You've got ten tabs open. Every one of them says it's the best booking software for salons. Several of them say it in a list where the company that wrote the list came first.
We sell booking software too, so we're not going to pretend to rank anybody. What follows is the nine questions that decide whether a tool fits your shop. Ask them of everyone, us included.
1. Whose customers are they?
This is the one people find out about too late.
Where your customers book
A listing in an app
- Your name beside your rivals'
- The app's customers, not yours
- Its address, its look
A site of your own
- Your name, on its own
- Your customer list, as a file
- Your address, your look
Some booking tools are marketplaces. Your shop is a listing inside their app, next to every other shop in town, and the customer has an account with the app. That can bring you new people, which is real value when you're starting out. It also means the person who came in for a fade gets shown three other barbers next time they open it.
Others give you a booking site that's only yours. Nobody else's shop appears on it, and the customers are yours.
Neither is wrong. Know which you're buying.
2. What does it cost with my whole team?
Not the headline price. The price for the team you have, and the team you'd like to have in a year. Some tools charge per person, so the number on the page is for one. We went through the sums in what booking software really costs.
3. Does it take a cut of my bookings?
Ask directly: is there a commission on bookings, on new customers, or on online payments? A card processing fee on online payments is normal and goes to the payment company. A percentage on top of that goes to the booking software, and it grows as you do.
4. Are reminders included, and by text?
Reminders are the single feature most likely to pay for the software, because they're what stops people forgetting. Check that they go out on their own, that they go by text as well as email, and what the texts cost.
5. Can my customers book without an app?
Every step you add loses people. If a customer has to download something or make an account before they can book a €15 beard trim, some of them won't. Look for booking that works in a browser, from a link, with nothing to install.
6. Does it work in my language, and theirs?
If your customers read Greek, the booking page, the confirmation email and the reminder text all need to be in Greek, and written by somebody who speaks it. Open the demo in Greek and read it. Machine translation shows within a sentence.
7. Can it handle how my shop really runs?
Make a list of the awkward things about your week and test each one in the trial:
- Services of very different lengths, like a removal and a full set.
- More than one service in a visit.
- People who work different days, with their own breaks.
- Deposits, if you take them.
- Bookings you'd like to approve before they're confirmed.
- A walk-in you need to add yourself.
If the demo can't do one of them, the real thing won't either.
8. How long until I'm taking bookings?
Ask what setup involves. If the answer includes a call with a salesperson or a training session, that tells you how complicated it is. A small shop should be able to get from signing up to a working booking page in an afternoon.
9. Can I leave, and what comes with me?
The least exciting question and the most important. Can you export your customers and your bookings as a file, yourself, without asking anybody? Is there a contract? What happens to your web address?
Software you can walk away from has to keep earning your custom. Software that holds your customer list doesn't.
If you only ask five
- Whose customers are they?
- What does it cost with my team?
- Does it take a cut of bookings?
- Are reminders included?
- Can I leave with my list?
How Rantevo answers them
Since we asked you to ask us:
- Yours. Every shop gets a site of its own, on a free rantevo.com address or on your own domain. Nobody else's shop is on it.
- Flat. Solo is €19 a month for one person, Team is €49 a month for everyone, and both are cheaper billed yearly.
- 0%. We take no commission on any booking. Online payments go straight to your own account, less the card processing fee.
- Yes. Email confirmations and reminders, and SMS reminders with €5 or €10 of credit included each month.
- Yes. Customers book from any phone with nothing to install and no account to create.
- Greek and English, written in both.
- Try it. There's a demo that needs no sign-up, and 30 days free to run it in your own shop.
- An afternoon. You answer five questions and your site is live with a starter menu for your trade.
- Yes. Your customers and bookings download as CSV whenever you like, and there's no contract.
A barbershop's own website in a browser window, on its own address: its services and prices, its team and its opening hours, with a Book now button.
That's our side of it. Ask the same nine of whoever is in the other tabs, and pick the one whose answers fit your shop.
