Last Updated on June 2, 2025 by Ewen Finser
Being able to grow and scale your business is essential for all salons and there are many ways that this can be achieved. You have so many options to choose from when it comes to a marketing tool for 2025 but to me the best options are those that give you more flexible solutions to meeting your customers and that includes customized email or text campaigns, filtering the campaigns based on marketing channel, and offering things like video consultations as an alternative revenue stream to build good customer relationships.
Best Salon Marketing Software Tools I’m Comparing
Here are the options I’m comparing:
- Boulevard
- Manogmint
- Vagaro
- AestheticsPro
- Phorest
#1: Phorest
Phorest is a beauty salon software that’s designed to help encourage business growth and streamline appointment setting. They’ve been around since 2002 and service the UK, Ireland, and the US.
Features
- POS
- Digital consultations
- Email Marketing
- Dedicated business advisor
Availability
- U.S., UK, Ireland
Price
- $425/month, everything included
Automations
- Auto-booking
- Automatic services in order
- Check-in
- Marketing campaigns
What Stands Out:
Video Consultations and business advisors.
Video Consultations
Phorest has an option for video consultations. I recognize that this is not necessarily considered a marketing tool at face value but I absolutely love this for overall marketing and client relationships for salons for two main reasons:
- It is an easy revenue stream that is convenient and reliable.
- It is a great way to market services more effectively and upsell additional services or products.
For example:
When I worked at a salon one of the biggest issues we had related to new clients who tried to book an appointment online or over the phone and they told us what they thought they wanted but it was really hard to gauge exactly what services would be required and how long the appointment would take for their overall goal.
One client, for example, booked an appointment for root touch up, hair color, highlights, and haircut.
However, what she really needed was a color correction because she was trying to transition from bleach blonde with her natural dark brown roots showing to a light brown with highlights.
She told us that she had long hair in the notes, but until we got our hands on it we genuinely weren’t certain just how long or how thick her hair turned out to be (spoiler: SO LONG and SO THICK).
She worked full time and that was the only day she could get off for her appointment so she didn’t have any availability to stop by before her appointment for us to just see what her hair looked like and figure out what we needed to do.
If we had had Phorest at that time, we could have scheduled a video consultation beforehand which would have at least let us see what her hair looked like and provide a more in-depth discussion to help manage her expectations. Because without that video consultation, everyone was frustrated. The customer was frustrated that she needed to book a second appointment for us to apply the highlights and root smudge because it ended up taking far longer than expected given the color correction that she actually needed.
So, again, while this company does have a marketing suite, I think one of the best marketing components they have is the virtual consultation.
Business Advisors
Another thing I really like about this particular software is you get a dedicated business advisor as well as a local support team and they are there to help you grow your business so if you are worried about certain marketing efforts, you can turn to this dedicated business advisor to get input based on your needs.
Best for:
Salons that have time and interest in managing video consultations as an additional Revenue stream and marketing platform to upscale services and manage client expectations.
#2: AestheticsPro
AestheticsPro is a HIPAA-compliant cloud software to handle client management, telemedicine, and scheduling for med spas and salons.
Features
- AP Marketing solutions
- Payment processing
- Telemedicine
- Booking platform
Availability
- Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK, and the US
Price
- $275/month for the premier program
Automations
- Auto-booking
- Check-in
- Marketing campaigns
What Stands Out:
Touchpoint marketing.
As a salon, marketing to specific customers based on behaviors and preferences is a big key to success. That’s why I love the touchpoints aspect of AestheticsPro software. All of your campaigns whether they are e-blasts, newsletters, triggered emails, or drip campaigns can be customized based on certain triggers and touch points specific to your customers.
I really love the Touchpoints aspect to AestheticsPro marketing as a salon because you are more likely to engage customers in discounts, promos, or appointments that have to do with services they have already shown an interest in. Sending too many marketing emails or campaigns that have to do with services someone has never booked and may genuinely never book just comes off as an annoyance.
What makes the touchpoints marketing component so great?
With this you can automatically send each customer specific campaign content based on things like:
- How they have engaged with your company in the past
- What the services are they have booked or looked at on your website
- What social media channels they prefer
AestheticsPro is great for the templates it has too, and the improved visibility with integrations on social media. It is geared more toward medical spas though, with HIPAA cloud based compliance, so while it might have features you don’t need as a salon, it is still something to consider if marketing is an important part of your goals.
Best for:
Marketing HIPAA-compliant services and followup products on an individualized level.
#3: Vagaro
Vagaro is a cloud-based platform for salons that handles marketing, booking, payment processing, and more. They have been around since 2009 and offer a mobile app and desktop management feature.
Features
- POS
- Inventory
- Form generation
- Email Marketing
Availability
- U.S. only
Price
- $30/month + $10 per month for each employee beyond 1, and a la carte marketing costs
Automations
- Auto-booking
- Marketing campaigns
What Stands Out:
AI edits and save-for-later options for marketing campaigns
AI Edits with Vagaro
Vagaro offers a unique AI feature associated with your marketing options. With this function you can choose to let the AI capabilities edit the content for your marketing campaigns based on different tones like:
- Professional
- Trendy
- Casual
- Motivational
You can see in the example below that I wanted to create a promo for 20% off a chemical peel and change the wording to be a bit trendier and It produced a different result for me:
Save Time and Schedule Later with Vagaro
Vagaro lets you create campaigns that you save for later, or schedule for social media pages like Facebook. This can save your organization a lot of time and money by being able to create campaigns when you have the time and come back to them to send when you are ready or create them when you have the time and schedule them to be sent automatically.
Best for:
Smaller salons or independent stylists who need lower monthly costs with a la carte options for marketing campaigns.
#4: Boulevard
Boulevard is a modern spa and salon software solution for booking, client management, and marketing designed with an easy interface for scalability.
Features
- POS
- Inventory
- Email Marketing
- Booking and messaging platform
Availability
- U.S. only
Price
- $425/month, everything included
Automations
- Auto-booking
- Automatic services in order
- Check-in
- Marketing campaigns
What Stands Out:
Automated campaigns like rescuing lost clients, with custom inclusion/exclusion features
Rescue Lost Clients with Boulevard
Boulevard offers several automated campaigns that you can set up to trigger after respective parameters have been met. For example, if you want to fill a slow day you can set an automated campaign to trigger when availability reaches 30% or higher.
One of the campaigns I like the most for salon marketing though, is the option to rescue lost clients. This has several templates from which to choose and you can edit the content within that template and then trigger it to send via email or text blast once clients have gone more than, let’s say, 180 days without booking an appointment.
Boulevard is unique with the data it serves for all of the marketing campaigns you create. Much like the other competitors, Boulevard lets you alter the groups who receive some of your marketing campaigns, selecting people who, for example, have booked appointments with the service you are targeting, with the employee you are supporting, and other facets.
It also lets you exclude specific groups.
Beyond that though, Boulevard makes for a more actionable marketing software for medical spas because it indicates at the bottom of each campaign you create the estimated participants that you will target if you are using your current customer database, which you can see in the image below.
Best for:
Scaling businesses looking for everything in one place, without hidden fees
#5: Mangomint
Mangomint is a salon booking and management software solution. They combine marketing components with booking, schedule management, payments, and more with a clean interface.
Features
- Intelligent waitlists which automatically fill open spots, empty time slots, or cancellations
- Payments routing
- Gamified UI
Availability
- U.S. and Canada
Price
- $245/month + add-ons
Automations
- Smart booking
- Customer check-in option with a front-facing display
- Waiting room option
- Wait list options to fill vacancies
What Stands Out:
Marketing restrictions and data management
Mangomint Restrictions
One of the things I like about the marketing options for Mangomint has to do with restrictions.
- Offers only get applied during checkout with a staff member
- Offers get applied with online booking using an offer code
- Offers get applied automatically
This is something you don’t see with every marketing software out there but it’s very useful for salons that might want to control how that offer is applied, allowing customers the additional benefit of something like forwarding a code to a friend or family which not only gives the friend or family the available discount but gives the customer who forwarded the code originally something like 5% off their next visit if the friend or family uses that code.
More importantly, being able to control or restrict how offers are redeemed can provide valuable insight into the strategic efficacy of various marketing campaigns.
Best for:
Salons that want more of an app-based software solution rather than desktop usage
Summing Up
Each of these marketing software tools offer something great for salons and the best one is going to be based on your individual needs:
- Boulevard is best for an all-inclusive cost that goes beyond marketing campaigns and includes things like report generation and an easy-to-use interface for managing client appointments.
- Vagaro is best for those who want a customer facing marketing platform where they can showcase their business and generate revenue from things like last minute appointments or daily deals.
- Mangomint is best for restricting your campaigns, creating things that you know are best for individual clients based on previous interactions.
- Phorest is best for those who want to offer video consultations as a form of marketing, especially salons that want to manage customer expectations and upsell services in the most effective way possible.
- AestheticsPro is ideal for salons that want the ability to similarly schedule video consultations but also manage customized marketing campaigns based on preferred channels and history of service appointments.