Please dig deep before you leap!!! I never would have accepted this positon had I knew the truth and wasn't lied to. - Salon Manager Ulta Beauty Employee Review

1.0
May 6, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great gratis and a 25% employee discount

Cons

I have a GM from hell, They have the salon with no receptionist, no cleaning crew, and they never provide any real hands on continuing education for their stylists. A class to introduce a new Redken Chromatics color is not high end hands on needed training. They want salon managers to keep hiring even though they are already staffed. Tell me how the hell is a manager suposed to run a salon without a receptionist and only have 110 budgeted hours among myself and 5- 6 stylist and 2 estheticians. That is roughly 70 hours once you take away 40 given to the manager. So you do the math each stylist would roughly get 10 -12 hours and their response is to keep hiring. WTF!!!! This company is cheap as hell. Imagine trying to give your client excellent customer service and literally you have to stop every minute to answer the phone everytime it rings. ANNOYING AS HELL to the client and myself as well.You put in a salon order things are back ordered or take 2-3 weeks to arrive. You will constantly be out of color and developer with only about 150.00 a week to order supplies to stock the salon. They are constantly having these terribly cheap promotions to get clients in however it creates a problem when the stylist level jumps because they do not want to pay anymore than the 50.00 M-W color,cut and style promotion.Just FYI if you apply for a Salon Manager job get clarification in writing. They will probably pay you about 19.00 an hour to work the hell out of you . Even though they pay you a set amount every two weeks that amount they quote you per week is exactly how much you have to do in sales behind the chair. So in essence its like your salon productivity amount is how you pay yourself. Not only will you manage the salon you will be a receptionist, a baby sitter for the stylists, a janitor, a teacher to give all their jam sessions, you will coach and mentor the team, make the schedule, keep track of payroll daily and if you don't maintain your budget you will hear from you GM and DM. Imagine felling like your running around like a chicken with you neck cut off and severly over worked. Think twice about taking this job. Oh and Ulta has an extremely high turnover for salon managers most only stay 2-6 months. That should tell you something.

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5.0
Apr 17, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Very simple job Great Management

Cons

I don’t have any cons

2.0
May 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

good benefits for full time employees from what I hear. hourly pay if commission goal isn't met which is nice for those building clientele

Cons

this could just be the case for my store, especially because it's a very high volume store, but as a stylist I don't feel valued at all. I expected this to some degree coming to a huge corporate salon, but the biggest issue is that they try to pretend they care about you. but at the end of the day, if you're not meeting the sales they want/growing quickly enough, they don't care about you as a stylist. if you don't already have an established clientele, business is highly unreliable as there is no late cancellation/no show policy. many services are underpriced in my opinion, making it hard to meet their sales goals as an entry level part-time stylist unless fully booked every day. all they care about is getting as many clients in and out and quickly and possible and they hire more stylists than there are chairs, making every day inconsistent and chaotic. the relative stability of hourly pay is commission threshold isn't met seems enticing for stylists still building a clientele, but the hourly pay is wildly inconsistent between stylists, even those of the same tier. as a stylist of over 3 years who moved and is starting over with no clientele, I make over $2 less per hour than a fellow stylist who just got her license a few months ago and started taking clients for the first time last week. you're better off working at a place like Great Clips or Hair Cuttery because at least they're honest about what they are.

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