Websites and booking for salons, spas and barbers

People choosing a salon, spa or barber are choosing a person and a result. They want to see the work, know what it costs, and book without a phone call. The site's job is to make each of those take seconds:

• A service list with prices, or at least starting prices. Hidden prices are the most common reason people leave a beauty site.
• Real photos of real work: cuts, colour, nails, treatment rooms. These do more selling than any line of copy.
• Who does what, if clients book a particular stylist or therapist.
• Hours, location and parking, opening in a map with one tap.
• A booking button on the first screen and repeated down the page.

Booking should take as few steps as a client is willing to tolerate on a phone between other things: pick a service, pick a time, confirm. Every extra screen loses people. If you already use a booking system you like, the site's job is to send people to it cleanly and from every page.

Our salon app does booking from the phone, with points on every visit and a reward when a client gets there. It lives on your own web address and installs to the home screen from the browser, with no App Store download. If you need the booking to connect to a system you already run, that is a custom build, which the studio scopes with you.

Because the visits repeat. A regular client comes back every few weeks for the same thing. That is exactly the pattern an app is good at: the client opens it from the home screen, books the usual, and sees how close they are to the next reward. A paper stamp card gets lost; one on the phone does not.

If most of your book is regulars, an app turns rebooking from a phone call into a habit. If most clients are one-off (a bridal party, a tourist), put the effort into the website first. The website vs app guide has a quick test for which you are.

• Website: $99 a month, or $1,499 once to own it outright. Your domain, hosting and security included on the monthly plan, and changes whenever you email.
• App: $99 a month for booking from the phone and points and rewards.
• App + Stores: $199 a month plus $499 setup, for your own App Store and Google Play listing with push notifications.
• Website + App: $169 a month for both, $29 a month less than the two apart.

There is no contract on the monthly plans. Taking deposits or card payments online is a custom build, not part of these plans. All of it is on the pricing page.

Most beauty sites look the same because they start from the same few templates. The difference comes from your own photos, your own words for your services, and a design that matches the feel of the place: a sharp barbershop, a calm spa and a bright nail studio should not share a layout.

Every build we make starts from your details and the photos and reviews on your Google listing, so the first version is already yours. A designer checks it before you see it. If the photos on your listing are weak, a dozen good phone shots of recent work, in daylight, will lift the site more than anything else you can send.

We do, on the monthly plans. Email us a new price list or a new service and a designer makes the change. Price changes are normal in this trade, and updating them should not mean learning an editor at the end of a long day.

• "Call for prices" on every service.
• A booking link buried in a menu.
• Stock photos of models. Clients want to see your work.
• A site that disagrees with your Google listing on hours or address.
• A long contract for a site you might want to change in a year.

Want to see what yours could look like? Build it free, or build the booking and rewards app first.