Salonnare vs Acuity Scheduling - which fits your salon?

Pricing and cost model

Salonnare starts at EUR 0 per month with the free plan: 1 staff member and 50 bookings per month, no credit card required. Need more? Starter is EUR 29 per month (EUR 348 per year) and Pro is EUR 59 per month (EUR 708 per year). No commission on your revenue and no lock-in. See the full breakdown on the pricing page. According to their pricing page, Acuity Scheduling uses a freemium or paid model and bills in dollars.^[1] For a European salon that means currency conversion and VAT handling that is not tailored to the local market. With Salonnare you bill in euros, everything is built for the local practice and you know up front what you pay, with no surprises.

Built for the local market

Salonnare runs on EU servers (Frankfurt and Amsterdam), is fully GDPR-compliant and speaks your language: the entire interface and all emails are available in English, plus Dutch, German, French and Spanish. Clients pay via iDEAL (native through both Stripe Connect and Mollie), Bancontact, SumUp or card, using your own Stripe or Mollie account, with no markup from Salonnare. The point of sale applies the correct local VAT (21% on services, 9% on retail) and you can export an audit file for the tax authority. Acuity Scheduling is English-first and aimed at the US market, so iDEAL and local VAT and audit-file requirements are not a built-in part of the product. That local foundation is exactly what makes the difference for a Dutch or Belgian salon.

Features and ease of use

Salonnare is more than a calendar. Beyond online booking through a widget on your own site and a branded booking page with your own logo, you get client records, inventory management, email marketing and campaigns, recurring memberships (SEPA/iDEAL), gift cards, loyalty, no-show fees and deposits, intake forms, a GDPR Art.9 health-data vault and GDPR export. It is all in the plan, with no per-module add-on fees. On your booking page, clients pick one or more treatments, see time slots per staff member and book in a few clicks. Acuity is a strong and flexible scheduling tool, but it is not salon-specific: inventory, salon loyalty or a health-data vault are not part of its core. You also fully own your own data and branding - no marketplace that shows your competitors to your clients.

Switching to Salonnare

Switching does not have to be a hurdle. You import your client list via CSV so your history comes along. Then you set up your treatments, staff and booking page and connect your own Stripe or Mollie account. The modern interface is set up so that even a trainee is productive within an hour. Feel free to start on the free plan to test everything at your own pace before scaling up. Support helps you during office hours, directly from the developer. No ticket system in a different time zone, but someone who understands your salon and answers fast.

Conclusion: why Salonnare wins

To be fair: Acuity Scheduling is a mature, international product that is deeply integrated with Squarespace. If you are an English-speaking, international service provider inside that ecosystem without salon-specific requirements, Acuity is worth considering. But for the salon this comparison is about - a hairdresser, beauty salon or nail studio in the Netherlands or Belgium - Salonnare wins convincingly. You get iDEAL and Bancontact natively, the correct local VAT with audit-file export for the tax authority, EU servers with GDPR, and support in your own language. On top of that a complete salon ERP (inventory, client records, memberships, gift cards, no-show fees) with no add-on fees and no commission on your revenue, from EUR 0 per month. These are not empty promises but concrete features a scheduling tool does not offer. For a Dutch or Belgian salon, the choice is therefore clear.

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