Your stylist is free for forty minutes. Your software doesn't know.
Every colour service has dead time in the middle. Generic booking apps block the whole appointment and lose it. Salon Manager books into it — so the chair stays busy and the day pays for itself.
Migrates from Phorest, Fresha and Booksy. No per-stylist fees. No commission on your own clients.
ABAlice
KLKim
Most salon software was built for appointments, not for hair.
A haircut is one block of time. Colour isn't — and neither is a client who comes in twice in a day, or a tint that needs a patch test 48 hours ahead. Software that treats every booking the same way makes you work around it.
Processing time disappears
The calendar blocks two hours because the client is there for two hours. But the stylist is idle for forty minutes of it, and nothing in the system knows that's sellable.
Two visits, two of everything
A cut at ten and a blow dry at four is one client having one day. Most systems make it two bookings, two confirmation texts, two tickets and two chances to get the total wrong.
Compliance lives in a notebook
Patch test dates, colour formulas, who's allergic to what. Kept on paper or in a free-text note, and nothing warns the desk when a booking shouldn't go ahead.
Four things we do differently.
Colour is three phases, not one block
Every service carries its own processing time. Salon Manager splits the appointment into application, development and finish — holds the chair for the whole thing, and frees the stylist for the middle.
The gap shows on the day sheet as a bookable slot. One tap puts someone in it.
- ✓Set gap minutes once per service, applied everywhere
- ✓Double-booking that can't collide, because the system knows who's free when
- ✓Analytics tells you what percentage of your gaps actually sell
The stylist is free 10:05–10:45. In most software that time is invisible. Here it's a slot on the calendar with a client's name going into it.
Share of processing gaps sold to a second client.
One client, one day, one ticket
Book a cut in the morning and a blow dry in the afternoon and Salon Manager treats it as a single visit with two legs — different stylists, different times, one bill at the end.
The client gets one confirmation listing both. The desk sees the whole day in order, including the hours she's not in the building.
- ✓Cancel one leg without losing the visit
- ✓Checkout won't settle a visit with a service still outstanding
- ✓Reminders group by visit, so nobody gets texted twice
The desk gets told before it's a problem
Patch tests expire. Salon Manager knows when, and stops a colour booking going in without one — 48 hours ahead, the way the manufacturer says.
Formula history sits on the client, not in someone's memory. Last tint, last developer volume, what pulled warm and what you did about it.
- ✓Consent split four ways: reminders and marketing, email and SMS
- ✓Backbar stock comes off automatically when a colour service is paid
- ✓Notes that follow the client, separate from notes about today
Plenty of clients want the appointment text and nothing else. Salon Manager records that properly instead of collapsing it into one switch.
Numbers that end in something to do
Salon revenue is clients, times how often they come, times what they spend. Salon Manager reports on all three and then tells you which one is leaking.
Not a wall of charts — a short list of opportunities with a pound figure attached to each.
- ✓Who's overdue against their own rhythm, not a fixed six weeks
- ✓Rebooking and retail broken out by stylist, because they're teachable
- ✓Demand by hour, so you know which offer moves people off Saturday
59 hours created, 31% filled. The rest is worth this much at blow-dry rates.
80 visits ended with no rebooking. Lifting 61% to 75% is worth this a quarter.
Blow-dry clients buy product 11% of the time, after watching it used for 45 minutes.
“We were writing patch test dates on a wall planner. Twice a year that goes wrong and you find out the hard way.”
What general booking software can't do.
Phorest, Fresha and Booksy are capable products with more features than we have. These are the specific places a hair-first design pulls ahead.
| Salon Manager | Typical booking software | |
|---|---|---|
| Processing time | Modelled per service — stylist freed, gap bookable | One solid block; the gap is invisible |
| Two visits in a day | One visit, many legs — one ticket, one message | Two separate bookings |
| Patch tests | Dated, expiring, blocking | A free-text note, if anything |
| Colour formulas | Structured history per client | Notes field |
| Backbar stock | Deducted at checkout | Retail only, counted by hand |
| Marketplace commission | None — your clients are yours | Up to 20% on new bookings |
| Per-stylist fees | None — flat per salon | Charged per team member |
Comparison reflects published pricing and standard configurations as of August 2026. Competitors ship plenty we don't — marketplace reach and mature reporting among them.
Per salon. Not per stylist.
Hiring someone shouldn't raise your software bill. Everything is included on every plan — the tiers are about how big the salon is, not which features you get.
One salon, everything in it
- ✓Full desk, checkout and cash-up
- ✓Clients, stock and reviews
- ✓Unlimited bookings and messages
- ✓Migration from your current system
One brand, up to eight branches
- ✓Everything in Solo
- ✓Up to eight branches
- ✓Reporting across every branch
Several brands, no caps
- ✓Everything in Chain
- ✓Unlimited brands and branches
- ✓Multi-brand reporting
30 days free, no card. Monthly rolling — leave whenever, and take a full export of your data with you.
The ones we always get asked.
How hard is it to move off Phorest?
Most of it is straightforward — clients, services, products and appointment history all export as CSV from Phorest yourself, and we import them. The one thing that doesn't come across is per-stylist service durations, because Phorest doesn't export them. We sit down with you and enter those once. For a four-chair salon it's an afternoon.
What happens if the internet goes down mid-service?
The day's bookings stay readable, so the desk can see who's coming and what they're having. Taking payment and making changes need a connection. We're honest that this is a limitation rather than pretending otherwise — full offline working is on the roadmap, not in the product.
Do you take a cut of bookings?
No. There's no marketplace, so there's no commission — not on new clients, not on anyone. The monthly fee is the whole cost. We think a business built on charging you to reach your own clients has the wrong incentives.
Can two stylists work on the same client at once?
Yes. A visit holds any number of services, each with its own stylist and time window, so a colour with one person and a cut with another is one visit and one bill — whether they overlap or run hours apart.
What about card payments?
Card terminal integration sends the amount from the checkout screen to the terminal and brings the payment back onto the ticket automatically. Cash, card and cheque all reconcile separately at cash-up.
Is our client data ours?
Yes, and you can take it whenever you like. Full export in standard formats, no notice period, no fee, no call with a retention person first.
See it against your own diary.
Half an hour, screen shared, with a week of your real bookings loaded in. We'll show you where your processing time is going and what it's worth. No slides.