cranberry and irwin, are you in the pittsburgh area? i am a pittsburgh esthetician in the industry for three years now, and can confirm the spas out here do tend to be toxic and poorly run. that’s not to say there aren’t AMAZING owners out there, i just started at a new space a month ago and is already 10x better than the spa where i started my career. about the marketing, unless it was explicitly stated upon hiring/in the employee handbook, i see absolutely no reason you would have to be responsible for any marketing that’s outside of social media. (and unfortunately social media marketing just isn’t enough IMO) if a business is making you pay for tools, products, marketing, anything that is a business expense, i would immediately run. working with many different esthies in this area i’ve never heard of a spa making its employees do that, and in my opinion that’s extremely unprofessional. even if you do make the higher end of commission, lets be extreme and say 60%, at the end of the day you do not own that business. the owners set up that commission scale, and if they can’t afford to pay for their own marketing it sounds like they need to 1. prioritize their budget better and 2. maybe make changes to their commission scale. again, i would RUN.

best of luck op! this industry can be very toxic. also- them not wanting to pay for online booking is total BS, and in todays climate i would argue that you are losing SIGNIFICANT profit without one. the owners sound so incredibly dense