If you’ve ever had a pipe unexpectedly burst or accidentally given yourself an uneven haircut, you know the importance of a service business.

Service businesses primarily trade on valuable skill sets and accumulated experience, rather than products. Successful services businesses marry business skills with service quality to provide customers solutions to any number of issues.

If you’re great at something that many people need (tax filing, snow shoveling, wedding planning, hair styling), you may be considering starting your own business centered around those professional services. Learn how to start a service business.

Types of service businesses

Service business ideas typically fall into a few categories:

• Marketing services. Broad business services, including social media management, copywriting, and market research.

• Personal services. Individual-level help, including cooking, pet sitting, and personal training.

• Cleaning and repair services. High-demand and often high-expertise services like auto and watch repair or car detailing.

• Family services. Family- and children-focused care, including birthing help and tutoring.

• Pet care. Groomers, dog walkers, pet sitters, and more.

• Administrative services. Focused on organization and efficiency, like bookkeeping and virtual assistance.

• Fashion and beauty services. Often a more specialized offshoot of personal services, including makeup artists and wardrobe stylists.

• Health and wellness services. This category is broad, including gyms, yoga classes, wellness retreats, massages, and more.

• Event services. Covers everything that goes into an event, from planning to catering to flower design.

• Creative services. A wide-ranging category that covers creative skills like graphic design, photography, and music.

How to start a service business

1. Identify your business goals
2. Write a business plan
3. Secure financing
4. Register your business
5. Create a website
6. Set your pricing plan

As with any business, a service business starts with an idea. After you find your niche, follow these steps to launch your company:

1. Identify your business goals

The first step in any new business venture is to identify your goals. These can be lofty (i.e., boost self-esteem, one haircut at a time) or grounded (i.e., help five local businesses thrive through better social media marketing by the end of the year). Craft goals that reflect your initial reasons for starting a business and are strong enough to continually guide your business decisions.

Use the SMART framework (which ensures goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) to detail your desired results and provide a framework for how to achieve them.

2. Write a business plan

Next, write a business plan. Use a template or outline to create a document that captures your goals, strategies for achieving them, and the ideal timeline.

Include these core elements in your business plan:

• Executive summary. Your executive summary is a synopsis of your business plan, summarizing your company, history, services, financials, and future plans.

• Company description. Describe your business and what you hope to achieve. Consider including your business model, industry, business structure, vision, mission, value proposition, objectives, and team.

• Market research. Market research provides insight into the strength, opportunities, size, and competition of your chosen market. You can cite government statistics, academic research, and news outlets in your industry.

• Management and organization structure. Describe your current and future legal structure, employees and their responsibilities, and an organizational chart to show the relationship between teams.

• Services. Though you’ll likely mention your services throughout, include a section with detailed descriptions of all your offerings.

• Ideal customer. Specify who you’re trying to reach and why. Create an ideal customer profile, and include specific details about them, such as where they live, how they spend their free time, how much they earn, and their values.

• Marketing plan. Your marketing plan will cover your prices, how you’ll sell your services, and how you’ll promote them.

• Financial plan. Create a financial plan to outline your projected revenue, expected operating expenses, and possible funding options.

3. Secure financing

Depending on the type of service business you’re looking to start, you may need to secure external financing. For example, you might have more overhead if you need a physical space and commercial property insurance. Funding options include taking out a small business loan with a bank, crowdfunding among your supporters, or pitching individual investors.

To protect your company’s (and your own) finances, determine which types of business insurance are necessary for your industry. A business owner’s policy, for instance, bundles the most common types of coverage, including general liability, property damage, business interruption, and workers’ compensation. Service providers whose work can lead to harm or loss for their clients may need professional liability insurance.

*Shopify Capital loans must be paid in full within a maximum of 18 months, and two minimum payments apply within the first two six-month periods. The actual duration may be less than 18 months based on sales.

4. Register your business

Registering your business can be daunting if you’ve never waded into the world of federal or state legal paperwork. Here’s how to get started:

• Pick your business name. Aim for a memorable business name that’s relevant to your service offering and available as a domain and social media handle. This might simply be your name and a description of what you do (e.g., Jane Smith Window Washing) or more unique (e.g., Jane Loves Windows).

• Choose a business structure. How you structure your service business (e.g., a sole proprietorship or LLC) has legal, tax, and financial implications. Consult with a legal adviser if you’re unsure of the best structure for your business.

• Register with federal agencies. Register your business with the IRS to secure an employer identification number (EIN), also known as a tax ID number, and keep your business taxes separate from your personal information.

• Get certified. Depending on your service, you may need various local or state permits or certifications to do business. Check with your local agencies for guidelines; typically, you can learn more through the Secretary of State’s office or a dedicated business bureau.

• Register for taxes. Unless you’re doing business in Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, or Oregon, you’ll need to collect sales tax as part of your service business. To do that, you’ll need to register with your state’s revenue authority department online or by phone.

5. Create a website

Small business owners need a well-designed, memorable, and easy-to-navigate website. You don’t need to start from scratch—most website builders have specific templates and user-friendly editor tools. For example, Shopify’s Dawn theme is a fan favorite because of its simple, customizable layout and emphasis on visual storytelling.

After you select your hosting platform, register your domain name, and choose a template, create a basic landing page and add any relevant pages for your customers to browse, including:

• About page. An About page goes into more detail on your background, expertise, or big picture goals for the business.

• Contact Us page. Make sure customers can get in touch with you by providing your contact information and business address if you have a physical location.

• FAQ page. If your service requires background information, an explainer or frequently asked questions page provides additional insights on what customers can expect from working with you.

• Portfolio and proof. A portfolio of past work and social proof like client testimonials can highlight your expertise and boost customer confidence.

• Online booking and product pages. You can sell your services directly from your website (picture a package of classes at a yoga studio or access to an online cooking course). Consider also adding an ecommerce component to your offering, like merchandise, gift cards, or complementary products, to generate extra sales on top of your services.

A unified point-of-sale system, like Shopify POS, can make product sales, bookings, and deposits seamless for customers and easy for you to manage on the backend.

6. Set your pricing plan

There are two main components to consider when setting your service pricing: your profit margin and your competition. You’ll typically need to set a price that generates a profit but is comparable to what similar services charge. Follow a pricing strategy that makes sense for your brand and target market—whether charging higher to communicate quality or lower to attract more price-conscious customers.

How you communicate your prices will depend on the type of service business you start. Some businesses, like consulting and law firms, disclose rates after an initial conversation with a potential client to better reflect a project’s scope and budget. If your service is more straightforward (like an hourly or flat rate for landscaping projects, for example), consider including a price range directly on your website.