Booking sites for hair stylists

Booking sites for hair stylists: the best hairstylist booking site for a solo chair, a suite or a salon

Eight booking sites hairstylists actually use, compared by the only thing that changes your take-home: how the bill is built. Then a booking site of your own, with a city listing included, for one flat fee.

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Service list

What you charge, and how long it takes

Cut and finish 45m $55 to $110
Single-process color 1h 30m $85 to $150
Balayage 2h 30m $210 to $340
Silk press 1h 30m $85 to $140
Blowout 40m $45 to $75

Availability on the booking page is generated from these durations. Sample list.

Short answer

The best booking site for a hair stylist is the one whose bill stays flat when the chair is full. Marketplace sites such as StyleSeat and Booksy can send first-time clients and charge for them in some form; schedulers such as GlossGenius, Acuity and Setmore give you a clean link and leave finding clients to you. Hairdressers.io is a booking site for hair stylists that gives you your own booking link plus a listing on your city directory page for a flat $39 a month, with 0% commission on every booking and a client list you can export any day.

A booking site for a hair stylist is a page on a link. Clients open it from your Instagram bio or a text, see your services with real lengths and prices, and pick a time. Every product on this page does that part. Where they differ is what happens to your bill when the page works: some charge a monthly fee, some charge per team member, some take a share of the first visit from every new client their marketplace sends, and a few do more than one of those at once. This page compares the models, not this month's prices, because prices change and the model is what you live with.

What is the best booking site for hairstylists?

The best booking site for a hairstylist depends on where your next client comes from. If you rely on strangers finding you, a marketplace site with a consumer app has the reach, and you pay for that reach through fees on the clients it sends. If your book is already full of regulars, a scheduler with a clean link costs less because there is nothing to pay per client. If you want both a link and a way to be found without a per-client charge, that is the gap a flat fee with a directory listing fills.

The table lays out the eight booking sites US hairstylists reach for most, using each company's own published model. Read the current figures on their pricing pages before you decide; the shapes below are what stay the same.

Booking site	How the bill is built	Where new clients come from	Best fit
StyleSeat	A monthly subscription for the pro, plus a one-time share of the first appointment from each new client its marketplace sends, plus a share on slots that book out under Smart Pricing, plus processing	The StyleSeat consumer app and website	Solo stylists who want a marketplace to keep sending strangers
Booksy	One subscription for the account, a monthly fee for each added team member, and Boost, which takes a one-time commission on new clients' first visit when it is on	The Booksy consumer app, with Boost for extra visibility	Salons and stylists who want an all-in-one system with a marketplace
Vagaro	A subscription priced by the number of bookable calendars, with marketing and a branded app sold as add-ons, and a one-time fee on a client's first marketplace appointment	The Vagaro marketplace	Salons with several chairs that want payroll, forms and marketing in one place
GlossGenius	Tiers that step up by team size, with one flat processing rate and no marketplace	Your own link, connected to Google, Instagram and Yelp	Independent stylists who want a polished, beauty-specific booking page
Square Appointments	A tier with no subscription fee, then paid tiers per location that add no-show protection and more	Square Go, a consumer booking app on iPhone	Stylists already taking cards on Square
Setmore	A free tier with caps on users and monthly appointments, then a paid plan charged per user	None; your own link	Stylists who need a basic free scheduler and can live with the caps
Acuity Scheduling	Tiers by the number of calendars, no free plan, no marketplace	None; your own link	Stylists who want deep scheduling rules and forms and already have clients
Hairdressers.io	A flat fee per band: $39 for one stylist, $89 for up to eight, $199 for up to 25. 0% commission on every booking, no fee on new clients	A listing on your city directory page, included, with no charge on the clients it sends	Stylists and salons that want one predictable bill and a way to be found

Three kinds of hairstylist booking site, and what each one charges for

Every hairstylist booking site in the US falls into one of three shapes, and the shape tells you what your bill will do as your book fills.

A marketplace site sells reach. Its consumer app lists you next to every other stylist in your city, which is worth something on a slow month and costs something on every month after. The charge attaches to the new clients it sends, as a share of the first visit or a promotion fee, so the better it works, the more it costs. A scheduler sells a clean link and a calendar, priced as a subscription per person or per tier, and does nothing to find you clients. A flat-fee booking site with a directory sits between the two: one price per salon, with a listing where clients search, and no charge on the clients the listing sends.

Marketplace sites: StyleSeat, Booksy, Vagaro. A consumer app that can send first-time clients, paid for through fees on those clients.
Schedulers: GlossGenius, Square Appointments, Setmore, Acuity. A link and a calendar, priced per user or per tier, no discovery of their own.
Flat fee with a directory: Hairdressers.io. Your own booking link plus a listing on your city page, one price per band, 0% commission.
How to choose: Count last month's new clients and regulars. Mostly new: a marketplace earns its fees. Mostly regulars: pay for a link, not for reach.

What a booking website for hair stylists has to get right

Strip away the marketing and a booking website for hair stylists has four jobs. It shows your services with the real length and price of each, so a client choosing balayage sees two and a half hours and a range before they ask. It only offers times you actually work, per stylist if there is more than one of you. It takes the booking without making the client download anything or create an account, because every extra step in front of a first-time client costs a share of them. And it keeps your client list where you can take it with you.

On Hairdressers.io, your page lists every service with its minutes and its price, and you set your opening hours per day. Clients request a time from your link or from your city listing, only inside those hours, and each request arrives in your inbox with the client set as the reply address, so confirming is one reply. Everything is edited from a private panel in your phone browser, and your client list exports to a spreadsheet whenever you want it. The hair salon booking app page walks through the client side step by step.

Real lengths and prices: Every service carries its own minutes and price, so the "how much for a cut?" messages mostly stop.
Your hours, per stylist: Requests only inside the hours you set. On the Salon plan each stylist has their own link and hours.
Nothing to install: Your clients book in a browser from your link. No app, no account, no password.
Your list stays yours: Export every client who has requested an appointment, on any day, including the day you leave.

Do booking sites take a percentage from hairstylists?

Some do, and it is worth being exact about how. Marketplace booking sites do not usually take a percentage of every booking. What they take is a one-time share of the first appointment from each new client their marketplace introduced, sometimes with a cap, and in StyleSeat's case a further share on slots that book out under its Smart Pricing feature. Card processing is a separate percentage everywhere, on every site that takes payments. Schedulers such as GlossGenius, Acuity and Setmore take no share of bookings at all; you pay the subscription and, if you take cards through them, processing.

For a stylist whose clients come back every five or six weeks, the first-visit share is the number to watch. A new client who stays for three years is thirty visits, and under a first-visit model you pay at the start of that relationship on every new client, every time. Hairdressers.io charges 0% on every booking, including the ones the city directory sends. The commission calculator on the pricing page runs your own numbers against a flat fee.

Booking sites for stylists who rent a suite or a booth

A suite renter or booth renter buys a booking site alone, without a salon owner picking it. Two things matter more in that position. The bill should be yours and predictable, because rent already moves your margin around enough. And the page should show where you are without handing out a home or suite address to strangers: on Hairdressers.io your page shows your city and, if you choose, a neighborhood, with no street address field, so you send the exact address when you confirm.

Many renters arrive from StyleSeat, because it was built for solo professionals and its marketplace is where their early clients came from. Once the book is mostly regulars, the per-new-client model stops paying for itself, which is the sum on our StyleSeat alternative page. If you are weighing the two biggest marketplaces against each other, StyleSeat vs Booksy works through it with your own numbers, and GlossGenius vs Vagaro does the same for the two biggest schedulers.

A booking site for a whole salon, not just one chair

A salon with several stylists needs each of them bookable on their own hours, and needs the bill to stop climbing every time someone joins. On the Salon plan, up to eight stylists each get a personal booking link, personal hours and their own services, and clients can request the salon or the person they always sit with. The salon gets priority placement on its city page. Adding a stylist inside the band changes nothing on the invoice, which is the structural difference from per-user pricing laid out on the Vagaro alternative and Booksy alternative pages.

If your salon also needs a public website rather than only a booking page, the salon website builder page shows how the booking page doubles as the site, with your services, your team and your hours on one address you can put on a card.

How much does a booking site for hair stylists cost?

Hairdressers.io costs $39 a month for a single stylist on the Chair plan, or $390 billed yearly. That includes your booking page on its own link with services, lengths, prices and hours, a listing in one city, booking requests by email and a private panel. The Salon plan is $89 a month for up to eight stylists, each with a personal link and hours, plus priority placement on the city page. Studio is $199 for up to 25 stylists across several locations. All three are paid by card and cancel any time; the full list is on the pricing page.

Compared with the other sites on this page, the number to watch is not the monthly fee but the lines underneath it: a per-team-member charge, a per-new-client share, a paid add-on for the booking page itself. Add up every line you would actually pay this month, then set it against one flat number.

Chair, $39 a month: One stylist, one link, one city listing, booking requests by email and a private panel.
Salon, $89 a month: Up to eight stylists, each with a personal link and hours, plus priority placement in your city listing.

Pricing

Flat monthly, from $39. Never a cut of a booking.

Four plans by team size, from a single chair to a multi-location group. The 0% commission line is the same on all of them, including bookings that come from your city directory listing.

See the plans

Questions

About booking sites for hair stylists

The rest are on the salon booking system FAQ.

What booking site do most hairstylists use?

In the US, most hairstylists book through StyleSeat, Booksy, Vagaro, GlossGenius or Square Appointments, usually from a link in their Instagram bio. Marketplace sites lead among solo stylists who need new clients; schedulers lead among stylists with a full book of regulars.

Which is better for a hairstylist, StyleSeat or Booksy?

StyleSeat suits a solo stylist who wants a marketplace built around individual professionals; Booksy suits a salon that wants an all-in-one system with a consumer app and per-team-member pricing. Both charge in some form for new clients their marketplace sends, so a stylist whose clients are mostly regulars often pays less on a flat fee.

Is there a booking site for hair stylists without commission?

Yes. Hairdressers.io charges 0% commission on every booking on every plan, including clients who find you through the city directory, for a flat $39 a month solo. Schedulers such as GlossGenius and Acuity also take no share of bookings, but have no directory of their own.

Can I have a booking site without showing my address?

On Hairdressers.io, yes. Your page shows your city and, if you choose, a neighborhood, and there is no street address field. You send the exact address when you confirm the request.

Do clients need to download an app to book?

No. Your clients open your link in a browser, pick a service and a time inside your hours, and send the request. There is no app, no account and no password on the client side.

Can I move my clients from StyleSeat or Booksy?

Yes. Export your client list from your current site before you cancel, and import your services and upcoming appointments during setup so nobody has to rebook.

How much does a hairstylist booking site cost?

Hairdressers.io costs $39 a month for a solo stylist and $89 a month for a salon of up to eight, with nothing charged per booking and no fee on new clients.

More salon software pages

Each one covers a different angle on the same product. The directory side lives on the salon directory.

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