Whether you own a service-based salon that relies on appointments or operate a product-based business that hosts special events or classes, the best salon scheduling apps are a must-have in your arsenal of business management tools.
The best salon scheduling apps can help you book more clients, manage schedules with ease, and even grow your business. To help you with your search, we’re covering the 15 best salon scheduling apps, as well as what to look for when choosing your next platform.
14 best salon scheduling apps and booking software.
The following salon scheduling apps and booking software each have their own strengths and ideal uses. Keep in mind your own business needs when looking for the best salon app, and consider that the best free salon booking system may not be the same for everyone.
1. Booksy
Formerly Genbook, Booksy specializes in serving the health, wellness, and beauty industries. Booksy’s comprehensive platform also makes it perfectly adaptable for business models ranging from dog grooming services to photography.
One of Booksy’s main draws is its integrations. Integrations to search engine platforms, business directories, and social media networks make it easy for customers to find—and book—services with you.
Pricing: Booksy offers a 30-day free trial that allows you to test drive their platform before you’re ready to make a final decision. If you’re ready to sign up for a paid plan, a subscription starts at $29 per month, with additional members costing $20 each. There are also add-on services, including mobile payment and card reader functionality.
Best for: Solopreneurs and businesses with two to four employees, especially those just getting started. Add-ons around visibility make it especially great for those looking to grow their brand.
2. Schedulicity
Schedulicity serves numerous industries, from pilates studios to psychology practices to tattoo shops to performing arts spaces. Clients can use Schedulicity to schedule appointments, reserve seats in a class, and even book multi-session workshops.
With this platform, you don’t just get appointment scheduling software—you also get a business listing on the Schedulicity marketplace. This additional business directory can help you increase your online presence and digital visibility.
Like Booksy, Schedulicity also offers integrations and widgets to social media platforms like Facebook and your website, so customers can easily schedule online, 24/7.
Pricing: Schedulicity offers a free 14-day trial. Their unlimited plan starts at $34.99 per month for solo providers, and increases depending on the number of users you need to add.
Best for: Solopreneurs and small businesses based in the US or Canada who are looking for an easy-to-use, all-in-one solution. The marketplace also makes Schedulicity ideal for those looking to boost visibility.
3. Vagaro
Vagaro is an appointment scheduling solution that specializes in the beauty and fitness industries. It also includes access to their business directory for extra online visibility. This business listing platform supports a “daily deal” feature, so you can offer discounts, coupons, and seasonal promotions to help draw in new customers.
As you attract new customers, you can use features like custom forms to create digital waivers and surveys to protect your business and keep a pulse check on your customer satisfaction.
Vagaro also offers a proprietary point of sale (POS) system that helps track inventory on any retail products you may sell in addition to the services you offer, along with design services, payroll management, and more.
Pricing: It offers a one-month free trial and includes 24/7 customer support with a live rep, should you need it. A single entrepreneur starts at $30 per month and increases at $10 increments per person from there.
Best for: New salons in need of comprehensive services, as well as smaller salons experiencing growth. Visibility tools are especially useful for those looking to bring in new customers.
4. Square Appointments
Popular mobile payment provider Square has turned into a platform that facilitates payments for small businesses that might have a hard time getting approved for traditional merchant services accounts.
Square’s comprehensive small business suite has expanded to include an online booking platform called Square Appointments. Like Vagaro, Square Appointments integrates with the Square POS system that you can use to manage the retail segment of your business.
You can also use Square Appointments to improve the customer experience with individualized customer profiles and notes for every client. Plus, it gives you the option to offer Afterpay to clients who need to pay for their service in installments.
Pricing: Square Appointments has a free plan that offers unlimited staff accounts, custom booking sites, and more, with 2.6% plus 10 cents per transaction. Plus and premium subscriptions cost $29 and $69 per month, with a lower transaction fee of 2.5% and additional features.
Best for: Both salons that already use Square for payment processing and marketing automation, as well as solopreneurs who are just starting to dip their toes into online booking can benefit from Square Appointments.
5. Acuity
Clients of freelancing professionals and mid-sized businesses alike can use Acuity to schedule appointments, cancel sessions, receive price quotes, and even schedule recurring appointments.
If your clientele is local, but you want to expand your services to a global audience, Acuity serves nine other markets besides the US, making it a great starting point if you intend to take your business international.
Acuity is also part of the Squarespace family—a leader in website building and hosting services for small businesses. If you’re currently on Squarespace, this makes Acuity an easy choice.
Pricing: It offers a 7-day free trial and a freemium version—so you can get started with no upfront costs. If you decide this solution is right for your business, the paid version for a single entrepreneur will set you back $20 per month for the starter plan.
Best for: Established salons that are looking for numerous integrations and customizable features, or those already on Squarespace.
6. Setmore
Setmore makes scheduling appointments simple, for businesses ranging from salons to student tutors to those with small practices.
It features automated booking, appointment reminders, payment support, and more. Along with this, Setmore allows you to schedule interviews with potential job candidates, making the hiring process less of a hassle.
Pricing: With the starter plan, you can get started for free with three other employees. You’ll also get access to unlimited appointments, up to 100 email reminders per month, and a custom booking page with a unique URL. After that, the plans start at $12 per user.
Best for: Businesses with under four employees looking for more fundamental booking features rather than a solution with too many bells and whistles, and those interested in hiring, can benefit from Setmore.
7. Booker
Booker is a salon appointment software that’s tailored to the spa and health and wellness industries. Part of the Mindbody family, a point-of-sale company turned tech provider, Booker allows you to manage schedules, staff, and clients. It also includes POS functionality, inventory tracking, Mindbody consumer app listings, and more.
Pricing: Booker doesn’t offer a free trial, but you can get a free personalized demo from a staff member. The plans start at $139 per month and increase from there.
Best for: Bigger salons who are looking for an all-in-one solution and various features and don’t mind a larger investment.
8. Mindbody
There’s a lot of overlap with Mindbody and Booker, especially now that the two are under the same umbrella. But, Mindbody has some standout features.
One of Mindbody’s big features is its AI Messaging function, which texts clients immediately after a missed call, answers questions, completes follow-ups, makes sales, and books client appointments. It also keeps all your communication in one place and allows you to broadcast updates to your community.
Pricing: The Starter plan costs a flat rate of $139 per month, and the pricing keeps climbing from there, just like Booker.
Best for: Businesses in the fitness industry who don’t mind investing a bit more into their scheduling software solution. It’s also suitable for business owners and teams that are looking for a more complex tool and aren’t afraid of a learning curve.
9. Fresha
Fresha is a beauty salon appointment software that focuses on calendar management and sales. It offers appointment scheduling, POS functionality, payment processing, and even reporting and analytics on your salon performance.
Fresha includes an online marketplace, where you can build a profile and market to clients in your area. With social networking integrations, Fresha really enables salon owners to focus on growth.
Pricing: The app is free with various add-on features, from card processing to marketplace bookings. These features add onto the per-transaction fees, which start at 2.29% plus 20 cents.
Best for: Fresha is a great fit for salons just getting started, or those working with a limited budget. The analytics features are a nice touch for anyone who wants to dig into the numbers behind their business.
10. Rosy
Rosy streamlines salon booking with automated reminders, simple online booking, and text and email message automations. It includes a robust mobile app that enables you to manage your salon schedule on the go, communicate with clients, and keep tabs on your business wherever you are.
Rosy also includes automated marketing features, inventory management, POS functionality, and reporting and financial history.
Price: The app offers a free 30-day trial. After that, it’s $29 per month for one person, increasing in various increments with each person added.
Best for: Rosy is tailored for those on the go, looking to manage their salon while remote. If you have multiple locations or have another job you’re splitting your time with, Rosy could be a great fit.
11. Timely
Timely offers comprehensive salon booking support, complete with an award-winning support team. They also make it possible for clients to book with your salon anytime of day, offer a customizable rewards program, automate appointment reminders, and even offer pre-appointment consults via SMS texting.
Timely also includes brand-building features, including marketing campaign tools, and automated review requests.
Pricing: Timely starts at $25 per month for one person on the Build plan, $35 on the Elevate plan, and $40 on the Innovate plan. The Build plan starts with 100 SMS per month, appointment functionality, and stock level management.
Best for: For smaller salons looking for an all-in-one solution that supports growth and marketing, Timely is a solid place to look.
12. Simple Salon
Simple Salon prides itself on being exactly that: simple. With an easy to use appointment book, along with essential features—staff roster management, POS functionality, reporting, multi-site support, custom API and tool support, and more—Simple Salon offers a comprehensive, but useful solution.
Pricing: The app offers three plans, with the Starter plan costing $20 per month for one user. The Pro plan starts at $34, but includes 200 SMS texts each month, while the Max plan is $41 and includes 300 SMS.
Best for: Simple Salon is affordable, but not free, making it ideal for those with some budget looking for a hair stylist booking app. If you have multiple salon locations to manage, Simple Salon’s multi-site support makes it a great choice.
13. Schedulista
Schedulista is an online appointment scheduler that supports appointment reminders, credit card payments, easy schedule management, and all through a mobile app. It can connect with numerous platforms, from Mailchimp to Stripe to Google Calendar. With social network integrations, it’s also capable of streamlining promotional efforts.
Pricing: They offer a 15-day trial, with simplified pricing that’s $19 per month for one person, $39 for 2-15 people, and custom pricing beyond that.
Best for: Schedulista is a great starting point for most new salons, as it’s affordable, comprehensive, and capable of syncing with numerous popular tools.
14. Goldie
Goldie is a popular salon scheduling app that’s tailored to those in the beauty and wellness space. It offers a complete experience, providing scheduling, reminders, online booking, payments, marketing, reporting, and more.
Goldie syncs with most popular calendars, making it easy to manage your schedules across any platforms you’re already using. With two-way texting support and the ability for clients to manage their own appointments, Goldie makes customer relations less painful, too.
Pricing: To start, Goldie is a free to start hair scheduling app, supporting 20 appointments per month and one user. For $20 per month you can get unlimited appointments, accept payments at 2.6% plus 30 cents, and more. Then, there’s the Pro Plus plan at $40 per month, which adds on team management, staff-level reporting, and more.
Best for: Because Goldie is free to start with, it’s great for those just launching their salon. It’s also ideal for salons entering early growth stages, as the plans are affordable and offer comprehensive support.
How to choose the best salon scheduling app.
The best salon booking software can vary, depending on your needs versus another salon’s. Ultimately, you need to determine what works best for you, your salon, and your team.
But here are a few must-have features that can benefit just about any kind of business:
Appointment management.
Every salon will have appointments, otherwise it’s going to be short-lived. Whatever option you look at should offer appointment management, at minimum.
This feature should be easy to find, so if possible, find an app that offers on-the-go appointment management.
Automated reminders.
As a small business owner, time is your most precious resource. And, it’s often in short supply. Automated reminders take one more thing off your plate, and they can help reduce the chances of a no-show appointment.
Reporting and analytics.
Knowing your business performance—past, present, and future—is crucial to staying ahead of financial woes before they get out of hand.
The best salon booking apps offer robust reporting and analytics, which can help you invest wiser and allow you to grow your salon.
Customer database management.
Ideally, your customers are going to be repeats, and not all one-offs. With rich customer database management, you can easily keep tabs on when people last visited, how to best contact them, and more importantly—how to market to them.
When you’ve got your customer’s contact info, you can more easily send them birthday discounts, friendly prompts if they’re long overdue for a visit, and more.
Cloud-based and native applications.
The last place you’ll find a small business owner is tied to a desk. That’s why it’s essential that the scheduling solution you choose is cloud-based so you can access your data from anywhere. Bonus points if the scheduling solution comes with a native iOS or Android app.
A business directory.
Competition for presence in search results is steep. The more web pages that mention your brand or link to your website, the better. And when you’re doing all of your marketing and email campaigns yourself, you need all the extra brand visibility you can get. The best salon appointment app for you might just be one that comes with a business directory.
This unique feature is great because it’s low cost, it harnesses SEO to generate traffic, and it doesn’t take much maintenance. Unlike high-maintenance social media profiles, a business directory is usually as simple as uploading current contact info.
Integrations, widgets, and plugins.
Integration, widget, and plugin support can make life easier for you as a salon owner. With the right integrations, people can easily come across your business on social media, Google search, Google Maps, or Yelp. And when they do, make sure it’s simple for them to schedule an appointment.
On top of this, integrations with calendar platforms and the like can allow you to quickly benefit from a comprehensive look at your scheduling.
Payment acceptance.
While in-store payments are still the preferred way for clients to pay for their salon services, you need to make sure your platform has functions for processing different kinds of payments. Whether you require pre-appointment deposits or have clients that want to pay online, diverse payment acceptance will ultimately help you in the long run.
Scalable.
You might be a small business today, but the future could see you grow into a multi-site location. Choosing a scheduling app that accommodates multiple sites and users will save you the trouble of switching platforms in the future.
Ease of use.
The best appointment scheduling apps for salons are those that save you time. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Look for a solution that’s easy to use, as it will save you headaches when learning it, and cut down on training time for your team.
Employee scheduling.
Client scheduling apps go hand-in-hand with employee schedule apps. Many of these solutions can also be used in tandem with your time clock, so you can be sure your employees’ schedules and hours worked match your bookings. This will save you time and prevent any kind of wage-related issues.
HIPAA compliance.
Running a medical spa? The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is the healthcare industry’s standard for sensitive patient data protection. If you’re in the healthcare field, you’ll want to make sure your scheduling app is HIPPA compliant.
When salon appointment scheduling apps can’t meet your business needs.
Now that you’re familiar with some of the best salon appointment management tools out there and what they offer, let’s talk about what they can’t do for your business. These are things that your salon still needs, but can’t even with some of the best booking apps for small business we’ve covered so far.
Some of these needs include:
- Payroll
- HR
- Employee scheduling
- Time tracking
- Hiring and onboarding
If you’re interested in having all these features in one tool without spending a fortune, there’s a solution: Homebase.
Homebase is a platform that helps small businesses manage their work schedules, time clocks, payroll, HR, and more. We make sure small businesses and salon owners like you spend less time on paperwork and more time on growing your business.
How exactly do we do that? So glad you asked!
Payroll.
Payroll doesn’t have to be complicated. Homebase specializes in hourly work and automates your payroll process so you can pay your team in a matter of clicks. We also offer a setup experience for every type of business owner.
Don’t have much experience with payroll? Our payroll experts will take care of it for you.
Want to do it yourself? Be our guest.
Need someone to review your setup for accuracy? We’ve got you covered.
Homebase instantly converts your timesheets into hours and wages for payroll, calculates correct taxes, and sends accurate payments to employees, your state, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
All you need to do is track your employees’ time, and then you’re just a few clicks away from processing payroll and sending direct deposits straight into your team members’ bank accounts.
HR.
Homebase provides HR for people who don’t do HR. What do we mean? We equip you with all the modern tools and expert HR guidance you need to make sure you stay compliant and manage your team effectively, no matter how big it gets.
Small businesses tend to put HR on the back burner, but that can end up harming their daily operations and, ultimately, their bottom line.
Luckily, Homebase makes HR processes quick and easy. You can:
- Manage employee information like emergency contacts and payroll details
- Track employee certifications and get alerts when they expire
- Upload, e-sign, and securely store employee documents
- Set up paid time off policies to track accruals and balances for sick and vacation leave
- Get notified when labor laws change at the state or federal level
- Save notes about employee performance and monitor on-time arrivals and no-shows
With this suite of features, you can automate your HR tasks and administrative tasks, freeing up your mental space for more business-related projects.
Employee happiness.
Employees are the backbone of every business, and without having the proper systems and perks in place to keep your team members happy and engaged, you risk losing your most valuable assets.
It’s unfortunate, then, that most salon scheduling apps don’t provide an employee happiness feature. But Homebase does.
How do we do that exactly? Well, we help you:
- Offer perks and benefits like early access to wages in case of emergencies.
- Recognize team members for their contributions by automatically tracking performance metrics like on-time arrivals.
- Celebrate employees by giving you visibility over team birthdays, anniversaries, and other milestones.
- Keep track of how your team is feeling by making it super easy to gather feedback and employee sentiment.
Keep team members on the same page. Team members can use our user-friendly app so they’re always up to date on their schedules, hours worked, and earnings. They can also communicate with each other and coordinate shift trades and covers.
Make scheduling simple with salon scheduling apps.
The best salon scheduling app is the one that simplifies appointment scheduling and helps you take your business to new heights, regardless of how big or small your salon is right now.
As for your team schedules, Homebase offers your business a streamlined scheduling experience. Whether you’re at your computer or on the move, you can access Homebase employee scheduling from anywhere and quickly check for conflicts, send reminders, and more.
See for yourself how employee scheduling with Homebase is easy, accessible, and scalable.
FAQs
What is the best online appointment scheduling software?
The best online appointment scheduling software depends on your business, budget, and specific needs. For example, the best scheduling app for hairstylist businesses may not be the best for nail salons.
No matter the solution you choose, we recommend complementing your client scheduling software with team management software like Homebase, which helps automate HR and admin tasks. That way, you can focus on what you do best—improving the client experience and building your brand.
What is the best software for a hair salon?
Hair salons require a steady stream of customers, both one-offs and repeat. The best software for a hair salon is any that helps you manage scheduling, market to current and potential customers, send reminders for appointments, and ultimately grow your brand.
How much does salon management software cost?
Salon management software can range anywhere from free to start, to $10-20 per month per user, to well beyond. Many salon management software offerings use a per-transaction model that’s free to use, and simply collects revenue through portions of your salon transactions.
How do I get more bookings at my salon?
You can get more bookings at your salon through a number of ways:
- Deliver great service that encourages word-of-mouth promotion
- Offline and online marketing campaigns that promote locally
- Encouraging reviews of your salon on platforms like Google and Yelp
Lastly, your salon will naturally get more bookings as you continue to do great work.
Does Homebase have salon scheduling software?
Homebase offers employee scheduling software in every plan (including our free plan!) to make processes and workflows easier for all kinds of small to medium-sized businesses, including salons.
Remember: This is not legal advice. If you have questions about your particular situation, please consult a lawyer, CPA, or other appropriate professional advisor or agency.
