Last Updated on October 2, 2026 by Ewen Finser
As a spa or salon, you have several options for booking platforms, but you have equally high options for other aspects of managing your business, like POS, ecommerce, marketing, and so forth.
So where do you even start?
Square is a popular option for independent stylists due to its competitive price, while Boulevard is a modern and comprehensive suite designed to be an all-in-one tool for small to medium-sized businesses that are looking to scale.
Let’s compare them in terms of cost, target audience, client management, marketing, communication, booking features, reports, and customer service.
Boulevard was built for real stylists, salon, and spa owners. It handles booking, checkout, and smart scheduling the way busy salons actually work. It even handles marketing, from rebooking reminders to targeted emails and texts, plus it fills open spots with waitlist requests, without the scrambling.
Breaking Down Square vs Boulevard
Cost
Square
Square starts out free.
This is great if you are just beginning, working as an independent, or are on a budget.
But as you grow, so will your costs.
While Square starts “free”, there are charges for things like transaction fees, and your features are limited.
If you scale up to Square Plus, your costs jump to $49 per month, which, if you only have a partner, can be pretty high.
Even the Square Premium service starts to get pretty pricey for such limited features, especially if you have multiple locations.
Boulevard
Boulevard, by comparison, is more expensive, especially at the most basic membership, but you get so much more.
Boulevard is an all-in-one tool: scheduling, POS, marketing, inventory, reporting, client management, communication, staff management, and more.
When you start with Boulevard, you can expect to pay around $150 per month, which is roughly what Square charges for Premium.
But let’s say you have two locations. Using Square Premium, you are paying $300 per month, and you still aren’t getting all the features that Boulevard offers.
Let’s break this down with a quick example:
Crazy Nails has one location downtown and is opening a second next month, one town over. Right now, they use Square Premium for booking and payment processing at $150. Next month, they will start to pay $300 per month for both locations. They also pay a marketing company $100 per month to manage their social media pages and generate marketing emails. Crazy Nails has to pay $30 per employee for payroll reports.
This means that Crazy Nails is going to spend $430 per month for basic booking features, social media generation, and payroll functions compared to the $450 for the most advanced Boulevard membership that includes all of this and more, and won’t change based on the number of employees or the number of locations. Moreover, Crazy Nails can always opt for a less expensive version that still gives the same benefits, costing only a few hundred dollars per month with Boulevard.
Target Audience
Square
Square is meant to help manage payments, calendars, and a few other features. Their interface is broad because it is designed for basically any industry, like restaurants, spas, appointment-based bridal shops, and even appointment-based car repair.
For all those other industries, especially for people just starting out, that generic design and those limited features can seem appealing.
But as any business grows, it starts to require more specialized support. Even Square Plus is not going to have the same salon/spa based features that are truly required for a scaling business.
Boulevard
Boulevard, by comparison, was designed by salon founders who understand the pain points of running a salon.
The design focuses on providing detailed reports and a comprehensive tech stack that combines systems for email marketing, inventory, POS, and booking.
The target audience is really more spas, salons, barbers, and med spas, basically anyone in the health field, so Boulevard has features like HIPAA compliance that Square doesn’t.
Boulevard focuses on every touchpoint for salons and spas in particular–before, during, and after the appointment.
Read our full Boulevard Software Review here!
Customer Service
Square
Square gives you in-app support, but this is mostly tutorials that have to do with the point-of-sale app or the register. They do have a phone number, but the hours of availability for that phone number vary based on your subscription. So, they claim to have 24/7 phone support, but that’s only if you have a specific, paid subscription and are using their register or terminal.
Otherwise, they provide chat support through an AI assistant or email support, but it is only available Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Central Time.
Boulevard
When you first start out, Boulevard gives you robust onboarding support with a dedicated onboarding specialist who helps you avoid the tech overwhelm of using multiple platforms and instead looks specifically at all the areas that your business needs to integrate or automate.
When things go wrong, you can also call customer service and get a real person who knows what your issue is and is knowledgeable about solutions.
Client Management
Square
Square has basic client profiles. You can save a few quick details to your client profile, but as the platform is designed with a far-reaching effect for many industries, you don’t have as many sections in that client profile dedicated to things that you would need for a spa or salon.
Also read: Is Square Still the Right Fit for Your Business? Top Square Alternatives
Boulevard
Boulevard has very comprehensive and detailed client profiles that are linked to features like custom forms and SOAP notes. You can use Boulevard to maintain HIPAA compliance and build better client relationships by sending forms and custom waivers ahead of time.
Boulevard also lets you capture detailed information like specialized needs, before and after photos, color formulas, preferences, allergies, and other notes that can personalize the client experience for their next booking.
Marketing
Square
If you are using Square, you have basic client communication with things like follow-up messages and automated reminders. If you want to use any of the marketing features, those come with add-on costs.
If you are willing to pay more, you can send email campaigns and newsletters as well as promotional text messages. You also have moderate support for automating things like scheduling your posts on social media and sending communication for loyalty programs.
Boulevard
Boulevard has an internal marketing suite which supports things like email marketing with blasts and drip campaigns, which can be customized to your needs. They also have add-ons and upsells during bookings that can further support the marketing efforts of your spa or salon.
The robust marketing suite lets you segment clients and create targeted campaigns based on things like previous visits, purchase activities, and personal preferences, and you can use the two-way messaging function within the platform.
Communication
Square
Square offers what is called “Square Assistant”, which is an automated message center. It doesn’t have a lot of AI support for your clients.
Square also lacks any type of support for fielding phone calls for people looking to book an appointment or communicating internally in a single location.
Boulevard
Boulevard, by comparison, has several features that support good communication within your internal and external spheres. For starters, Boulevard offers an AI receptionist named Beau, who can schedule appointments, handle client questions, and give quick customer support to your clients at any time.
Boulevard also offers internal features such as the Front Desk feature, which facilitates all of your administrative needs from one location. Related to that is the feature for internal messaging. This is connected to all other aspects of the platform, so that if you send things like appointment reminders to a client and they respond with a question about changing their appointment time, it automatically populates within that message center so staff can receive a notification and update the customer immediately.
Scheduling Services/Booking
Square
Square offers great resources for booking, scheduling your services, and managing your calendar. This is, in fact, one of their primary features.
Square has standard online scheduling. You don’t have a lot of intelligent capabilities here; what you see is what you get.
Boulevard
Boulevard has several supporting services for booking, including links to social media pages and Yelp or Google Business, where people can connect to your profile and your business.
There are also options specific to salons and spas, such as the smart scheduling order. Boulevard’s Smart Scheduling order will put all of a client’s appointments in the correct order, like a facial after a massage or a hair color after a cut.
Boulevard supports BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) to encourage sales and provide customers with a flexible payment option.
With Precision Scheduling, a proprietary technology, Boulevard helps you reduce any gaps in your daily schedule and maximize your time, not just book an appointment. Using this platform reduces no-show rates by 71%.
Reports and Analytics
Square
Square gives you reporting features once you pay for your membership, but those reporting features are very generic since they are developed for a variety of businesses, and they cannot be customized the way that Boulevard can.
Boulevard
Boulevard offers customizable reporting so you can choose within the platform the exact metrics you want to view. If you are looking at closing your business on Tuesdays, these reports can be customized to reflect the amount of sales you do on Tuesdays versus your staff performance on Tuesdays compared to other days of the week. This gives you actionable insights into how your business is running so that you can improve client retention and revenue growth.
With Reporting 2.0, Boulevard brings your dashboards and reports together in one hub for easy access to business insights.
Summing Up
Overall, Boulevard is a comprehensive platform built by industry professionals for spas and salons. It has features that are designed to enhance your client base, optimize your business operations, and manage schedules with things like the Front Desk feature.
Square is a solid scheduling tool, but not much else. It has add-ons that make it possible to get some of what Boulevard offers, but at a cost that doesn’t make it worth it. Plus, many businesses end up spending out of pocket on second and third services to compensate for the gaps in features.
As a salon or spa, Square is great if you are brand new and just need to get free scheduling software, but once you are on your feet, look for something with more industry-specific heft.
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Boulevard was built for real stylists, salon, and spa owners. It handles booking, checkout, and smart scheduling the way busy salons actually work. It even handles marketing, from rebooking reminders to targeted emails and texts, plus it fills open spots with waitlist requests, without the scrambling.