1. What you receive. The deal price is your full price less the discount. The deal site then keeps its share of that. What is left is what you receive.
2. What the visit earns. Take your cost to deliver the treatment from what you receive. That is the margin on the deal visit. Do the same with your full price to get the margin on a full-price booking.
3. What a return is worth. A client who comes back pays full price, so their spend over the next year earns your full-price margin rate. A treatment that keeps 70% of its price after costs keeps 70% of what a returning client spends.
4. The break-even return rate. Take the deal margin from the full-price margin. Divide the gap by what one return is worth. That is the share of deal buyers who must come back for the deal to earn what a full-price booking earns.
Example. These figures are ours, for illustration. The 40% share is not any deal site’s rate. A treatment sells for $400 and costs $120 to deliver. At 50% off, the client pays $200. If the site keeps 40% of that, you receive $120, and the deal visit earns $0. The same visit at full price earns $280. A returning client who spends $400 in a year earns you $280. So the gap of $280 ÷ $280 gives a break-even return rate of 100%. If 15% come back, each deal buyer earns you $42 on average, against $280 for one full-price booking.
Our guide to full-price bookings vs discount deals covers the costs that do not show on the deal invoice, and ways to win new clients without a discount. This is not accounting or tax advice.
