Grooming guide
Match your breed to a grooming budget
Coat type decides almost everything about how often you'll groom and what it costs. Here's the upkeep and budget for each coat family, and how to pick one you can live with.
- 5
- main coat families
- ~$200–$950
- annual range by coat
- 4–6 wks
- curly-coat interval
The short answer
Coat type sets both how often you groom and how much each groom costs, so choosing a coat is really choosing an annual budget.
- Short
- baths, no haircut, low cost
- Double
- heavy shed, deshedding visits
- Curly
- monthly groom, highest cost
- Wire
- hand-stripping or clip
Coat classifications come from AKC breed standards; cost from PlainPetCare's grooming model (per-groom price × realistic frequency).
According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics regional cost-of-living data, pet-care prices swing by roughly 50% between budget and luxury metros; PlainPetCare models more than 3,800 metro-level grooming, boarding, and training price estimates across 121 U.S. metro areas and 140 dog breeds, last refreshed April 2026. See our methodology.
Coat type is the whole decision
When people talk about a breed being high or low maintenance, they almost always mean the coat. Pulled from AKC breed standards, coats sort into a few families, and each one carries its own grooming cadence and cost. Before you fall for a particular look, it's worth knowing what that look commits you to for the next decade.
Short and smooth
Beagles, Boxers, smooth Dachshunds, and most pointers. These coats shed rather than grow, so there's no haircut and very little matting risk. Upkeep is mostly brushing you can do at home plus a handful of professional baths and nail trims a year. This is the cheapest coat to own.
Double coat
Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds, Huskies, and the spitz breeds. A dense undercoat under a longer top coat means heavy seasonal shedding. The work here is deshedding and blow-outs rather than clipping, and you should never shave a double coat down to fix shedding. These dogs need regular professional deshedding visits, especially in spring and autumn.
Curly and continuous-growth
Poodles, Bichon Frises, and the popular doodle crosses. The coat grows continuously and mats easily, so it has to be brushed out, clipped, and styled on a tight cycle of roughly four to six weeks. This is the most demanding and most expensive coat, and skipping intervals quickly leads to painful matting and a shave-down.
Wire
Many terriers and schnauzers. A wiry topcoat is traditionally hand-stripped to keep its texture, which is specialised work, though many pet owners opt for clipping instead. Either way it's a regular professional service, sitting in the middle of the cost range.
Long and silky
Yorkshire Terriers, Shih Tzus, Afghan Hounds. A long flowing coat tangles without daily brushing and needs frequent professional trims to stay manageable. Many owners choose a shorter practical clip precisely to bring the upkeep and cost down.
Modelled annual grooming spend by coat type
Matching a breed to a budget you'll actually keep
The honest test isn't whether you can afford one groom, it's whether you'll keep up the cadence. A curly coat groomed on schedule is lovely; the same coat groomed late is a matted, costly problem. If your budget or your patience is limited, a short or wire coat is far more forgiving than a curly one. Choose the coat that fits the routine you'll really maintain, then look up your specific breed's band to put a number on it.
Frequently asked questions
Which coat type is most expensive to groom?
Curly, continuously growing coats, Poodles, Bichons, and doodle crosses, are the most expensive. They mat easily, can't shed their way clean, and need clipping and styling every four to six weeks. The combination of a high per-groom price and a high visit frequency makes their annual cost the highest of any coat type.
Which breeds are cheapest to keep groomed?
Short, smooth-coated breeds like Beagles, Boxers, and smooth Dachshunds. They have no haircut, low matting risk, and only need a handful of baths and nail trims a year. Most upkeep is brushing you can do at home, so the professional bill stays low.
Can I groom a high-maintenance coat at home to save money?
You can stretch the professional interval by brushing well between visits, which is the single most effective way to lower a curly or double coat's cost. Full clipping and styling of a continuously growing coat is a learned skill, though, and a bad home clip often costs more to fix. Most owners do maintenance brushing at home and leave the full groom to a professional.
Pick a coat you can keep
Put a real number on your breed's grooming before you commit.
- Look up your breed's coat and grooming band. Browse breeds
- See the most grooming-intensive breeds. Grooming rankings
- How often does each coat really need a groom? Grooming frequency
All figures are modelled planning estimates, not quotes, confirm prices with local providers.
Every figure on PlainPetCare is rendered directly from AKC breed data and industry pet-service pricing surveys, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on AKC breed data and industry pet-service pricing surveys, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.
Coat type and breed attributes come from AKC breed standards; grooming costs come from PlainPetCare's model (national base rates × coat complexity × a regional cost-of-living index). See methodology.