What is a Shared Workspace Salon™?

“Shared Workspace Salon™” is a name we came up with, so if you look around one of our floors and think “okay… but what IS this?” that’s fair. Since we named it, the least I can do is define it properly and then be honest about how it compares to everything else you’re weighing up.

The short version is in the box above. Here’s the longer one, including why it exists at all.

Who this is for, and who should wait

This is for a licensed beauty pro with their own book who wants to own the business without giving up the people around them. It’s not the right step for a pro straight out of school building a first clientele, or for someone who wants to work completely alone, since a suite is honestly the better alternative for them.

I say it plainly: “When you’re first leaving school, you probably don’t need to go independent. You need to go to commission. If you like a lot of alone time and don’t want the community of a salon, maybe a suite is right for you. We’re not for everyone, and we don’t want to be.”

Why did bex+Co. need something else?

The short answer is that every setup I worked in cost me something I refused to give up forever. I spent twenty years behind the chair and worked pretty much every version of this job. I took a commission chair and let somebody else set my prices, I rented a booth inside another owner’s salon, and I watched friends lease private rooms and disappear behind a door.

Here’s what each one cost me...

Commission cost me control. Booth rent handed me the control and took away every bit of support that came with it. And a private room gave me both and took away the people.

All three are real businesses, and good people do well in every one of them. I just didn’t want to keep making those trades.

Here’s how I tell it: “There was either commission or there was booth rent. So I built a third category, a Shared Workspace Salon™. It brings people together, it creates community and collaboration, and it supports stylists the way I needed to be supported.”

So I opened the first Shared Workspace Salon™ in Austin, the version I’d wanted the whole time. You get your own station on one open floor, and your business, your prices and your clients stay yours. The floor around you is stocked, cleaned and running, with other pros on it all day.

What does a bex+Co. membership actually include?

Your membership means your own station, your own key and 24-hour access, per bex+Co.’s current membership terms, plus everything stocked around you: backbar, towels, capes, trays, cleaning supplies and professional cleaning of the space.

You bring your color and your tools.

In Module 1 of my course, I tell students to avoid any contract longer than three to six months, and I tell them bex+Co. itself only asks for 60 days, to protect their flexibility. Every member also keeps 100% of service revenue and earns 15% commission on retail, per those same terms, with no long-term contract to sign.

Your clients stay yours.

Then there’s the business side, which is honestly the part I care about most. The Beauty Empire Blueprint™ covers pricing, marketing and money, and your bio and booking link go on bexandcosalon.com, where clients are already searching.

Who is a Shared Workspace Salon™ for?

A Shared Workspace Salon™ works best for a licensed beauty pro who wants to own their business without working completely alone. That means hair, color and extensions, and also makeup, esthetics, brows and lashes, for every gender and at every stage of a career.

I built this floor around what stylists actually need, and here’s how I put it: “I’ve been a stylist for 20 years, and I know what stylists need. Someone who’s shampooed hair, who understands what a sink feels like, why a chair needs to work the way it works.”

The pros who do well on our floors tend to have two things in common. They want to own their business, all of it, prices and clients and calendar, and they don’t want to do it in silence. If you’ve ever thought “I want out, but I don’t want to sit alone in a room all day,” that gap is the entire reason this exists.

What does a day actually look like?

Your day on the floor runs on your own key, your own schedule and your own bookings, with the backbar and towels already handled. You let yourself in whenever your first client is booked, whether that’s six in the morning before a wedding or a Sunday afternoon.

And your station is set up the way you left it.

To me, the schedule belongs to whoever holds the key, and that includes the evenings after the other salons have locked up. It’s on the checklist I teach in Module 1, too: ask any space about its hours and key access before you sign.

You take your own bookings, charge your own prices and run your own card. And somewhere on the floor there are other pros doing exactly the same thing, which is how you end up with a second opinion on a color correction in the afternoon, and an overflow client on a weekend you’d otherwise have turned away.

How does it compare to a suite, a booth and a commission chair?

A Shared Workspace Salon™ is different from a suite, a booth and a commission chair in four concrete ways: who sets your prices, who keeps your clients, who stocks your station, and who else is around you all day. I want to be careful here, because salon suites are good and plenty of pros are genuinely happy in one.

My rule for comparing them is simple: judge each option by who sets your prices and who stocks your station, and ignore the sales pitch. In Module 1, I have students ask every space what’s provided and who collects the money, and those two answers tell you a lot.

Here’s how the four setups line up...

The money works differently in each one too, so price the whole thing before you sign anywhere. Industry estimates from GlossGenius put average booth rent around $400 a month, ranging $250 to $1,200 by market. A national suite company published 2026 ranges of roughly $265 to $900 a week for a single suite. And Vagaro’s industry guide puts commission splits at 40% to 60% of what you bring in.

Whatever you tour, make them show you the total with every line on it.

• Booth rent: about $400 a month, ranging $250–$1,200, per GlossGenius.
• Salon suite: about $265–$900 a week for a single suite, per a national suite company’s published rate page.
• Commission: 40%–60% of what you bring in, per Vagaro’s guide.

Which difference matters most?

The difference that matters most is whether you want quiet or people around you all day, and both answers are valid.

It’s also the one difference nobody puts on a price sheet.

A private room buys you quiet, and some pros want exactly that. An open floor buys you people: someone to ask about a formula, someone to send an overflow client to, someone who gets it on a hard day. So if working alone all day sounds like relief to you, a suite is honestly the better alternative, and I’d rather tell you that than sell you the wrong setup.

For everyone else, here it is in one line: “At bex+Co., you are running your own business, but you’re not alone. You’re totally supported.” That’s exactly what I built it for.

★★★★★

At bex+Co.^® I have complete freedom over my schedule. It lets me actually enjoy my life outside of work, something I never had before. I've met some of my best friends here. It gave me confidence, support, and a community I didn't expect to find.

Where did the term come from?

The name started with the first salon I built, in Austin in 2015, and bex+Co. has kept it ever since. More than 100 independent beauty pros now work across seven salons around Austin, per bex+Co.’s own count, and the model is expanding into new cities.

You’ll see the phrase used loosely now, which is flattering and occasionally confusing. So for the record, the name means one open floor, your own station, your own key and your own business. Two stylists splitting one leased room is a different arrangement with a different name.

And if you’re somewhere in the middle of this decision, you’re not behind, since 48% of American hairdressers and cosmetologists already work for themselves, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Half the profession got here before you.

If you want the whole route mapped out, I laid out the eight steps in order, and when you start touring, ask everyone the same 10 questions. Us too.

• 48% of American hairdressers and cosmetologists already work for themselves, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.