Topic
Booking and front-desk software for salons, independents, and booth renters.
We ran the same five-provider salon, the same 34-appointment week and the same six planted traps through GlossGenius, Vagaro, Fresha, Square Appointments and Acuity. Here is the ranking, what each tool is actually best at, what every one of them costs per year, and the one thing none of them did.
Square’s $0 plan booked our salon’s clients faster than any tool we have tested, then could not take a deposit, charge a no-show, or record cash. Acuity is the first tool whose settings could express our policy sheet, and the first whose trial never emailed a client. Same salon, same week, both tested.
Fresha has no free plan on its price list, and the part that is free took five gates, a 20% commission, and a card we could not remove. We ran the same salon through both tools and the two trials ended in opposite kinds of trouble.
We priced GlossGenius, Vagaro, Fresha and Square Appointments for three real salon shapes, subscription plus card processing, from each vendor’s own pages on a stated date. Processing is 70–95% of the bill.
We configured the same five-chair salon in GlossGenius and Vagaro, booked the same 34-appointment week, and planted six traps. What each tool caught, missed, and actually costs.