Every price on this page was read off the vendor's own pricing page by us, on the date
shown — never lifted from a roundup, a review site, or an AI summary. Booking-software
pricing hides in the fine print: the subscription is only half the bill once processing
rates and per-feature fees land. Prices rot. Dates are the preservative.
Each tool here has been through our lab or is in the queue; where
a review exists, it's linked. Promos are listed with the expiry the vendor stated — if the
date has passed, assume the promo has too.
To turn these numbers into what your own salon would pay — subscription plus card processing,
per year — run them through the true-cost calculator. It
reads from this same file, so the two pages can never disagree.
Front-desk & booking platforms
The all-in-one booking, scheduling, and payment platforms of the first review wave.
| Standard | $28/mo | $24/mo billed annually; "essential tools for businesses just starting out" |
| Gold | $56/mo | $48/mo billed annually — the "most popular" tier, "for businesses up to 9 staff" |
| Platinum | $168/mo | $148/mo billed annually; "for established businesses and teams 10+" |
Trial: 14 days, no card required — confirmed at signup 2026-08-20: the card ask is skippable, though the trial forces the Gold tier (no tier choice) and the trial banner states the end date. Processing: flat 2.6%, no separate card-on-file or manual-entry rate per the pricing page. Instant payout costs +1.8%; payroll add-on $40/mo + $6/seat. Medspa/EMR plans exist but are outside our coverage.
| 1 calendar | $30/mo | $23.99/mo for the first 6 months — the advertised headline price is the introductory rate (pricing page, read 2026-09-28) |
| 2–6 calendars | +$10/calendar/mo | ongoing: 2→$40, 3→$50, 4→$60, 5→$70, 6→$80; first 6 months $6.01 less (2→$33.99 … 6→$73.99). Published on the pricing page as a calendar selector as of 2026-09-28; in August the ladder was visible only in-app (read 2026-08-21). |
| 7+ calendars | $90/mo | $83.99/mo for the first 6 months; flat cap — large teams pay less per chair than small ones |
Trial: 30 days — but a credit card is REQUIRED to start the trial (auto-bills at trial end; "no charge until your trial ends"), and signup routes through a merchant-processing application (hardware store → business info → identity & bank verification) that can be skipped via "Do this later" (verified at trial signup 2026-08-21). Our 5-provider salon + bookable owner = 6 calendars = $73.99/mo for the first 6 months, then $80/mo — ~3× the advertised $23.99. Processing (per Vagaro support article, re-read 2026-09-28 — rates NOT on the pricing page): Small Merchant (<$4,000/mo volume): swipe/dip/tap 2.6% + $0.10, keyed-in 3.5% + $0.19, Tap to Phone 2.6% + $0.16. Large Merchant (>$4,000/mo): swipe/dip/tap 2.29% + $0.19, keyed-in 3.5% + $0.19, Tap to Phone 2.29% + $0.25, PLUS a $10/mo merchant subscription and FANF + Mastercard Location fees. The two-tier volume threshold matters for true-cost math: a busy solo crosses $4,000.
| Independent | $19.95/mo | single calendar column; 100 messages + 50 marketing emails/mo included |
| Team | $14.95/member/mo | "we charge for each bookable team member" — page subtitle; 100 messages + 50 marketing emails per member/mo |
| Enterprise | custom | 20+ team members |
Trial: 7 days (vendor-stated). Processing: in-person 2.29% + $0.20 (+$0.10 per tap auth), online 2.79% + $0.20, manual entry 3.30% + $0.20. New clients from the Fresha marketplace: 20% one-time commission, $6 minimum. 100 free SMS/mo then $0.02/text; 50 free marketing emails/mo then $0.02/email.
| Free | $0/mo | per location; in-person 2.6% + 15¢, online 3.3% + 30¢. Lists "unlimited staff calendars" — but no cancellation-policy/no-show-fee tooling, and multi-staff appointment booking is a Plus feature. Pitched "for solo professionals". |
| Plus | $49/mo | per location, badged "best value"; in-person 2.5% + 15¢, online 2.9% + 30¢; adds cancellation policy + no-show fees, multi-staff appointment booking, waitlist |
| Premium | $149/mo | per location; in-person 2.4% + 15¢, online 2.9% + 30¢; adds future-bookings report, service cost tracking, resource management |
Trial: Plus/Premium: "Try free for 30 days" (vendor-stated; terms confirmed at signup). Manual entry & card-on-file: 3.5% + 15¢ on every plan (per squareup.com/us/en/payments/our-fees, read 2026-08-18). Key catch for our scoring: no-show fee enforcement requires the $49/mo Plus plan.
| Starter | $20/mo | $16/mo billed annually; 1 calendar; email reminders and custom client forms, but no text reminders, waitlist, memberships/packages, or gift certificates |
| Standard | $34/mo | $27/mo billed annually; up to 6 calendars — our 5-provider salon plus a bookable owner fits exactly. Adds text reminders ("check global availability"), appointment waitlist, memberships and packages, gift certificates |
| Premium | $61/mo | $49/mo billed annually; up to 36 calendars; adds AI booking assistant, BAA/HIPAA, logo removal, multiple time zones for staff/locations, custom API and CSS |
Trial: 7 days, "no credit card needed" — stated under every tier on the pricing page (read 2026-09-19; the terms as experienced at signup are recorded here once the trial closes). Priced per CALENDAR, not per provider or location: a calendar is a bookable column, so the tier is set by headcount as on Vagaro and Fresha, but in three steps (1 / 6 / 36) rather than per seat. Acuity processes no payments of its own: every tier takes "payments via Stripe, Square, PayPal, Venmo", so the processing rate is whichever processor you connect — none is published on Acuity's page. The annual toggle shows a per-month figure ("$27 / month"), never the yearly total ($324 billed once). No set-up, cancellation, or support fees, per the page.