Very easy to use, and customizable. Also, GoReminders has the best customer service and really listens to our needs.
Did you know that most salon owners and their employees don’t manually create their own appointments?
It’s true! They don’t spend hours on the phone with clients, or behind a computer sending emails. Instead, these salon owners and employees are chatting with clients, recommending services, and providing the human element that drives salon success.
To coordinate with their clients more efficiently, many successful salons rely on salon appointment scheduling apps. These versatile scheduling apps even handle things like marketing, payment processing, and more—all while operating within a sleek, modern interface your clients can appreciate.
Maintaining your schedule as a busy salon owner can seem daunting in the face of connecting with clients and providing the best experience possible. With a salon appointment scheduling app, the work is done for you so that you can spend more time building relationships with clients and doing your best work.
Did you know that nearly 75% of customers looking for a new salon research online?
It’s true! That’s why a strong online presence is essential for gaining new clients and booking appointments. With a solid salon appointment scheduling app, you can easily help your business gain more visibility online. Besides that, there are several other reasons to invest in a salon appointment scheduling app. Here are a few benefits to consider:
Even if you don’t implement or take advantage of every feature that a salon appointment scheduling app offers, these programs will still help you keep you organized in your daily salon business.
When it comes to supporting your growing salon business, salon scheduling software should not be cost-prohibitive.
Here are some features you’ll want to look out for in order to make the best use of your new salon appointment software:
With these features in mind, let’s take a look at the 10 best salon appointment scheduling apps.
GoReminders provides a plan structure that grows with you as your business actually grows: when you have more appointments per month. Salons that use GoReminders for their appointment scheduling can easily grow from offering services as a single stylist to working as a whole network of stylists.
Erica Mitchell at Sola Salons says, “I tried another system, but there were too many goof-ups so I went back to pen and paper. Until I found GoReminders! I love how simple it is on my iPad, and I do a week’s worth of scheduling in the time it took me for one client! Now I can focus on making my clients beautiful!”
The GoReminders Starter plan includes the ability to work off a single calendar for one staff member. If you’re starting out on your own, this service is plenty to help you organize and optimize your appointments for success. At only $25 per month with an annual subscription, it’s both affordable and versatile.
For example, you can send out custom messages and Message Blasts for up to 15 appointments per month. You can also send one reminder per appointment via both text and email to ensure your clients arrive on time. Plus, GoReminders includes reminder templates that you can easily customize to your liking.
GoReminders is available on both Android and iOS and any computer with a 14-day free trial. This trial provides you with the full suite of features from the start to show you how the software can truly boost your salon business from the beginning.
As you gain more clientele, you can upgrade to the Business plan to keep all these features . Business offers unlimited staff, services, locations, and corresponding calendars. This way, you don’t have to worry about your team size or how many locations or services you have. GoReminders doesn’t charge more for those aspects. They want to make sure individual stylists who offer several services at multiple locations can use the software without having to pay more.
Most salons don’t need the features included in the Premium plan. Unless you want more of a white-glove onboarding experience or Zapier and API integration features, the Business plan should work just fine.
Integration is easy with GoReminders. You can easily share your payment links with customers with a Business or Premium subscription. Simply link to your Venmo, Stripe, Square, QuickBooks (or any other payment processor) account so your customers can easily pay you for the services you offer. With GoReminders, you’ll also enjoy third party calendar integrations.
You can also market your salon services on social media with a ready-to-go booking form that invites clients to book an appointment with you straight away. Navigate to your Booking Requests page and select “Promote Your Booking Form,” then select the social media platform you’d like to share to. For example, some GoReminders users link to their booking page from their Instagram bio link or from their Linktree page. You can even print a QR code to put in your window or at your counter to share your booking forms in-person.
GoReminders also gives you the option to customize text reminder responses for appointments. At any time, you can show (or hide) instructions such as:
A major benefit of appointment reminders is finding out ahead of time if someone can’t make an appointment. Some clients will inevitably have conflicts — the trick is figuring out which clients won’t show up ahead of time, with enough time for you to fill the open slot. If a customer is unable to make an appointment, the rescheduling feature allows you to make up some of your lost revenue instead of missing out completely.
Vagaro is another popular salon appointment scheduling app and marketplace that claims it can help boost business at your salon. You can create customer profiles for your clientele and benefit from the advanced client data tracking function. The drag-and-drop calendar makes scheduling easy. There’s also a 30-day free trial option to see how the program works.
Integration is where Vagaro shines most. You can integrate your salon with the mobile app for payment processing, a point-of-sale system, payroll software, and email marketing. Vagaro integrates with Google, Quickbooks, Facebook, Yelp, and Instagram.
If you’re looking for basic scheduling software, Vagaro might work for you. However, it may not be a great fit if you want more robust features for managing clients, appointments, and communications. Vagaro lacks some basic functionality such as customizable text reminders (for example, you can’t add your cancellation policy in the text reminder) and the ability to receive text replies from clients. Vagaro is a better fit for salons that mostly need their other features (like marketing and payment processing) and are ok with limited scheduling and reminder functionality.
After the free trial, Vagaro costs $25 per month for one employee/calendar. For every employee or calendar you want to include on your plan, price per month increased by $10 (up to 7 or more people at $85 per month). Vagaro also offers 11 different kinds of add-on features costing from $10/month to $200/month for each add-on. Some add-ons also have pricing that scales up with usage. Your total price will depend on which add-ons you decide to use.
If you’re looking for online booking, marketing services, and the ability to process payments, Booker by Mindbody is a salon appointment scheduling app that may serve your needs.
This app costs $129 per month for the Starter package, which includes scheduling features like online booking, client information management, and limited staff profiles. However, text reminders are not included in the Mindbody Starter plan.
Marketing services (such as integration with Facebook for specific social media promotions) can be useful as well. This is especially true with the Accelerate plan, which is $269 per month. With this plan, you’ll also get access to additional customer retention features such as text reminders. Paying $429 per month will upgrade you to the Ultimate plan, which allows you to customize your mobile app and gain access to detailed analytics for your review.
Mindbody does have some powerful texting features, but there are some shortcomings. First, no texting is available for less than $269/month. Second, their texting functionality is segmented and works differently for reminders versus conversational texting. For example, clients can only respond “C” to a text reminder — if they text back anything else such as “I need to reschedule” they’ll get an error and the salon won’t ever see their response.
The software also gives you access to a payment dashboard for payroll as well as commissions.
There are no setup fees or contracts when you sign up with Mangomint, which costs $165 per month for the Essentials package. This includes services for up to 10 staff members, but it also features unlimited email and text notifications for appointment reminders.
Additional features include smart automations for online booking, as well as a point-of-sales system. You can easily track inventory and offer memberships, packages, and gift cards with this salon appointment software. The embeddable website booking widget also integrates with your business and marketing systems for payments.
The Standard package costs $245 per month. This tier allows you to add up to 20 staff members. You’ll also gain access to Express Booking, Waiting Room, and Membership features. For $375 per month, you can add services for an unlimited amount of staff. Quickbooks integration, Shopify, and a custom API come with this top-tier package.
Salon management is easy with Timely, a salon appointment scheduling app that allows you to complete online bookings via your website or Facebook. With this software, you can manage your clients, payments, and appointments and reminders from one place. The Timely dashboard also allows you to track performance and easily manage your inventory as you sell products.
The Build plan for 1 staff member is $20 per month and provides access to basic marketing tools, SMS reminders, and online booking. After that, you will pay $20 per staff member per month, up to 7 staff members. Users will then need to upgrade to the Elevate plan for $20-$25 more per month for each staff member. This gives you access to a higher SMS reminder limit and a few other features. If you’ve got a large workforce, the Innovate package allows for 8-20 staff members for a flat payment of $250 per month. Anything more than 20 staff members will require custom pricing which you’ll need to speak with a salesperson about.
You can integrate your salon business with Google and social media easily with Genbook (now part of Booksy). For $29.99 per month for a solo provider, this salon appointment scheduling app features the ability to automate your marketing and manage appointments/calendars to help you focus more on clients. You can also collect feedback from past customers in order to feature reviews on social media and Google search.
For each new employee you add to your subscription, Genbook/Booksy charges $20 (up to 14 or more employees). You can also pay them commission fees for finding new clients if you choose.
Booksy’s approach to helping you communicate with your customers is through their app. For appointment reminders, this means that customers will only receive a push notification through the app itself (not a text or email) 24 hours before the appointment. However, somewhat frustrating is the fact that customers also need to be signed in to the app to receive the reminder.
The app also includes payment processing and inventory management which can be beneficial features for many salons.
If your salon offers a number of services, Schedulicity can help you integrate them into your schedule. The dashboard for this salon appointment scheduling app represents your calendar of appointments and can be edited at any time. You can even add and manage client profiles from the dashboard as well.
Schedulicity is a free salon appointment scheduling app, but you will have to pay for any add-ons you want to include. For example, in order to access unlimited booking, auto-billing, payment processing, client text reminders (which have limited functionality), session-based package management, or multiple location management, you will have to pay extra.
The Unlimited plan that starts at $34.99 per month for a solo provider includes these features, but you will be charged a 2.5% plus $0.15 fee for any payment processing transactions you make. For each new provider you add to the Unlimited plan, you’ll be charged $10 per month for access to those features. The free plan does not include payment processing, but it does feature up to 10 bookings per month (with email reminders).
Regardless of what pricing tier you choose, Schedulicity’s appointment reminder functionality is limited an not very flexible. To send appointment reminders, you’ll need to select which service you’ll be providing for each individual appointment (even if you only offer once service). In addition, users are limited to one non-customizable text reminder and one email reminder per appointment with only a few select intervals.
Square Appointments is another “free” app that can help salon businesses get up on their feet from the beginning. This salon appointment scheduling app is best known for offering payment processing through a built-in point-of-sales system, but you will pay a 2.75% fee per transaction with the base plan.
While Square Appointments does offer a free plan, it is somewhat limited. You’ll quickly need to upgrade to the Plus or Premium plan to gain access to more in-demand features and use the plan at multiple locations.
The Plus plan is offered at $29 per month for each location. This tier gives you access to more features like the Google Calendar integration and multiple staff appointments. With the Premium plan, users gain access to more more payroll features for $69 per month per location.
Features from Square Appointments include personal calendar syncing, the ability to create client profiles, checkout and inventory management, and website integration.
The salon appointment scheduling app Fresha is free for salon owners, in the sense that there is no monthly plan. However, you will have to pay 20% of your booking costs for new clients. Other than that, the only fee you’ll pay is the 2.19% plus $0.20 charge per transaction.
Fresha includes an activity dashboard that allows you to access online bookings, a point-of-sale feature, automated reminders, customer profiles, and appointment scheduling. You can also manage your appointment calendar, send out custom messages to your clients, and integrate your services with Facebook, Instagram, Google, and your website.
Fresha is available for download to both Android and iOS devices.
Choosing between plans can get confusing sometimes, so GlossGenius made it simple. Their basic plan is $24 per month and allows you to have unlimited employees as well as a number of features such as online booking, marketing, and payment processing. The $44 plan is invite only and promises a more premium experience. However, it is unclear what this tier offers in terms of boosted functionality.
GlossGenius offers a 14-day trial to allow users to test out features, including smart marketing tools, the ability to synchronize clients and calendars with your phone, email and text marketing, and advanced business reporting. It also includes integrated payments and multiple card reader design options.
GlossGenius also has text reminders, but you can’t change the timing or what the text message says. Beyond that, the platform only allows you to send one text reminder per appointment.
This app is available on both Android and iOS.
To set your salon up for success from the get-go, it’s important to choose the best salon appointment software for your needs. The ideal choice will grow with your needs, allowing you to keep you and your customers on track for all appointments.
If you’re looking for the best salon appointment scheduling app to invest in for the value, features, and growth, GoReminders is your best choice. This scheduling and appointment reminder app is used by successful salons to organize their schedules, remind their clients of upcoming appointments, and integrate secondary services in order to provide a rewarding experience for customers.
Customer reviews speak for themselves. Janelle Lynn from Lush Hair Salon says, “I’ve been using this service for several months and my clients comment about it daily. They love the reminders and I love that I can add a message for particular clients. They also make changes that I love all the time!!! Quick and wonderful customer service. A+++++!”
Spend more time making connections with your clients by scheduling appointments with GoReminders. Sign up for a free trial of GoReminders today.
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Very easy to use, and customizable. Also, GoReminders has the best customer service and really listens to our needs.
Tanner Balfany, Only 1 Auto Glass
As a very busy mom, wife and business owner, GoReminders has been a game changer. Our days feel less chaotic, more productive and business is up!
Kayti Lomeli, Financial Advisor
I tried another system, but there were too many goof-ups so I went back to pen and paper. Until I foundGoReminders! I love how simple it is on my iPad, and I do a week’s worth of scheduling in the time it took me for one client! Now I can focus on making my clients beautiful!
Erica Mitchell at Sola Salons
I use this to keep my appointments and remind my customers for my grooming business. My customers love it and it saves me time!
Dana at Amazing Pet Grooming
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