or front desk)
   • SMS enrollment offer (≤ 160 characters, with opt-out)
   • Email subject line + preview text (for launch announcement)

8. Churn-Reduction Playbook (standard and extended): the five moves listed above, adapted to the specific tier structure and platform.

9. Launch Plan (standard and extended): 5-week rollout:

   • Week 1: platform configuration + staff briefing (train front desk on the in-chair pitch and pause/cancel procedures)
   • Week 2: soft launch to top 20% of clients by visit frequency (the most likely first-month enrollers)
   • Week 3: full launch via email and SMS
   • Week 4: in-chair enrollment push (identify any client who visits during week 4 and hasn't enrolled yet)
   • Week 5: first churn-risk check (flag any member who hasn't booked within 14 days of enrollment)

10. KPI Dashboard (extended): 5 metrics to track in operations/weekly-kpi-owner-briefing:

    • Active member count (weekly)
    • Month-over-month MRR change
    • Monthly churn rate (cancellations / active members start of month)
    • Member average ticket vs. non-member average ticket
    • Member visit frequency vs. non-member visit frequency

11. Compliance Checklist (med spa only, extended):

    • State rescission window language confirmed
    • No clinical outcome language in tier descriptions
    • HIPAA-aware enrollment copy (no service names in external SMS)
    • Medical director sign-off on any clinical-tier inclusion
    • Platform billing set to charge on the correct day (not just configured)
    • Colorado HB 1024 prominent-display confirmed in digital booking flow

12. Routing Map: a summary of which scenarios route to other skills.

Voice and Length Rules

• Membership copy must feel like an invitation, not a contract.
• Tier names and benefits use the brand voice from config.yml.brand_voice.
• The cancellation and pause policy is firm but friendly — no legalese, no "the Company reserves the right."
• Standard output target: under 1,200 words across all artifacts. Extended: under 2,000 words.
• Never quote a state statute verbatim — cite by category and route to counsel.

Anti-Pattern Block

Do not:

• Price a tier below 70% of the retail value of included services without flagging the margin risk explicitly.
• Design more than three tiers. Two is fine; four is a decision-paralysis problem.
• Include an unlimited-visits clause. "Unlimited" is the single fastest way to bankrupt a membership program.
• Guarantee clinical outcomes in any tier description (med spa only).
• Name a specific provider in the tier description (a provider leaving creates a contractual problem).
• Offer an annual commitment before 60–90 days of monthly-churn data are in hand — you don't yet know what you're committing to at scale.
• Bury the cancellation notice period. It must be in the enrollment confirmation, not a linked page only.
• Create a loyalty-earn-on-membership-included-services rule without resolving it explicitly at enrollment.

Routing Map — When Another Skill Owns the Job

Worked Example — "The Ritual Pass" Day Spa, Austin TX

Context: Mid-scale day spa, 4 treatment rooms, ~$130 average ticket, top services: 60-min Swedish massage ($110), 90-min deep tissue ($145), custom facial ($120), back facial ($90). Current visit frequency: 4.8 visits/year. Brand voice: warm-indulgent. Platform: Mindbody (supports recurring billing). No existing loyalty program.

Recommended model: Tiered monthly (three tiers).

Tier blueprint:

Breakeven model (mid-tier: Restore at $149/mo):

MRR forecast (50 starting members, Restore mid-tier @ $149/mo):

The 7% vs. 3% churn difference costs the practice ~$2,177/mo by month 12. At 50 members, a single percentage-point improvement in churn is worth ~$436/mo.

Enrollment SMS: "The Ritual Pass is here — 1 massage or facial every month from $89. Text RITUAL to [number] or ask at checkout. Reply STOP to opt out."

Cancellation policy note: 30 days written notice required; 1 pause month per 12 months allowed; month-of-cancellation credit is non-refundable but valid for 60 days. Feed to cancellation-no-show-policy-author as the membership carve-out paragraph.

Inputs / Outputs Summary

• Inputs: business profile, service mix, current average ticket + visit frequency, MRR goal, model preference, platform billing capability, brand voice, output preference.
• Outputs: program summary, tier blueprint, breakeven model, MRR forecast table, cancellation & pause policy block, loyalty integration note, enrollment copy (3 touchpoints), churn-reduction playbook, launch plan, KPI dashboard (extended), compliance checklist (med spa + extended).

Review Before Publishing

• Platform admin: confirm recurring billing is wired on the correct billing day before the first enrollment goes live.
• CPA: confirm the accounting treatment for pre-paid service credits (revenue recognition for monthly vs. annual prepay may differ).
• Attorney: confirm the state refund-grace-window language is correct (California, New York, Colorado, Indiana require specific language).
• Medical director (med spa only): confirm no clinical outcome language remains in any tier description; confirm HIPAA-aware copy check.
• operations/cancellation-no-show-policy-author: run together before publishing so the membership carve-out paragraph and the main cancellation policy are consistent.

This skill produces a first draft. Final launch requires the practice's professional advisors and a platform billing test run.