Top 3 Beauty Salon Business Software

The beauty industry is now among the fastest-growing industries in today’s economy. To help beauty salon business owners, the champions of this industry, handle the workload as well as the competition, hundreds of efficient management systems/salon software have been developed. (Image Credit: Christane Brand/Pixabay)

Unfortunately, rummaging through this heap to find the best salon software for your salon business can be hard. But do not despair, we have got you!

We carefully evaluated the best salon management apps in the market today, and Salon Life, Setmore, and Vagaro came at the top. And to help you settle for the best hair salon app among these three, we went ahead to prepare the comparison below:

1.      Salon Life

Salon Life, as the name suggests, is a convenient salon calendar dedicated to the salon industry alone. It comes with uniquely innovative features such as drag-and-drop scheduling, calendar hotkeys, automatic texts and emails, staff appointment lead time, import & export, custom coupons & gift cards for clients, copy & paste function for bookings & schedules, and seamless integration with social media pages as well as salon business websites.

Salon owners can also customize all the headings & descriptions on the main booking page and write client notes. The hair salon software does not require any downloads as it is optimized for optimal performance on all desktop & mobile devices.

Types of businesses

• Small salons
• Mid-size salons
• Enterprises/big salons

Pricing

The starting price is €7 per month. Card information is not required to subscribe to any of the plans.

Free version Available

Yes

Free trial with any of the plans

Yes

Ease of Use & Customer Support (Out of 5 stars)

• Ease of use: 5/5
• Customer support: 5/5

Special salon features

• Access control
• Automated scheduling
• Appointment management
• Booking management
• Calendar Management
• Customer accounts
• Client Management
• Customer history
• Customizable branding
• Data import/export
• Drag-and-drop interface
• Email marketing, Email notifications,
• Employee management
• Inventory Management
• Multi-location
• Multiple user accounts
• Payroll management
• Permission management
• SMS integration
• Task scheduling

Pros

• Easy-to-use platform
• Excellent customer support
• Caters for all salon sizes

Cons

• No mobile app available. The website is, however, fully-optimized for mobile device browsers.

2.      Setmore

Setmore is an appointment scheduling solution designed for a variety of business settings. The key features include staff scheduling, custom email notifications, and a client portal for appointment booking.

Founded in 2012, the hair salon software comes both an android and iOS app. Unlike Salon App which is built for beauticians alone, Setmore is designed for a wide range of businesses including entrepreneurs, community organizations, and many others.

Type of businesses catered to:

• Freelancers
• Small businesses

Pricing

Pricing starts at $25/month. Card information is not required.

Free version

Yes

Free trial with any of the plans

No

Ease of Use & Customer Support (Out of 5 stars)

• Ease of use: 4.5/5
• Customer support: 4.5/5

Special Salon Features

• Appointment management
• Automated scheduling
• Booking management
• Calendar management
• Client management
• Customizable branding
• Drag-and-drop interface
• Email notifications
• Employee management
• SMS integration
• Social media integration

Pros

• Comes with android and iOS app

Cons

• Cannot cater to mid-size and large salons
• Doesn’t feature access control
• No customer accounts
• No customer history
• Doesn’t come with data import/export
• Missing email marketing
• Also doesn’t include other key features such as inventory management, task scheduling, multi-location, multiple-use accounts, payroll management, and permission management.

3.      Vagaro

Vagaro is a cloud-based scheduling solution that allows business owners to manage appointments as well as their facilities. Just like Salon Life, it offers an integrated solution to manage payroll, bookkeeping, inventory, and client databases. It also features automated email & text notifications and email marketing. However, this hair salon software caters for a wide range of businesses besides salons. Either way, it will help you build and manage a successful beauty salon business.

Types of businesses:

• Freelancers
• Small businesses
• Mid-size businesses
• Large businesses

Pricing

Pricing starts at $25/month. Unfortunately, card information is required.

Free version

No

Free trial with any of the plans

Yes

Ease of Use & Customer Support (Out of 5 stars)

• Ease of use: 4.5/5
• Customer support: 4.5/5

Special Salon Features

• Access control
• Appointment management
• Automated scheduling
• Calendar management
• Customer accounts
• Customer history
• Data import/export
• Email marketing
• Employee management
• Inventory management
• Multi-location
• Multiple users
• Payroll management
• Permission management
• SMS integration
• Social media integration
• Task scheduling

Pros

• Integrates with Google Calendar, WordPress websites, and Xero.

Cons

• No free version/free accounts
• No booking management
• Doesn’t include client management & email notifications
• Doesn’t feature customizable branding
• Lacks drag-and-drop feature

Comparison

The following table summarizes the differences as well as the similarities of these three salon apps:

Salon Life at the top of our best-3 list!

From the table above, it’s clear that Salon Life is the best hair salon app because one, it ticks off all the boxes and two, because it is the most affordable. The fact that it was designed with only the salon business owner in mind is also very impressive.

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