Some of that monthly fee buys you clients. Some of it just buys software.
Website design for salons, spas and fitness studios
Two very different things get sold as “booking software.” One of them finds you new clients. The other only runs your calendar. You should not pay for them the same way, and most salons are never told there is a difference.
- Websites from $1,495
- Fixed price, in writing
- Yours, including the code
Businesses this page is written for.
- Hair salons and barbershops
- Nail and lash studios
- Day spas and massage therapy
- Gyms, yoga and pilates studios
- Personal trainers and coaches
- Med spas and aesthetics
Close but not quite? Tell me what you actually do — the work is the same shape more often than not.
Not all booking software is the same thing.
Start with why you have it at all. People book at night. Someone decides on a Sunday evening, finds no way to book, and tells themselves they will call on Monday. Most of them never do. Online booking exists to catch those people, and it works.
Now the part that matters. Some booking software is also a marketplace. Vagaro is one. Vagaro.com is a public website where anyone can search for a salon near them, sort by rating, and book. So part of your fee buys software, and part of it buys new clients. Cancel it and you lose both.
Other booking software is just software. GlossGenius is one. There is no public directory. Clients find you through your own page, through Google, or because a friend told them. You do all the finding yourself. The software only holds the calendar.
That line changes the answer completely. A marketplace earns its cut, the way a listing site does for a resort. Pure software is a bill, and a bill can be replaced by something you own.
One thing is true either way. Your client list lives inside the subscription. Names, phone numbers, what they booked, the note about what color they had last time. Getting it out means an export if you are lucky. That cost is not on anyone's pricing page.
What it costs, and which kind you are paying for.
These are the published prices, taken from each company's own pricing page. GlossGenius is $28, $56 or $168 a month, or $24, $48 and $148 if you pay for the year, plus a flat 2.6% card rate. Vagaro starts at $30 a month for one location and charges by how many bookable calendars you need.
If you work alone, either one is cheap and both do the job. Building something custom instead would be a waste of your money, and I would tell you so.
Six chairs is a different sum. Priced per calendar, the bill grows every time you hire. Add text reminders, add the branded app, and the number only moves one way.
So ask which kind you are buying. If it is pure software, a build is paid once and priced by what it does, not by how many people use it. If it is a marketplace, keep it — and build your own booking page as well, so the regulars who already know your name stop arriving through a fee.
The free audit works out which of those you are in. Sometimes the answer is that your software is fine and you should keep it.
Those are other companies' published prices, quoted as published and checked in September 2026. They aren't a claim about what you'd save — that depends entirely on what you're paying for and how much of it you use, which is what the audit is for.
Start with one thing, add when it's worth it.
Start with the appointment. Nearly everything else in this trade hangs off it.
Booking that works at ten at night
Your real hours, your real services, your real appointment lengths, on your own site. No app to download and no account to set up. Those two steps are where most late-night bookings are lost.
Reminders that cut the no-shows
A text the day before and a nudge an hour out. It is the highest-return thing in any appointment business. An empty chair costs you the whole hour no matter what your software costs.
A client record that belongs to you
History, preferences, the formula, the notes, the contact details. In a database you own and can export whenever you like, rather than one you rent by the month.
Deposits on the bookings that need them
For long appointments and new clients, hold a card or take a deposit at booking. It is the polite version of the cancellation policy you already have and hate enforcing.
Review requests that go out on their own
A few days after the appointment, every time, in your words. In this trade reviews are most of how a stranger decides. How that module works.
One module is $950, two or three is $1,950, and everything connected starts at $2,995. The price includes the first year of it running: hosting, database, backups and keeping it working. No monthly fee in year one. After that it's $79/month to keep it running, cancellable any month. Nothing renews on its own.
A website on its own starts at $1,495. If a website is all you have, Site Care looks after it for $49/month a month, and it is optional.
The part where I talk you out of something.
Payroll, card processing and stock accounting. Those stay with the real thing. They are regulated, they are already solved, and nothing I built would beat what you can buy.
Questions about salons, spas and fitness studios.
Should I cancel Vagaro?
So when is replacing the software the right call?
I work alone. Should I do this?
Can I get my client list out of my current software?
Don't text reminders cost money anyway?
Will I still need a website as well?
Not quite you, or not quite here?
Other kinds of business
Towns where this comes up most
Let's talk about your salons, spas & fitness business.
Tell me what you do and what's costing you the most time or money right now. I'll reply within 24 hours, and if the software you've already got is fine, I'll tell you that instead of selling you something.