Cookie Cutters Haircuts for Kids Franchise
Profitable, award-winning children’s hair salons. Unmistakable playground-like interiors!
$75,000
$40,000
116
1994
Salt Lake City,UT
Neal Courtney
About Cookie Cutters Haircuts for Kids
Cookie Cutters is a fast-growing, award-winning children’s franchise that’s tremendous fun: there’s literally a playground in every salon. But this kids’ haircut franchise really brings home the bacon, too.
In fact, it’s top-ranked by Entrepreneur Magazine, ahead of every other franchise of its type.
A Cookie Cutters franchise can start out as just a “second income” for the household. But over 40% of its locations are owned by people who’ve successfully scaled beyond that, from just one salon to two, three or more outlets. That makes it a very substantial opportunity.
The franchise system's co-owners, Neal and Alexis Courtney, started out as franchisees themselves, building up to five territories, before finally buying out the founders in 2014. Now they’ve introduced state-of-the art tech and management platforms, and they train and mentor you all the way from finding a location to celebrating your success. With support like that, Cookie Cutters has expanded from just 25 outlets at the beginning of 2016 to 109 today.
With investment of typically around $200,000, children’s haircuts are high-touch and invulnerable to Amazon; disruption-proof. Highly profitable too, with the top locations earning an average net margin of 32.5%. And recurring revenue makes this a recession-resistant business as well. Children need haircuts and are highly brand-loyal.
Franchise Unit Trends & Revenue
116
8
$307,080
* in 2024
Franchise Fees
$40,000
Veteran's Fee: $38,500
5.0%
Gross Sales
1.0%
Gross Sales
Why Choose Cookie Cutters Haircuts for Kids?
Cookie Cutters stands out among hair salons for its low royalties (5% with no minimum), its financial transparency, and its unstinting support for franchisees. There are no fixed royalties, so the franchisors don’t make money if you don’t. For them, this is about building a business together. It’s about helping every franchisee scale the business, delegate to managers, gain new territories and grow.
This commitment to you is one reason that exactly zero litigations are reported in their latest Franchise Disclosure Document. Compare that with others.
Essentially, they've taken the charming, reliable, 26-year-old Cookie Cutters concept, and upgraded it fundamentally over the last six years. There are new billing, management, customer-service and planning platforms in place, allowing the model to be rolled out by newcomers in case after case. And if there are business challenges, the whole franchise system is still small enough for the owners to know everybody by name, and to welcome direct phone calls.
With that indoor slide and the fantasy cars and video game consoles and balloons, you don’t have to explain your identity to anybody. Your whole design is unmistakably all about children. But the business side of the equation, that’s where Cookie Cutters really stands out today.
Starting Costs & Investment Requirements
$132,000 - $339,000
$250,000
$75,000
Training & Support
The franchisee support includes:
- Site selection assistance (optional, through a national broker). Lease review, negotiating support with landlords.
- Grand opening support.
- Full store design package including all major features.
- List of approved suppliers for all fixtures, equipment, supplies and services.
- Bulk price for toy and fantasy equipment from national supplier.
- Proprietary operations, financial and POS software.
- Detailed confidential operations manual, used as main training text by a chief trainer who has been with Cookie Cutters for 10 years.
- 4 days of classroom and in-store training in Utah.
- Numerous training videos, checklists for HR techniques and customer relations, and other support tools.
- Annual national or regional seminars.
- Ongoing marketing plans and promotional calendars.
- About 20 pieces of collateral per month for social media, rolled out to all locations through Instagram and Facebook.
History
Cookie Cutters was founded by a mother of two named “Cookie” Shelton, together with her husband Larry, all the way back 26 years ago in 1994. As parents, the Sheltons knew how daunting it can be to cut children’s hair, but they also saw this as an opportunity. They created the first child-oriented interiors, the first fantasy-ride seating, and over the next 20 years they grew the franchise to a total of just over two dozen units. When they were ready to retire in 2014, they invited the Courtneys to take over; and at that point Cookie Cutters launched into the 21st century.
At the time of the buyout, not only had Alexis Courtney scaled her own Cookie Cutters location into the most successful multi-unit business in the Sheltons’ system, but her husband Neal Courtney had also worked for Famous Brands for 8 years by then. With current revenues over $400 million and with nearly 5,000 employees, Famous Brands is unquestionably one of the leading franchisors in the world. Neal held roles in finance, sales, and general management for Famous Brands International, becoming Chief Operating Officer and ultimately CEO. You might say that he understood a thing or two about managing a large, successful franchise system.
That was the marriage of opportunity and knowhow, and nobody has looked back since. The number of Cookie Cutters locations has roughly quadrupled, while every aspect of the business has been made more solid, better-documented, more modern and more replicable.
Ideal Candidate
The people who do best as Cookie Cutters owners are people who love children, and who have good business acumen; but most of all they are people who do well with teams. They include former teachers, stay-at-home moms, human-resource professionals and couples of all kinds who’ve decided to turn a new page together.
As a new franchisee, bring along your sense of loyalty, of leadership, and of belonging. Yes, you will get a list of HR and management techniques, and it will be helpful getting started. But you will really thrive if you can go beyond that. The “customers” include special-needs kids, and as challenging as these may be, they are also your best opportunity to win long-term repeat business. More often than not, your success with them will gain the trust of a whole family and carry over to all its children.
An equally important goal is to step up and be a leader for your stylists. These are often young moms working part-time hours. They appreciate the work-life balance the job offers them, but at the same time their lives may not be easy. Managing these relationships so that one stylist will jump in and cover for another, so everyone pitches in for everyone’s benefit. That’s the secret.
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