The 6 best software for hair salons
Fresha wins: it publishes the lowest paid entry price of the six and prices a team per bookable member rather than per login. One of the six publishes no price at all, and three publish figures that are missing from the page a crawler reads.
The short answer
Fresha is the best-evidenced choice: it publishes the lowest paid entry price here, US$19.95 monthly for one stylist or US$14.95 per bookable team member, and documents booking, checkout, stock and commissions in one platform. Booksy is stronger for marketplace discovery, and Phorest publishes no price at all.
What this software category is
Hair salon software is the system a salon runs its day on: the appointment book across every chair, online booking that respects each stylist’s hours and each service’s duration, the client record with colour formulas and service history, reminders that cut no-shows, the checkout that takes payment for services and retail, stock for professional and retail product, and the commission and performance reporting the team is paid from.
This guide ranks for the independent salon — one to ten chairs, one or two locations — rather than for a franchise group or a medi-spa chain. It ranks the salon as a business: what it costs, how new clients arrive and what each one costs, and what leaving costs. Where a vendor’s strength is genuinely a chain or clinic strength, that is called out as neutral for a single salon rather than counted as a win.
How we evaluated
- Published price. We only quote figures from the vendor’s own pricing page, with the date we read it. Where a vendor publishes nothing, the entry says so — we do not substitute a number from a review site, because those disagree with each other by large multiples.
- What a new client costs. Salon platforms increasingly earn on acquisition rather than on subscription: marketplace fees, boost programmes and marketplace commissions can dwarf the licence. We credit a vendor for publishing that percentage and count it against one that does not.
- Fit for an independent salon. Chain, franchise and clinic tooling is treated as neutral for a one-to-ten-chair salon and as a real advantage only where a salon is actually on that path.
- What it costs to leave. Export scope, whether appointment, sale, payment, form and colour history leaves with you as well as the client list, and whether the salon keeps a readable archive after cancellation.
- Total first-year cost, not headline price. Per-user charges, card processing, SMS and WhatsApp credit, hardware, fiscal add-ons and implementation are named wherever the vendor documents them.
What is the best software for a hair salon?
| # | Product | Best for | Published price | Deployment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fresha | Best overall, and the lowest published entry price | From US$19.95 per monthPublished by the vendor | Cloud, browser and mobile apps |
| 2 | Booksy | Best for winning new clients from a consumer marketplace | US$29.99 per month plus US$20 per extra userPublished by the vendor | Cloud, browser and mobile apps |
| 3 | Phorest | Best for hair-salon client retention and rebooking | Not publishedQuote on request — no public price | Cloud, with the PhorestGo mobile app |
| 4 | Vagaro | Best for a full stack: POS hardware, memberships and payroll | From £20 per month for one bookable calendarPartly published — some tiers not shown | Cloud, with POS hardware and mobile apps |
| 5 | Salonized | Best for European salons budgeting local fiscal costs | From €21 per month excluding VATPartly published — some tiers not shown | Cloud, browser-based |
| 6 | HairDora | Best free starting point for a solo stylist or a new salon | Free plan published; paid tiers not shown staticallyPartly published — some tiers not shown | Browser, with desktop and mobile apps |
The ranked list
Fresha
Best overall, and the lowest published entry price
- Published price
- From US$19.95 per month
- Price evidence
- Published by the vendor
- Deployment
- Cloud, browser and mobile apps
- Vendor pricing page
- Fresha
Why it wins this category
Its US$19.95 solo figure is the lowest paid entry price published in this list, and it puts a number on the team as well as on the one-person salon. Pricing per bookable team member rather than per login means the receptionist and the apprentice do not appear on the invoice, which is exactly the charge that makes the per-user competitors expensive at five chairs. Around that price sits a genuinely broad platform: booking, checkout and payments, retail and stock, commissions and marketing in one account.
Published price
Our source-checked review of Fresha’s US pricing page on 2 August 2026 recorded an Independent plan at US$19.95 per month and a Team plan at US$14.95 per bookable team member per month, with a seven-day trial. The same page is regionalised: read again on 6 August 2026 the euro view showed €14.95 Independent and €9.95 per team member, quoted card processing at 1.29% + €0.15 online and 0.59% + €0.15 in person, and described custom Enterprise rates above twenty team members. Messages beyond the included allowance, optional modules and marketplace fees are extra.
The marketplace is optional rather than the only way clients arrive, so a salon can run direct booking and treat discovery as a channel it switches on deliberately.
Where it falls short
The acquisition terms are the part to pin down in writing, because Fresha sets them per country rather than globally. The pricing page served to us on 6 August 2026 showed the new-client marketplace fee as free for that market, and the help centre no longer prints a rate at all — it tells you to read the rate and the minimum off the pricing page for your own country. Our 2 August 2026 review of the US materials recorded a one-time 20% with a US$6 minimum instead, so the two readings disagree and only a written answer for your country settles it. Card processing and messaging beyond the allowance are separate lines, and the reviewed materials do not establish the historical import scope or what a full export contains after cancellation.
Booksy
Best for winning new clients from a consumer marketplace
- Published price
- US$29.99 per month plus US$20 per extra user
- Price evidence
- Published by the vendor
- Deployment
- Cloud, browser and mobile apps
- Vendor pricing page
- Booksy
Why it wins this category
No one else in this list publishes the cost of acquisition as plainly. The subscription is one number with no feature tiers to decode, the marketplace listing itself carries no commission — the page states that nothing is charged for new clients who find the business on Booksy while Boost is switched off — Boost then costs nothing until it actually produces a new client’s first visit, and every card rate is on the page rather than in a merchant agreement. For an independent stylist or a small chair-rental salon whose growth depends on being found by strangers on a phone, that combination of consumer marketplace and published, contingent acquisition cost is the strongest evidenced case here.
Published price
The US pricing page read on 6 August 2026 publishes US$29.99 per month plus tax for the base subscription with all features included, US$20 per month for each additional user, and a 14-day trial with no card required. Boost is free to switch on and charges a one-time 30% fee on the total of a Boost-acquired client’s first visit. Card processing is published separately: 2.69% + $0.30 keyed or mobile, 2.49% + $0.10 on the Booksy card reader, 2.49% + $0.20 for Tap to Pay, and 1.5% for a 30-minute payout.
The 14-day trial needs no card, so the evaluation can run on real appointments before any billing relationship exists.
Where it falls short
The per-user charge is what to model: five stylists cost US$29.99 plus four times US$20, or US$109.99 a month, against US$74.75 for the same five on Fresha’s reviewed Team rate — the ranking above flips for a solo operator and holds for a team. Boost’s 30% of a first visit is the second-highest published new-client rate here, behind the 35% Treatwell commission Salonized quotes, so it has to be judged against the margin on that visit and on whether the client rebooks directly afterwards. Client-list export is documented, but coverage for appointments, payments, forms and historical reports should be confirmed before migrating.
Phorest
Best for hair-salon client retention and rebooking
- Published price
- Not published
- Price evidence
- Quote on request — no public price
- Deployment
- Cloud, with the PhorestGo mobile app
- Vendor pricing page
- Phorest
Why it wins this category
It is built around the metric that actually decides whether a salon grows — whether the client comes back — and its documented tooling is deeper than anyone else’s here on that specific job: rebooking prompts, client reconnect, a loyalty programme, referral rewards, review collection, product recommendations by SMS, and a branded client booking app, with Phorest Ads Manager for Facebook and Instagram on top. A salon whose problem is retention rather than discovery will find more of the answer documented here than in any other product in this list.
Published price
Phorest publishes no subscription figure. Its pricing page, read on 6 August 2026, names the Starter, Grow, Ultimate and Elite tiers — plus Core, Elevate and Elite Aesthetics for clinics — and asks the visitor to request a quote or book a demo instead of showing a price. Ask for an itemised total covering the tier, every additional stylist, SMS and email volume, PhorestPay processing, hardware, implementation, training and exit before comparing it with anything else here.
PhorestPay, PhorestGo, memberships, stock, rostering and commission calculation mean the retention tooling sits on a full salon system rather than beside one.
Where it falls short
No published price at all, so a salon cannot shortlist, budget or sanity-check a renewal without entering a sales process — and with four tiers plus separate aesthetics tiers, the quote is where the whole comparison happens. That is the reason it ranks below two products with narrower feature sets. The same retention and marketing depth is overhead for a two-chair salon that only needs a diary and reminders, and the exact contract term, notice period, export scope and post-cancellation access have to be read rather than assumed.
Vagaro
Best for a full stack: POS hardware, memberships and payroll
- Published price
- From £20 per month for one bookable calendar
- Price evidence
- Partly published — some tiers not shown
- Deployment
- Cloud, with POS hardware and mobile apps
- Vendor pricing page
- Vagaro
Why it wins this category
It documents the widest operational surface of any product here — point of sale with real hardware, purchase orders and barcode stock, memberships, packages, gift certificates, recurring billing, time clock, payroll and commissions — and it puts every acquisition rate on the public page rather than in a contract: a one-time 20% on a new marketplace client’s first appointment, and an optional Vera Fill My Books promotion charged only when it books someone, at 5% for an existing client and 20% for a new one. A salon with a retail wall and a membership programme finds more of its day already built here.
Published price
Vagaro prices by the number of bookable calendars. The pricing page served us its UK view on 6 August 2026, showing £20 per month for a single location with one bookable calendar and £30 per month for multiple locations with one bookable calendar, a 30-day trial, and cancellation at any time with no fee; that view did not display the rate for each additional calendar, and figures are presented in local currency by country. The same page publishes a one-time 20% fee on the first appointment of a new client who discovers the business through the Vagaro Marketplace. Hardware, payment processing, messaging, payroll, website and forms are separate lines on top.
The 30-day trial covers every feature except email marketing, text marketing and the branded app, so most of the platform can be evaluated before any billing relationship exists.
Where it falls short
The published calendar price is a floor, not a total: how much a salon actually pays depends on how many chairs are bookable and how many separately priced modules it switches on, and the page we read did not publish the per-additional-calendar rate at all. That makes a like-for-like comparison with Fresha or Booksy impossible from public information — you have to build it from a quote. Discovery is a separate cost as well: unlike Booksy, whose marketplace listing carries no commission until Boost is turned on, a new client arriving through the Vagaro Marketplace costs a one-time 20% of that first appointment. Import and export field coverage should be agreed in writing rather than assumed from the setup assistance offered.
Salonized
Best for European salons budgeting local fiscal costs
- Published price
- From €21 per month excluding VAT
- Price evidence
- Partly published — some tiers not shown
- Deployment
- Cloud, browser-based
- Vendor pricing page
- Salonized
Why it wins this category
It publishes the costs the rest of this list leaves to a sales conversation. The German cash-register obligation is quoted as a €12 monthly TSE line rather than described as "compliance included", the marketplace commission is quoted as 35% on new Treatwell bookings plus 2% on prepaid online bookings, and SMS is quoted per credit at three volume tiers. For a European salon, those three numbers usually move the annual total more than the subscription does, and being able to read them without a call is worth more than a slightly lower headline price.
Published price
Our source-checked review of Salonized’s euro-zone price list on 2 August 2026 recorded Appointments at €21, Basic at €39 and Pro at €59 per month net, 10% off on annual billing, additional staff at €5, €7.50 and €7.50 by package, and additional locations at €16, €31.50 and €51.50. Re-reading the pricing pages on 6 August 2026 returned only the add-on figures — KassenSichV TSE compliance at €12 per month, SMS credit at €0.15, €0.13 or €0.11 depending on volume, a Salonized Pay terminal from €199 plus a 1.0% transaction fee, and Treatwell at 35% commission on new Treatwell bookings plus a 2% transaction fee on prepaid online bookings — so confirm the current plan figures on the page before budgeting from them.
The Treatwell integration gives a marketplace channel without moving the salon’s whole operation onto a marketplace.
Where it falls short
The list is euro-zone and quoted net of VAT, which makes it the wrong comparison entirely for a US salon. There is no free tier, the German TSE is a paid add-on rather than an included capability, and the Treatwell commission is governed by a separate agreement with Treatwell rather than by the Salonized subscription. The plan figures above come from our 2 August 2026 review rather than from the page as it rendered for us four days later, which is precisely why they carry a partial evidence badge instead of a published one.
HairDoraPublished by HairDora — not a neutral review site
Best free starting point for a solo stylist or a new salon
- Published price
- Free plan published; paid tiers not shown statically
- Price evidence
- Partly published — some tiers not shown
- Deployment
- Browser, with desktop and mobile apps
- Vendor pricing page
- HairDora
Why it wins this category
It is the only system here with a permanent free tier rather than a trial, so the evaluation ends when the salon has decided rather than when a timer expires — and the free tier is sized for exactly the case that struggles to justify any subscription: one chair, a few hundred clients, a diary and email reminders. For a stylist going independent or a salon opening next month, that removes the largest barrier to evaluating anything at all, and the interface being available in dozens of languages matters where the team and the clients do not share one.
Published price
The pricing page publishes Free at US$0 forever with one hairdresser, up to 100 appointments per month, up to 300 clients and email reminders. The Basic, Pro and Premium tiers scale by hairdresser, but their figures are rendered in the browser and are absent from the static page we read on 6 August 2026 — the plan cards ship with an empty price. Confirm the current paid prices, taxes and limits on the pricing page itself before comparing totals with anything above.
No setup fee, no card to start, and the same account works in the browser and in downloadable desktop and mobile apps.
Where it falls short
We publish this list, so read this entry sceptically — and it is ranked last because that is where the evidence puts us. Our own paid prices are not in the static pricing page, which is a transparency gap we are naming rather than hiding: every other product here puts at least one figure where a crawler can read it. Public HairDora materials do not establish a consumer marketplace or any paid acquisition channel, nor parity with Vagaro’s hardware, membership and payroll depth, Phorest’s retention and marketing tooling, or Salonized’s documented German TSE route. Bulk import and a complete post-cancellation export are not documented either, so require a trial migration and a written exit scope before moving a real client list.
What is the best software for a hair salon?
What does hair salon software actually cost per month?
For a solo stylist, the published figures reviewed in August 2026 run from US$0 on HairDora’s free tier to US$19.95 on Fresha Independent and US$29.99 on Booksy, with Vagaro’s UK view showing £20 for one bookable calendar and Salonized’s euro list starting at €21 net. For five stylists the ordering changes: Fresha’s Team rate works out at US$74.75, Booksy at US$109.99. Phorest publishes nothing. None of those figures includes card processing, SMS or WhatsApp credit, hardware or marketplace fees, which is where the real difference usually appears.
Is a salon marketplace worth the commission?
It depends entirely on whether the client rebooks with you directly afterwards. Booksy charges nothing while Boost is off and a one-time 30% of a Boost client’s first visit once it is on; Vagaro charges a one-time 20% of a new marketplace client’s first appointment, plus an optional 5%/20% Vera promotion; Salonized’s Treatwell integration is quoted at 35% commission on new Treatwell bookings plus 2% on prepaid online bookings; Fresha sets the rate per country and showed it as free on the page served to us on 6 August 2026. A one-off fee on a client who returns for years is cheap. The same fee on a discount-seeking client who never comes back is not.
Why do some salon vendors hide their prices?
One of the six here publishes nothing at all: Phorest names four tiers and asks for a quote or a demo. Three more publish figures that are not fully visible on the page — Vagaro’s view did not show the per-additional-calendar rate, Salonized’s plan table did not render for us on the review date, and HairDora’s own paid tiers are drawn in the browser rather than in the HTML. The practical effect is that a salon cannot build a shortlist without entering several sales processes. Ask for a 36-month itemised total in writing and treat reluctance as information.
What should a salon check before it switches system?
Four things in writing. A field-level export specification, so you know whether colour formulas, consultation forms, appointment history and sales leave with you or only the client list. A test import of your own data rather than a demo dataset. The 36-month total with per-stylist charges, card processing, SMS or WhatsApp credit, hardware, implementation and training itemised. And the notice period plus what access you keep after cancelling. Every vendor here can supply these; hesitation is itself an answer.
Can a salon run on free software?
For one chair, yes — HairDora publishes a free tier with one hairdresser, up to 100 appointments a month, up to 300 clients and email reminders, which is enough to run a real week rather than watch a demo. Past that it stops being a pricing question: SMS and WhatsApp reminders, card payments, stock, commissions and marketplace discovery are what a growing salon buys, and no free tier of any kind substitutes for written security, retention and data-portability terms before a real client list is stored.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best software for a hair salon?
Fresha is the best-evidenced overall choice for an independent salon: it publishes US$19.95 per month for a single stylist and US$14.95 per bookable team member, the lowest paid subscription figures in this comparison, alongside booking, checkout, stock, commissions and marketing in one account. Booksy is stronger where new clients have to come from a consumer marketplace. Phorest documents the deepest client-retention tooling but publishes no price. Vagaro suits salons with retail, memberships and payroll. Salonized fits European salons. HairDora offers a free tier for one chair.
How much does hair salon software cost?
Of the six reviewed in August 2026, Fresha publishes US$19.95 per month for its Independent plan and US$14.95 per bookable team member, Booksy publishes US$29.99 per month plus US$20 per additional user, Vagaro’s UK view showed £20 per month for one bookable calendar, Salonized’s euro list starts at €21 net, and HairDora publishes a free tier at US$0. Phorest publishes no figure. Expect the real total to add card processing, SMS or WhatsApp credit, hardware and any marketplace fees on top of the subscription.
Is there free software for hair salons?
HairDora publishes a free plan at US$0 forever covering one hairdresser, up to 100 appointments per month, up to 300 clients and email reminders, which is enough to evaluate the appointment book, the client record and online booking with real clients. The other five products reviewed do not publish a free tier, though four of them publish a trial: seven days on Fresha, 14 on Booksy with no card required, 14 on Salonized with no card and no setup fee, and 30 on Vagaro covering everything except email marketing, text marketing and the branded app. A free plan is a way to test a workflow rather than a compliance decision, so obtain written security, retention and export terms before storing a production client list anywhere.
Which salon software charges the least for new clients?
Booksy, on the published evidence: its pricing page states that no commission is charged for new clients who find the business on Booksy while Boost is switched off, and the marketplace listing is included in the subscription — the one-time 30% of a first visit applies only once Boost is turned on. Vagaro publishes a one-time 20% on a new marketplace client’s first appointment, with its optional Vera promotion at 5% for an existing client and 20% for a new one. Salonized’s Treatwell integration is quoted at 35% plus a 2% transaction fee on prepaid online bookings. Fresha sets the rate per country: the page served to us on 6 August 2026 showed new marketplace clients as free, while our 2 August review of the US materials recorded 20% with a US$6 minimum. Confirm the terms for your country before relying on any of them.
Is this an independent review?
No. HairDora publishes this page and sells one of the six products in it. We disclose that at the top, rank all five competitors above our own product, publish our own limitations in the same detail as everyone else’s — including that our paid prices are not in the static pricing page — and link to each vendor so every figure here can be checked at source.
How current are these prices?
Every figure was read from the vendor’s own pages on the dates named in each entry: 6 August 2026 for the live pricing pages, and 2 August 2026 for the source-checked review the Fresha US and Salonized euro-zone figures come from. Salon software pricing is regionalised and changes without announcement, and one of the six vendors publishes no price at all, so confirm every decision-critical figure directly with the vendor for your own country before signing.
Sources
Public sources checked on August 6, 2026.
- Fresha: pricing and plans
- Fresha: marketplace new-client fees
- Booksy: US pricing, Boost and processing rates
- Phorest: pricing tiers and quote request
- Phorest: salon software capabilities
- Vagaro: pricing by bookable calendar
- Vagaro: Vera Fill My Books fees
- Salonized: pricing and add-ons
- Salonized: euro-zone price list
- HairDora: pricing and plan limits
Fresha, Booksy, Phorest, Vagaro, Salonized, Treatwell and related names are trademarks or product names of their respective owners. HairDora is not affiliated with, sponsored by, endorsed by, or recommended by any of them. This ranking is published by HairDora, which sells one of the products reviewed and places itself last on these criteria. It uses public official information read on the dates shown above; prices, features, availability and contract terms are regionalised and change without notice. Verify every booking, payment, tax, fiscal, security, legal, regulatory, technical and migration requirement directly with each vendor, using your own services and your own country. This page is not legal, tax, compliance, security or accounting advice.