Last Updated on September 26, 2025 by Ewen Finser
Having a central location for online booking is essential for salons. As an independent or small, scaling business, you might be able to get away with multiple online systems to manage things like inventory, if you have it, POS, and marketing, but these are all secondary to being able to secure your online bookings.
So I decided to find the best online booking systems for salons, taking into consideration the need for integrations, supportive features, and price. I organized them based on size of business, reviewing my top seven options for independent stylists with a booth rental, all the way up through medium and large-sized businesses with multiple locations, to find what works best.
My Top Picks:
Ranging from small to large-sized salons, these are my top 7 picks:
- Square Appointments
- Fresha
- Vagaro
- GlossGenius
- Boulevard
- Mangomint
- Booker
Let’s see how they stack up.
#1: Square
I’m starting with Square because I think it’s a good place for any independent stylist to start. It can still support your salon in terms of online booking if you grow your team and have a partner or maybe three people under your belt.
However, as it is designed to be an online booking platform that helps with bookings and payments for any business, it lacks a lot of the bells and whistles that more advanced salons would need.
The price is pretty reasonable, at $0 per month for an independent, with most of the cost being relegated to transaction fees when you process payment for your online bookings.
As your business starts to grow, though, you can expect to pay around $45 per month, upwards of $150 per month for premium plans.
One of the ways they stand apart is the POS hardware, which is very sleek and designed to support easy payment processing, no matter where you are, so if you rent a booth, you can invest a one-time fee into the hardware you need to attach to your phone or have a separate system for scanning cards.
You won’t find a lot of integration here, and features are pretty limited. The cost can’t be beat as an independent stylist, but as soon as you start to grow your business, you need something that scales with you, and Square simply isn’t it.
Who Should Use Square
New stylists or independents who want to focus on payment processing and booking management without other bells and whistles.
Average Price
$45 per month
Supported Countries
U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan, the UK.
Pros | Cons |
Free for independents | Limited flexibility for emails and your online booking page |
Easy interface | Once your team starts growing, the costs aren’t worth the limited features |
Impressive business management features | Customer support isn’t highly responsive or speedy |
#2: Fresha
As a worldwide booking system, Fresha is an ideal choice for international clients–basically anyone outside of the U.S. who can’t access things like Boulevard.
In terms of online booking, there are a lot of calendar and appointment management features, including booking reminders for your clients, repeat appointment options, time blocking, and access to the client marketplace, where you might increase your online bookings. However, Fresha doesn’t have a lot of customization, and you can’t change your booking page to integrate with your website, which can be frustrating. It doesn’t really have any integration either, so you won’t be able to use multiple platforms concurrently.
Another potential source of frustration is that clients have to create an account with Fresha in order to make a booking. So it might be great to have the marketplace as a way to promote your business, but it comes with its drawbacks.
I have had a lot of clients complain to me about wanting to simply book an appointment without having to share personal information or create another account, especially because they are worried about privacy and security breaches.
Who Should Use Fresha
Best for those with international locations who want different language options.
Average Price
$130 per month
Supported Countries
Supported in over 120 countries in over 22 languages worldwide
Pros | Cons |
Prices are affordable for beginners | Clients have to create a Fresha account in order to book an appointment |
the marketplace can help promote a salon and get better bookings | Bookings made on your personal website cannot integrate with the Fresha page |
They are available in dozens of countries with lots of language support | Limited integration options |
#3: Vagaro
Vagaro is a pretty decent option for scaling businesses, but, in particular, businesses are scaling from one or two employees to around five or six employees.
The same drawback that applies to Fresha also applies to Vagaro; it’s a great idea to be able to utilize those third-party marketplaces as part of your best online booking system for spas, but sometimes clients respond poorly to having to create an account with each of those third parties before they can schedule their appointment. The ones who don’t like it might end up going somewhere else just because of the hassle.
Vagaro has good value for the cost. With a free trial, you can see whether you like the layout, and after that, you can pay monthly. The minimum subscription fee is around $30 for individuals, and from there, they let you scale your small business by adding $10 per month for every additional user. However, once you reach seven users, your costs top out, so you won’t pay anything more for the monthly plan.
If your business expands to more than one location, Vagaro won’t be the best online booking system for you, because then you need the Enterprise platform, and that comes with additional pricing.
Now, as you are scaling and adding business members, you can also expect to face add-on costs. You can use the website builder, but it costs $20 per month. You can generate forms at another $10 per month, let clients check in on the app once they’ve booked an online appointment for another $10 per month, manage your payroll for $34 per month, and another $5 per month per employee.
You can see how all of these add up pretty quickly.
So, what might start as a simple, affordable solution for your needs can quickly cost just as much as the high-end, premier options like Boulevard, but without all the support and features of Boulevard.
Take the time to do the math and see which add-ons you might need and how that would affect your cost.
Who Should Use Vagaro
Independents or small businesses that want to pay a low monthly fee with a la carte options.
Average Price
Up to $120 per month, but based on the number of employees
Supported Countries
U.S., Canada, Australia, and the UK
Pros | Cons |
Clear pricing structure that grows with your business | There can be glitches with payment processing |
Access to a client marketplace to help increase bookings | Potential clients have to create Vagaro account to schedule a booking |
Integration options with Facebook, QuickBooks, and Zoom | Customer support isn’t highly responsive or speedy |
#4: GlossGenius
GlossGenius is a marketing, payment, and booking app for U.S.-based salons and spas.
Originally, I had it pegged as one of the best options for independent stylists in large part because of the integrated gift card and no-show protection for independent stylists, as well as the calendar and appointment options.
However, they have started adding new teams features for team management including payroll and time tracking, with support for retail products. So, you can use them for booth renter support, but it doesn’t have third-party payroll integration or multi-location support if you have multiple spas like we do.
Glossgenius is supposed to be a comprehensive solution for salons and spas, but it doesn’t have a lot of integration support. This is a big letdown for the small salons that rely on other programs to facilitate account management or marketing.
GlossGenius falls short if you’re looking to support a strong team with half a dozen or more stylists. It simply isn’t robust enough, but if you only have a few people and one location, or you are working as an independent, this can really help round out support.
Who Should Use GlossGenius
This is best for independent stylists who want to start taking clients, managing a schedule, and accepting payments, particularly if they need a website to go with it.
Average Price
$48 per month
Supported Countries
U.S.
Pros | Cons |
The interface is really supportive of salons and easy to use | Limited flexibility with no real customization options beyond the website |
You can create professional websites | They don’t have a widget to integrate with an existing website |
Payments are made easier with their suite of hardware | The hardware will cost you a lot up front |
#5: Boulevard
Boulevard is designed to be an elite form of comprehensive support for scaling small to medium-sized salons. Instead of using Boulevard just as your online booking tool, but still using three or four other platforms for things like point of sale systems, client communication, or inventory and payroll, Boulevard does it all.
Where GlossGenius fails to deliver integration, Boulevard steps in. Boulevard has several features for online booking, like a website booking widget, branding control, no-show protection, customized notification messages, weightless management, and one of my favorite things, the Precision Scheduling feature.
With Boulevard’s Enterprise plan, you can enjoy customized integrations. With all other levels, you can integrate with things like:
- QuickBooks
- Reserve with Google
- Facebook and Instagram’s ‘Book Now’
- Shopify
- Green Circle
- Zapier
Pricing is at a premium, to be sure, because the service and features are also at a premium. You have several tiers of membership, with higher tiers offering an all-inclusive pricing model at a higher monthly fee, but lower tiers offering things like lower monthly fees in exchange for a la carte $2 fees per completed appointment scheduled with the automated email campaigns.
So, if you are a small salon, you might book the Essentials plan at $195 per month, and then utilize the automated email campaigns to try to increase your online bookings. You would have to verify how effective those campaigns are to figure out your cost.
This is a surprisingly reasonable exchange over companies like Fresha, which charges a 20% commission for all new clients booked through the marketplace, with a minimum of $6 per client.
Who Should Use Boulevard
Medium to larger businesses looking for a marketing and client management-focused solution.
Average Price
$425 per month
Supported Countries
U.S.
Pros | Cons |
Unique front desk feature | No free trials |
Lots of integration options | Comes a high monthly cost for beginners |
Well-designed and easy-to-use interface | Some marketing features cost more without higher-tier membership |
Precision Scheduling makes it easy to fill booking slots |
#6: Mangomint
Mangomint is a highly rated software for salons designed for businesses that already have a team. Mangomint customer service is pretty impressive. When you call, they answer and they know answers to your questions. You won’t just be redirected to a call center somewhere with people who have no idea what it takes to run a salon or how important it is to get an app glitch fixed right away.
They offer a lot of smart automations with an average price of $245 per month. That cost is designed for teams, and is a much higher entry-level price than you’ll find with other online booking software.
They have an impressive array of features but they don’t have a client Marketplace nor a website builder so if you are looking to build out a website as part of your online booking platform, GlossGenius is going to be a better option but if you are looking to build online bookings through a client Marketplace you’ll need to consider Vagaro, Booker, or Fresha.
Who Should Use Mangomint
Small to medium-sized businesses who want smart automations and a gamified platform. No independents.
Average Price
$245 per month
Supported Countries
U.S. and Canada
Pros | Cons |
Easy-to-use layout | Limited features like group booking |
Lots of integration options | Comes a high monthly cost for beginners and a lot of add-on costs for marketing upgrades or integrated forms |
Highly regarded customer service | Limited customization options |
#7: Booker
Booker, owned by Mindbody, is a bit on the expensive side because it is designed to support online booking for medium to large businesses. They don’t offer any type of trial, but you can schedule a free demo after you talk to a sales representative.
You never get to use the software yourself until you have signed a contract, typically for one year. The monthly cost is around $470 per month, but this is based on the size of your team.
BookerIs one of the most well-established salon software solutions around the world.
Booker is for big businesses, and that means their software suite has features for big businesses like reporting, inventory management, appointment booking, and online booking. They have the integration with MindBody’s Marketplace, where you can build out your profile in hopes of gaining new online bookings directly from the platform.
Features might be impressive, but integration is not. You can only integrate with a Google Calendar or iCal.
Pricing starts at $139 for the entry level and goes up to a $600 ultimate plus level, but there’s no free trial, no paid trial, and you have to sign a contract before they give you any access to the software, so it’s important that you determine whether it fits your needs long before you contact them.
So, while the platform is easy to use, Integrations are limited, and if your main drive behind considering Booker is use of the MindBody marketplace to help increase online bookings for your salon, make sure you have a big enough business behind you to justify the monthly cost otherwise, look elsewhere.
Who Should Use Booker
Best for large, established businesses with a new client marketplace.
Average Price
$470 per month
Supported Countries
Supported around the world
Pros | Cons |
Clear pricing structure | No free trials |
Supports new client bookings with the MindBody marketplace | Requires a 12-month commitment |
Integrated email marketing options | Customer support for U.S. clients only comes with higher-tier plans |
Summing Up
With so many options, here’s what I think are the best online booking systems for salons:
- Square: Best for independents who want $0 per month membership.
- Fresha: Best for independents or small businesses that are outside the U.S.
- Vagaro: Best for scaling salons that want a low monthly cost and client marketplace.
- GlossGenius: Best for independents or small salons that want a website builder.
- Boulevard: Best for scaling salons that want an all-in-one solution for online booking and business needs.
- Mangomint: Best for teams that want something in between GlossGenius and Boulevard.
- Booker: Best for large businesses that need international support and are willing to give up integrations to get it.