Scheduling appointments with clients is a tough task for any business. You need to handle multiple clients, each having a different requirement and time constraint. In today’s world, most small business owners look for the best salon appointment scheduling app as a solution for their growing needs.
All enterprises have their own needs for business. An appointment scheduler must have a feature that is fit for a large or small company. When you have a software system, you must be sure it would be beneficial to the business. If not, all your money and time will be wasted. Actually there are many companies providing online appointment booking software systems now, but those without an appropriate product can do nothing but waste your money.
Vagaro
Best for:
Larger salons, especially those that use Yelp for a large portion of their business and/or salons with multiple employees
Pros:
- Vagaro was built with scalability in mind. This is software that can handle a team of 20 (or 50) as well as multiple locations
- One of the most unique features that Vagaro offers is payroll management and clock-in / clock-out capabilities, which should appeal to salons out there with many employees
Cons:
- If you’re a smaller salon or a solo stylist, Vagaro may offer more than you need, which could cause headaches — the more features, the more complicated things get (We recently had a new customer tell us that they switched to Schedulicity because we were more “intuitive” than Vagaro)
Features:
- Yelp, Instagram, and Facebook integration.
- One month free trial
- Reporting
- Vagaro also offers its own website builder (similar to the profile pages we offer businesses with our Marketplace feature, but with templates)
- Payroll and clock in / clock out capabilities
- Customer support via text, email, and phone
See all the Vagaro features here.
Cost:
Sliding scale from $25/month for one person to $85/month for teams of 7 or more
Acuity
Best for:
Established salons and other service-based businesses that need more advanced, customizable features (including integration with external marketing and financial tools)
Pros:
- Acuity is now owned by Squarespace, which recently launched Acuity scheduling integration
- Acuity offers more integrations than most other appointment schedulers, so if you’re someone who loves to use all the tools, this is great news for you. Think PayPal, GoToMeeting, Zapier, Mailchimp, Quickbooks, and more
Cons:
- No phone support, which is a pretty big deal when you run into trouble and need help right now
- To get access to some of the more in-demand features (text message reminders, the option to sell packages and gift certificates, time zone conversion for clients), you’ll need to upgrade to the higher priced Growing account
Features:
- Options for multiple calendars and locations
- Appointment packages and gift certificates
- White-labeling, i.e. the ability to customize your embedded Acuity scheduler with your logo and company colors
- Ability to save client credit cards for later use
- Class and workshop scheduling
- PayPal, Square, and Stripe integration
- Syncing with iCloud, Outlook, Google Calendar and more
See all the Acuity features here.
Cost:
7 days free, then anywhere from $15 – $50 per month (there is a free option for solo stylists that offers minimal features — e.g. no appointment reminders)
If you are a personal trainer, a coach, teacher, hairdresser or any other business that requires your customers and clients to schedule appointments with you, then Square is a great option to go with.
Square integrates with Google Calendar and has a mobile app for both iOS and Android to manage your appointments wherever you are.
10 TO 8
10 To 8 is a great scheduling service that guarantees that their free service will be free forever. You are limited to 100 appointments per month, but for a small business looking for a better way to manage meetings and appointments, then 10 TO 8 will do the job for you.
Like, Picktime, you can use 10 TO 8 to schedule classes, and you can set up recurring appointments if, for example, you run the same class each day or week at the same time.
Another benefit of using 10 TO 8 is you can set up your Stripe or PayPal accounts, so you can take payments when a customer schedules an appointment with you saving you the hassle of chasing payments.
Google Calendar
Finally, a little known feature in Google Calendar is the ability to set up a calendar where your clients can schedule appointments. It is rather less automated than the services above, but it does work.
I used this service many years ago when I taught English. All I needed to do was set up the time blocks I was available and send the calendar link to my students. They then could pick and choose the times that would work for them.
There are no automated reminders; it would depend on whether your client or colleague has reminders set up on their calendars, but it works, and if you are looking for a service that will always be free and keeps you in control of your times, then Google Calendar will do the trick for you.
Todoist
Best for: Salon owners, stylists, barbers, and the like who need help managing all the other to-dos beyond client appointments. Todoist is like a paper to-do list taken to the next level. It will keep you on track with your errands, PTA meetings, grocery lists, you name it. We particularly like it for alllll the features it offers, including:
- Easily customizable to-do lists that you can categorize to your heart’s content (think: one for the salon, one for your personal work, one for your private life)
- Recurring projects that you can tweak all you want
- Recap emails to keep you on track
- There’s an integrated app as well as a website account, so you can jump between your phone and laptop
- Option for using with teams
- Templates for complicated projects
- Syncs with different apps including Google calendar and Dropbox
You can check out all the other Todoist features here.
An Online Bank such as Azlo or Ally
Best for: Salon businesses and stylists that want simplified banking with lower fees for both their business accounts and their personal lives
It’s really hard to figure out which bank to go with especially when you’re starting a salon, hair, or beauty business, but more and more, financial experts recommend online banks to small businesses because their lack of overhead means they can charge less for banking — and often offer higher interest rates on savings accounts.
You’ll want to do some in-depth digging to determine the right bank for you, obviously, but both Azlo and Ally are intriguing options.
Azlo describes itself as “digital business banking for freelancers, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and non-profits,” which of course applies to salons and spas. Meanwhile, Ally is a great online bank to consider for your personal accounts because it’s ahead of the curve with its user-friendly mobile app.
Of course, it can be a hassle to move from one bank to another, but still worth crunching some numbers, especially if you’re often on-the-go and could use every extra $1. Those sneaky fees at national banks add up!
Schedulicity
Best for: Salons and appointment-based small businesses that worry about the accruing cost of fees.
This is a bit of a cheat because Schedulicity’s payment processor is built into our scheduling software (see the previous section), but hey, it’s our article. We offer the lowest processing fees in the business, there are no hidden costs, and we now provide complimentary next-day funding. This is an ideal way to save money over time — and to streamline your booking and billing in one platform.
Headspace or Calm
Best for: Busy salon owners who obviously get the whole “self-care is essential” thing but still struggle with making the time.
You work in the business of self-care, which means you know that you can’t do this work successfully without taking care of yourself, too.
If you haven’t tried Headspace or Calm for meditation yet, give one of them a shot. Both apps offer a free trial, and you can choose how much or how little time you dedicate each day. And while the apps started as platforms to encourage daily meditation, they’ve since expanded into sleep as well. As in, techniques for helping you get more of it. And you probably need more of it, right?
Google Docs
No list of document collaboration tools would be complete without Google Docs. After Google Docs first came out in 2006, it quickly transformed the way we collaborate and share documents. People were eager to leave the cluttered and confusing interface of Microsoft Word behind and embraced the intuitiveness of Google Docs.
Today, it remains the most popular collaborative word processor, with millions of users worldwide. It’s free, flexible, and user-friendly, making it a great option for smaller teams with limited budgets.
What users say about Google Docs:
“Google Docs is the most powerful online word processor available at the moment. It is also completely free and syncs with all other G Suite applications such as Slides and Sheets, and can all be found seamlessly on Google Drive. The main selling point of Google Docs for me is its collaboration capability that is unparalleled in simplicity. All you have to do is press ‘Share’ and send a quick email with an invitation to edit a document.”
Conclusion
A lot of us can use help with time management. Most of us would like to squeeze every possible income generating activity into our working day, but this rarely happens. We all face time management challenges – and we all wish we had more time – but it is important to be able to measure just how much you are managing your time effectively.