Blog
No listicles about posting more. Practical pieces about the things that actually change the number on your calendar: rebooking, being findable, protecting the book you already have.
Booksy looks cheap for one stylist and gets expensive for a team. Here is the subscription, the per-member fee, the Boost charge and card rates, worked out for 1, 5 and 8 stylists.
Read itAn established salon at one address does not need the software a ten-location group buys, and it has outgrown the app a solo stylist uses. Here is what a cut, color and styling salon actually needs, and how six options bill a team of four to ten.
Read itThe barber booking app with the lowest price on its pricing page is rarely the one that costs a shop the least by December. Here is how six options bill a two to eight chair barbershop, and the sum that tells you which one is actually cheapest.
Read itA booth renter is a business of one inside a building someone else owns. The booking software has to be yours, not the salon's, and the bill has to make sense for one chair. Here is how six options compare for a stylist who pays rent every week.
Read itA small barber shop does not need the software a twelve chair flagship runs on. It needs a link for every barber, a calendar that knows about walk-ins and a bill that does not jump with each hire. Here is how the main options compare.
Read itMost salons that leave Square Appointments are not unhappy with the card reader. They are unhappy with what sits behind the paid tiers, or with a calendar that books anyone into anything. Here is which alternative fits each reason.
Read itA large salon does not need more features than a small one so much as different ones: a way to hand new clients to the right stylist, a bill that does not jump every time you hire, and records that survive staff turnover.
Read itEvery salon booking app has two halves: the app your stylists run the day from, and whatever the client has to open to book. The second half decides who the client belongs to, and the bill decides what the app costs you once the salon grows.
Read itThe best software for a hair salon is not one product. It is a short stack sized to your salon: booking and client records first, then payments, then payroll and marketing only when the team is big enough to need them. Here is what to buy at each size, and how each option bills.
Read itThe best hair salon booking system is the one that books long color services correctly, keeps each stylist's hours apart and bills in a way that fits how your salon grows. Here are the systems US salons actually choose between, compared on exactly that.
Read itThe best booking app for a barber depends on two things: whether you still need strangers to find you, and whether you are one chair or a shop. Here are the apps US barbers actually choose between, sorted by how each one bills.
Read itSetmore is a general scheduler with a no-cost tier for up to four users and a Pro plan billed per user. Here are the competitors a US hair salon actually weighs against it, sorted by how each one charges and who each one fits.
Read itAcuity bills by the number of calendars and has no consumer marketplace. Here are the competitors a US hair salon or booth renter actually weighs against it, sorted by how each one charges and who each one fits.
Read itVagaro bills per bookable calendar up to a cap and sells features a la carte per location. Here are the competitors a US hair salon or barbershop actually weighs against it, sorted by how each one charges and who each one fits.
Read itBooksy is a booking app with a consumer marketplace attached. Square Appointments is a register with a calendar attached. That one difference decides most of the comparison for a hair salon or barbershop, and this article walks through the rest.
Read itFresha used to win on being free. Now every plan is paid and the Team plan is billed per bookable member, so salons are comparing again. Here are the competitors a US hair salon actually weighs, sorted by how each one bills.
Read itGlossGenius is a polished booking and payments tool with no marketplace. Its competitors split into platforms that send new clients and tools that bill differently. Here is how to pick by the reason you are looking.
Read itMost lists of Booksy competitors are company data or generic schedulers. A salon owner needs the other version: which platform to move to, sorted by the part of the Booksy bill that stopped making sense.
Read itMost lists of StyleSeat competitors are market share tables. A stylist needs the other version: which app to move to, sorted by why you want to leave StyleSeat in the first place.
Read itTwo marketplace booking apps with the same basic bargain: a consumer app that sends you strangers, and a charge on each stranger it sends. Where they differ is how the monthly bill grows with your team, and that decides which one a salon should buy.
Read itA scheduler that plugs into a payment processor, against a payment processor that includes a scheduler. For a salon the choice comes down to what the bill counts, where your no-show protection lives, and whether either one puts a stranger in your chair.
Read itTwo products a salon owner almost always ends up choosing between, compared on the only three things that change the decision: what the bill scales on, whether either one finds you clients, and what you are locked into afterwards.
Read itStyleSeat, Booksy, GlossGenius, Square, Vagaro, Setmore, Acuity and a flat fee, compared from the stylist's chair: what a new client costs you, whose account it is, and what you take with you when you move.
Read itA small salon does not get a small bill by default. Booksy, Vagaro, GlossGenius, Square, Fresha and a flat banded fee, compared on what each one charges when you add a fourth chair or a Saturday stylist.
Read itBraiders leave StyleSeat when the first-visit share on a $300 knotless install stops feeling like a finder's fee. Here is how Booksy, GlossGenius, Square, a loctician app and a flat fee handle a book built on six hour appointments.
Read itBarbers leave Booksy for two reasons: the bill grows with every barber you add, and Boost charges on the new clients it sends. Here is how theCut, Squire, Square, GlossGenius and a flat fee handle both.
Read itOne is beauty-only software with a flat processing rate and no marketplace. The other starts with no subscription fee, gates salon protections behind Plus, and lists you in an iPhone booking app. Here is which shape fits your salon.
Read itOne charges a flat rate that covers a team. The other charges per user and sells features separately, but owns a consumer marketplace. Here is how to tell which shape fits your salon before you commit.
Read itNeither monthly fee is your real monthly cost. Here is the arithmetic that tells a booth renter which platform is cheaper at their volume, and the point where both stop being worth it.
Read itMost salon marketing advice is a list of things to post. This is a list of things that change the number on your calendar, ordered by how cheaply they do it.
Read itA discount is the easiest promotion to run and the hardest to stop running. Here are the salon promotion ideas that add revenue instead of moving it.
Read itBuilding a book from a rented chair is a different problem from marketing a salon. It is mostly about being findable, being bookable, and being specific.
Read itA no show policy is not a punishment. It is the sentence that lets you fill the slot instead of losing it. Here is how to write one people actually accept.
Read itOn the product side, see salon management software, salon scheduling software, and the salon directory by city.
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