The Front Desk Report

Rates read off vendor pages · last check Aug 18, 2026

What it actually costs

The subscription is the half of the bill vendors advertise. Card processing is the half that scales with your chair. Enter your shape below and both halves get added up, using rates we read off each vendor's own page on the date shown — never a roundup, never an estimate.

Your salon

Card volume through the salon $5,525 / month
Which is $66,300 a year

Annual cost, cheapest first

Subscription plus processing, twelve months, at the volume above.

Fresha not yet tested $2,094
Vagaro $2,389
GlossGenius $2,396
Square Appointments not yet tested $2,566

Bars are relative to the dearest platform shown. The brass bar is the cheapest at your volume — cheapest is not the same as best.

Fresha

Pricing documented only
Plan at this headcount Independent
Subscription $19.95 / mo
Card processing $154.57 / mo
Monthly, all in $174.52
Effective take rate on card volume 3.16%

$2,094 a year

  • Team pricing is $14.95 per team member per month — the tiers above are that rate multiplied out; 10+ is modelled at ten members and rises with headcount.
  • Clients who find you through the Fresha marketplace carry a one-time 20% commission ($6 minimum) that this calculator does NOT include — it depends on how many new clients arrive that way.
  • Manual-entry / card-on-file transactions are 3.30% + $0.20, higher than the online rate used above. Card-present taps add $0.10 per authorisation.
  • 100 SMS and 50 marketing emails a month are included; beyond that, $0.02 each.
  • Widely described as "free salon software" in third-party roundups — Fresha's own pricing page lists no free plan.

Rates verified Aug 18, 2026 · source · tracker

Vagaro

Tested in our lab
Plan at this headcount 1 calendar
Subscription $23.99 / mo
Card processing $175.10 / mo
Monthly, all in $199.09
Effective take rate on card volume 3.60%

$2,389 a year

  • Rates above are the Small Merchant tier (<$4,000/mo card volume). Above $4,000/mo: 2.29% + $0.19 card-present, plus a $10/mo merchant subscription and FANF + Mastercard Location fees.
  • Calendar counts include every bookable provider — a bookable owner occupies a calendar.
  • Credit card required to start the 30-day trial; subscription auto-bills at trial end.

Rates verified Aug 18, 2026 · source · tracker

GlossGenius

Tested in our lab
Plan at this headcount Gold
Subscription $56.00 / mo
Card processing $143.65 / mo
Monthly, all in $199.65
Effective take rate on card volume 3.61%

$2,396 a year · $2,300 if you prepay annually

  • Flat 2.6% with no per-transaction fixed fee, and the same rate for card-present and online/keyed volume — GlossGenius publishes no separate keyed or card-on-file rate.
  • No per-provider charge: our trial ran five providers plus the owner on one Gold subscription at $56/mo (verified in-app 2026-08-20).
  • Modelled on Gold because the trial offers no tier choice. Standard ($28/mo) exists, but we could not verify its team or feature limits — notably, intake forms are a Gold-and-above feature.
  • Deposits, gift cards and no-show fees require completing GlossGenius Payments onboarding (Stripe identity verification); we tested up to that wall and no further.
  • Instant payout +1.8%; payroll add-on $40/mo + $6 per seat — neither is included above.

Rates verified Aug 18, 2026 · source · tracker

Square Appointments

Pricing documented only
Plan at this headcount Plus
Subscription $49.00 / mo
Card processing $164.82 / mo
Monthly, all in $213.82
Effective take rate on card volume 3.87%

$2,566 a year

  • Modelled on Plus ($49/mo) because it is the cheapest plan that supports a cancellation policy and no-show fees — the enforcement our test salon's policy sheet requires. The Free plan ($0) has neither, and charges more per transaction (2.6% + 15¢ in person, 3.3% + 30¢ online).
  • Priced PER LOCATION, not per provider: one subscription covers the whole roster at a single address — the opposite of Vagaro's per-calendar model.
  • Premium ($149/mo) drops the card-present rate to 2.4% + 15¢; it pays for itself only at high card-present volume.
  • Manual entry and card-on-file are 3.5% + 15¢ on every plan — notably higher than the online rate used above, and card-on-file is what no-show fees actually charge.

Rates verified Aug 18, 2026 · source · tracker

Three salons, for scale

Load any of these into the calculator above.

Solo booth renter

85 appointments a month at a $65 average ticket, mostly card-present.

Run this shape →

Three-chair salon

260 appointments at $78, with online booking pushing card-on-file volume up.

Run this shape →

Six-chair salon + spa

520 appointments at $92 — the volume where processing dwarfs subscription.

Run this shape →

How this is calculated

Every subscription price and processing rate here was read off the vendor's own pricing page by us, on the date each card shows. Nothing is estimated, averaged, or lifted from a comparison site. When a platform charges per provider, your headcount picks the tier; when it charges per location, it doesn't.

Processing is computed as card volume × the published rate, split between card-present and online/card-on-file using the slider — most platforms charge more for the second, and online booking pushes volume that way. Mandatory monthly add-ons are included. One-time fees, marketplace commissions, SMS overages, hardware and payroll are listed as fine print and never folded in silently.

We do not process live payments through our test salon. Rates are documented from vendor pages and, where a trial let us, confirmed in-app — but no real card ever moves money here, so these are published-rate calculations, not a record of settled transactions. Platforms marked pricing documented only haven't been through the lab yet; their cost math is as dated and first-hand as anyone else's, but we haven't verified what the software does.

Some links below are affiliate links — if you subscribe through one, we earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes a verdict; every tool runs the same test salon. Full disclosure