The short version
Square Appointments is free at any team size, and $49/month per location adds no-show fees and multi-staff bookings. GlossGenius is $28/month for one person and $56 for a team of up to nine, with in-person card fees of 2.4% + 15¢ on every plan. Vagaro is $30/month solo, rising $10 per staff member to a $90 cap. Acuity starts at $20/month and runs payments through Stripe, Square or PayPal. Boulevard now publishes its prices, from $159/month for up to five providers. All five have built-in tipping. Solo on a budget: Square. Booking that feels premium: GlossGenius. New clients from a marketplace: Vagaro.
I integrate all of these into salon websites, so I have no stake in which you choose. What follows is the published pricing as of 13 October 2026, checked directly against each company’s own pricing and help pages rather than a roundup article.
The monthly fee is the number everyone compares. The card processing rate is the one that decides what you actually pay. Take a salon putting $12,000 a month through the card reader in 120 payments. At GlossGenius’s 2.4% + 15¢ that is about $306 in fees. At Square Free’s 2.6% + 15¢ it is about $330. That $24 gap is bigger than the difference between most of these subscriptions. Online payments and deposits usually cost more, and on Vagaro they run 3.5% + 19¢.
| Platform | Monthly price | Card rate in person | Priced by | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Square Appointments | Free; $49 Plus; $149 Premium | 2.6% + 15¢ on Free, 2.5% + 15¢ on Plus, 2.4% + 15¢ on Premium | Location, any team size | Solo stylists and small teams who want no subscription |
| GlossGenius | $28 Standard (solo), $56 Gold (up to 9 staff), $168 Platinum ($24/$48/$148 annual) | 2.4% + 15¢ on every plan | Location, team size capped by plan | Solo stylists and teams up to nine who care how booking feels |
| Vagaro | $30 solo, +$10 per staff, capped at $90 for seven or more | 2.6% + 10¢ under $4,000 a month; 2.29% + 19¢ above it, for $10 a month | Staff member, with a ceiling | Salons that want new clients from a marketplace |
| Acuity Scheduling | $20 Starter, $34 Standard, $61 Premium ($16/$27/$49 annual) | None of its own. It connects to Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo | Number of calendars | Med spas needing intake forms and HIPAA |
| Boulevard | $159 Essentials (up to 5 providers), $325 Premier, $455 Prestige | From 2.65% | Location and plan | Multi-location salons and med spas with front-desk staff |
Month-to-month prices unless marked annual. Vagaro advertises a six-month intro rate ($23.99 solo) and Boulevard a fall offer for new customers ($260 Premier, $364 Prestige); budget the standard price. New in this update: Boulevard publishes its prices, Square Free covers unlimited staff, and GlossGenius charges 2.4% + 15¢ in person.
Square Appointments
Free at any team size. $49/month per location for Plus, $149/month for Premium.
The free plan is genuinely free and genuinely usable: unlimited staff calendars, online booking, reminders, deposits and payments. For a solo stylist or booth renter it is very hard to beat, because your only cost is card processing, at 2.6% + 15¢ in person and 3.3% + 30¢ online.
Plus is where most salons with a team end up. It adds cancellation policies and no-show fees, appointments that need more than one person, and a waitlist, and it lowers the card rate to 2.5% + 15¢ in person and 2.9% + 30¢ online. At $49 for any number of staff, it costs less than Vagaro or GlossGenius once you have three people.
Best for: solo stylists, booth renters, and small teams who want zero subscription cost. Weak spot: the client-facing booking page looks like Square rather than like you, and no-show fees mean paying for Plus.
GlossGenius
$28/month Standard, $56/month Gold, $168/month Platinum. Billed annually those drop to $24, $48 and $148. Card rate 2.4% + 15¢ in person on every plan.
Standard is for one person. Staff management starts at Gold, which covers a team of up to nine, and Platinum is for ten or more. Online invoices are 2.9% + 30¢. The in-person rate is the one Square only gives you on its $149 Premium plan, and GlossGenius doesn’t charge extra for Tap to Pay on your phone.
Built specifically for beauty, and it shows. The booking flow is the best-looking of the group, which matters when it is the last thing a client touches before committing.
Best for: solo stylists and teams up to nine who care how the booking experience feels. Weak spot: Standard is solo only, and the jump to Platinum at ten people is steep.
Vagaro
$30/month for one person, then $10 for each additional staff member, capping at $90/month for seven or more. One location.
So: solo $30, two $40, three $50, four $60, five $70, six $80, seven-plus $90. Vagaro usually advertises a lower intro rate ($23.99 for a solo at time of writing), but that is an exclusive rate for the first six months, so budget the standard price. No cancellation fees.
Card processing runs 2.6% + 10¢ in person if you process under $4,000 a month. Above that, the large-merchant plan is 2.29% + 19¢ plus $10 a month. Payments that aren’t made in person, such as card on file, online deposits and memberships, are 3.5% + 19¢. If you take deposits, budget for that rate, not the in-person one.
The $90 cap matters for big teams: at ten or more people it undercuts GlossGenius Platinum ($168) and Square Premium ($149), though not Square Plus at $49. From four to nine people, Square Plus and GlossGenius Gold ($56) both cost less.
It is also the most feature-dense: memberships, packages, payroll, inventory, marketing, and a customer-facing marketplace that can send you genuinely new clients. That marketplace is the real differentiator and the reason many salons stay.
Best for: salons that want new clients from a marketplace, and large teams that want everything in one system. Weak spot: the interface shows its age, and card-on-file payments cost 3.5% + 19¢.
Boulevard
From $159/month. The prices are published now; signing up still goes through a demo.
Essentials is $159 a month for one location and up to five providers. Premier ($325 a month per location, any number of providers) and Prestige ($455) are on a limited-time fall offer for new customers at $260 and $364. Paying annually takes 10% off. Med spas get separate Aesthetics plans, from $199. Card processing starts at 2.65%.
A starting price more than five times Vagaro’s solo rate tells you the target customer. Boulevard is built for larger salons and med spas, and it is very good at the things those businesses need: precision scheduling, deep reporting, a genuinely premium client experience.
Best for: multi-location salons and med spas with real front-desk staff. Weak spot: overkill and over-budget for a single-chair operation, and you talk to their sales team before you can start.
Acuity Scheduling
$20/month Starter, $34/month Standard, $61/month Premium. Billed annually those drop to $16, $27 and $49.
Acuity is a scheduling tool rather than a salon platform. Starter is one calendar, Standard up to six, Premium up to 36. It does not process payments itself. It connects to Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo, so your card rate is whatever that processor charges. What it does well is flexibility: intake forms, complicated availability, packages, and on Premium a signed BAA for HIPAA compliance, which matters for med spas.
Best for: med spas needing intake forms and HIPAA, or anyone with unusual scheduling rules. Weak spot: no built-in payment processing, no beauty-specific features, no marketplace.
Which salon software has built-in tipping?
All five do. Where they differ is where the tip happens, whether a client can tip when she pays online, and how the tip gets back to the right stylist.
| Platform | Where clients tip | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Square Appointments | At checkout, on any Square reader or Tap to Pay | When one client books several staff, a single tip splits between them automatically (Plus and up) |
| GlossGenius | At checkout, from up to three preset amounts with one pre-selected. She can always pick her own amount or skip | No tip prompt on retail-only sales. Same on every plan |
| Vagaro | At checkout, from preset percentages or dollar amounts, or on a printed receipt. Online too, when she prepays in full, pays an invoice or uses contactless checkout | Online tipping needs Vagaro’s Online Shopping Cart. Cash and gift-card tips are entered by hand. Tips can flow into payroll |
| Boulevard | At checkout on its Duo terminal or Reception iPad and, if you turn it on, when she books online | One setting for the whole business, so you can’t switch tipping off for a single provider |
| Acuity Scheduling | When she pays online at booking, or after an in-person payment, through Stripe, Square or PayPal | The tip goes through whichever processor you connected. Acuity adds no fee of its own |
If you run a team, the real question is how the tip reaches the stylist. Vagaro splits a tip by the price of each person’s service when your staff have their own merchant accounts, lets you split it by hand at checkout, and can carry tips into payroll. Square splits one tip across a multi-staff appointment on its own. Before you switch, ask whichever platform you are considering to show you the tip report your stylists would actually see.
What does salon booking software cost by team size?
| Team size | Square | GlossGenius | Vagaro | Acuity | Boulevard |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solo stylist | $0 | $28 | $30 | $20 | $159 |
| Three staff | $0–$49 | $56 | $50 | $34 | $159 |
| Seven to nine | $0–$49 | $56 | $90 | $61 | $325 |
| Ten or more | $0–$149 | $168 | $90 | $61 | $325 |
Square’s $49 is Plus, which adds no-show fees and multi-staff appointments. Boulevard’s $325 is Premier at its standard price; new customers currently pay $260.
Square prices per location no matter how many people you have. GlossGenius prices per location but caps the team size on each plan. Vagaro prices per staff member, with a ceiling. That is the whole reason the ranking moves as you grow, and why the card rate, not this table, usually settles it.
Which booking platform should you pick?
- Solo or a small team, lowest bill: Square Appointments. Free at any team size, and $49 when you want no-show fees.
- Want it to feel premium, solo to nine people: GlossGenius. The best-looking booking flow of the group, and 2.4% + 15¢ in person on every plan.
- Want new clients from a marketplace: Vagaro. The marketplace is a genuine extra channel, and the $90 cap keeps a big team affordable.
- Multi-location or med spa with front-desk staff: Boulevard, from $159 a month, and expect a demo first.
- Med spa needing HIPAA and intake forms: Acuity Premium.
Client records, appointment history and card-on-file data do not all move cleanly between platforms. Before you switch, ask specifically what transfers and what does not. Being on a slightly imperfect platform your clients already use is usually better than a migration that loses their booking history.
How this affects your website
All of them work with a custom site. The site sends people to your booking flow. What differs is how it feels. Square and Acuity hand off to a page that clearly is not yours. GlossGenius feels closest to part of your own site. Boulevard opens as a panel over your site on a laptop, but on a phone it sends her to its own page with your logo across the top. Vagaro sends her to vagaro.com.
Whichever you pick, the job of the site is to answer the questions the booking page cannot (your prices, your work, who you are) and then get out of the way.
Pricing, card rates and tipping checked against each company’s own pricing and help pages on 13 October 2026. These change; check before you commit.
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