Comparing salon software: how to line up vendors fairly

Why comparing without a method almost always goes wrong

There is a lot of salon software out there and the product pages look remarkably alike. Everyone promises a smart calendar, fewer no-shows and a professional image. Without your own yardstick you end up comparing marketing copy instead of functionality, and you choose on gut feeling or on the lowest number on the homepage.

What you are really looking for is a form of appointment scheduling software, plus the things a salon specifically needs: a point of sale, client records and payments. That combination is exactly where vendors differ most, and where product pages get the least concrete.

The second pitfall is the order of things. If you book demos first and think about requirements later, you let the vendor decide what gets compared. Turn it around: your requirements list first, vendors second.

Step 1: write down your own requirements before you open any vendor

Start with your week. How many treatments do you do on average, do you work alone or with a team, do you sell products, and how much time does your admin take each month? Then write down the three problems you actually want to solve. For one owner that is the phone ringing mid-treatment, for another it is the VAT return or stock that never adds up.

Next, separate must-haves from nice-to-haves. A calendar that makes double bookings impossible is a must-have. A colour scheme that matches your branding is a nice-to-have. Give every requirement a weight from 1 to 3, so you can score later instead of argue.

Also think a year ahead. If you hire someone, you will want per-employee permissions so that not everyone can see your revenue figures or client data. Software that does not support this forces you into a second migration later on.

Step 2: work out the pricing model, not just the monthly fee

A monthly fee tells you little as long as you do not know the model underneath it. Some vendors combine a low subscription with a percentage per booking or per payment. That feels friendly at ten appointments a month and starts to hurt once your calendar fills up: you pay more precisely because you are doing better.

So work out two scenarios. First your current number of bookings, then the number you want to reach in a year. Put the total annual cost under both, including transaction fees, extra staff and modules billed separately. Only then are you comparing like with like.

Salonnare deliberately uses a fixed monthly price with no commission per booking: Free at €0 (1 employee and 50 bookings per month), Starter at €29 per month and Pro at €59 per month. The pricing page shows what each plan includes, so you can drop those numbers straight into your own calculation.

Step 3: test the practical must-haves properly

An international package can look beautiful and still trip over local practice. So test three things explicitly. One: does the point of sale handle VAT on treatments and products correctly, including a daily close your bookkeeper can work with? Two: can you offer the payment methods your clients actually use, and does that money land in your own account? Three: how does the system handle sensitive client data?

General buying guides such as this overview of salon software options help with the functional questions, but tax and privacy requirements are something you tick off per country yourself. With Salonnare, deposits and payments run through Mollie or Stripe straight into your own bank account, without us as the software vendor taking a commission on that booking. You can see how that works on the online payments page.

Do not skip the privacy part. If you record allergies, medication or skin conditions, you are processing special category data under article 9 of the GDPR. That needs more than a notes field. Salonnare keeps this data in a separate encrypted vault with its own access rights, and all data is stored on servers inside the EU.

Step 4: use the trial for what a demo never shows

In a demo everything looks logical, because someone else is holding the mouse. The questions that really matter only get answered once you run a week yourself. Perform the same five actions in every trial: book and move an appointment, create a client with a note, take a payment, close the day and schedule a recurring appointment.

Watch the number of clicks, and watch your phone. A lot of salon work happens standing up, between two clients. If the system runs as an install-free web app on any device, you install nothing and work with the same data at the front desk and on the go.

During that week, ask the vendor three concrete questions: what happens to my data if I leave, how fast do I get an answer to a support request, and which languages can the software handle if I have clients or staff who speak another language. Salonnare runs in five languages (Dutch, English, German, French and Spanish) and lets staff sign in with Google, Microsoft, Apple or Facebook.

Want to run that week yourself? You can, without any commitment: start free with Salonnare and schedule your real appointments.

Step 5: check the migration before you commit

Migration is the part most often forgotten and the part that takes the most time. Ask each vendor how you import your existing client list, whether historic appointments come along and who does that work. Also ask whether the online booking widget fits your current website, because that determines whether your site needs changing.

Plan the switch for a quiet moment in your week, not right before a busy period. If it helps, run both briefly in parallel: new appointments in the new system, existing ones in the old. Your clients will not notice a thing.

If you work alone, that switch usually takes one evening. How to run your calendar, point of sale and admin from a single system as a sole trader is covered in our guide to salon software for freelancers.

Salonnare against your requirements list

The table below is not a vendor ranking, it is the previous steps translated into concrete comparison points. Copy the left-hand column into your own overview and fill in what you find per vendor. The right-hand column shows where Salonnare stands, so you can put it next to your other candidates.

If you notice you are mostly comparing on price, walk through the weights from step 1 once more. A system that saves you an hour of admin every week easily earns back a few tens per month. Ready to test it? Start free with Salonnare and fill in your comparison with real experience instead of promises.

Frequently asked questions about comparing salon software