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You’ve worked hard to gain name recognition, and now you’re finally at the place where appointments at your barber shop are in high demand. You’d think the struggle would finally be over: all that’s left is to continue to provide stellar services to clients who come in to their appointments. Your ratings should continue to climb, and the revenue should match.
But in real life, it’s never that simple. Full schedules sound good in theory. But in practice, you’ll find that you’re turning would-be clients away, then waiting all day for no-show clients that cost you both time and money.
Sometimes life is busy, but every empty slot means that much less revenue. With a thousand costs already eating into your bottom line, that’s hard to take.
But what are your options? You can spend an hour or two every morning sending off reminder emails, but you’re busy enough as it is. You could outsource the reminders, but that’s probably not a cost-efficient option.
Here’s a secret that everyone running a service-based business should know: scheduling and booking apps can dramatically decrease the number of no-shows at your barbershop. Setting up automatic reminders makes it harder for clients to forget their appointments. Beyond that, easy cancellation/rescheduling options allow you to free up the slot for someone else if they can’t make it.
So why are barber shop scheduling and booking apps a game changer when it comes to time management? Two big reasons: scheduling is done automatically and reminders are automatically sent out for each appointment. This leads to optimized workflows, fewer missed appointments, and better cash flow.
Whether you manage barber shops across several locations or you’re running a one-person show, scheduling and booking apps can save you time and help you keep your schedule organized.
Do a search for ‘best barbershop booking apps’ and you’ll get an overwhelming number of options. You can find expensive all-in-one solutions that cost more than your tax bill or simple one-task applications that sort of get the job done (but not really). Some are geared to serve specific industries like health and beauty, while others are designed for use by any large corporate teams.
Sorting through all of these options can be hard. That’s why we compiled a list of scheduling and booking apps considered to be best suited for barbershops.
Before you make a choice, you’ll want to create a list of features you need most from a scheduling app for your business. Here are a few important features to look out for:
Now that you know what to look for in the ideal scheduling app, here are the 5 best barbershop scheduling apps we think you should use in 2022:
GoReminders was built out of necessity to solve the problem of no-show appointments in virtually every industry. The software was designed so that small business owners could implement it easily and lower their number of missed appointments — without wasting a ton of time learning a new tool.
Today, our customers love the reliability, ease of use, and intuitively designed features of GoReminders. If you’re in the market for a scheduling/booking app for your small to mid-sized barbershop, we’re confident GoReminders is your best option. Setup takes just 30 seconds, less time than it takes to brew a pot of coffee.
While our software eliminates complexity, it isn’t simplistic by any means. Some of the most popular features include:
Although you can create appointment bookings manually, many barbershops save time by using GoReminder’s online booking options. When customers book appointments, these can be added to your calendar automatically. However, if you prefer, you can ask your customers to request three options for appointment times. With this setting, appointments will only be added to the schedule after you’ve approved a time slot that works best for you. Your branded booking page can be sent out via link or QR code, making it easy to share with new customers or leads.
The greatest strength of GoReminders is its appointment reminder functionality. Text and email reminders are easily customizable using template tags, which auto-fill important information for each new appointment. You can also customize response options for confirmation, cancellation, or rescheduling so you have better control over how customers can respond.
GoReminders also offers powerful reports and analytics, such as appointment volumes, message blast statistics, and monthly comparison charts. You can use these reports to make data-driven decisions to improve your business.
GoReminders offers a 30-day money back guarantee, long enough for you to try out all of our features and see how much of a difference it makes for your barbershop. After that, you can choose between three tiers of membership: Starter, Business, or Premium.
The Starter option ($30/month or $300/yearly) covers one staff member and 15 total appointments. For most barbershops, the Business plan is a better option. You’ll pay $60/month (or $600/yearly) for unlimited staff members, unlimited calendars, and 75 appointments a month. The Premium option, priced at $240/month ($2,400), includes Zapier and API integrations. However, the Premium option usually isn’t necessary unless you want a more white-glove onboarding experience.
Second on our list for barbershop scheduling apps is Vagaro. This scheduling app is focused on the needs of beauty salons, spas, barbers and fitness centers. The mobile app allows payment processing, and built-in payroll software means that much of your finances can be managed through Vagaro.
One great feature of Vagaro is the customer profiles, which allow you to keep track of your clientele and follow them over time. Visit/haircut records, soap notes, and payment records can all be managed within the app, and you may find it helps your staff to stay organized.
That said, there are a few drawbacks. Reminders are not easy to customize, and you won’t be able to receive text replies from your clients within the app. You’ll also need to pay an additional fee for every add-on feature you decide to use, making a service that may have seemed affordable much less so in practice.
Vagaro offers a 30-day free trial, which is long enough to try out the software and see how much of a difference it makes for your salon or barbershop. After the trial is over, you should expect to pay $25 per month for one provider and calendar plus $10 for every additional employee.
This covers basic scheduling, but you’ll need to pay separately for almost every add-on you decide to utilize. Some add-ons include text marketing ($20/month) or a branded app ($200/month).
Mangomint is an automated scheduling platform for larger salons or spas, and is ideal for large barbershops with multiple locations. Alongside scheduling and booking features, Mangomint offers services like time charts, finance reports, inventory tracking, and retail. They have a good reporting system, with automatically generated business intelligence, payroll, sales, and client retention reports.
If you’re a larger barbershop, you may already use other marketing software. Mangomint integrates seamlessly with Mailchimp, WaiverForever, Gift Up, and Shopify. You can also request a custom integration.
We appreciated the clean interface and powerful features of Mangomint, but it’s definitely geared toward big businesses and not small barbershops. If you’re working alone or with a small team, you may not need a ton of automation features — you just need a reliable booking app that keeps your customers coming in for more appointments.
Like many other apps, Mangomint uses a three-tier monthly subscription model. You can also book a 30-day free trial to experiment with the app before you commit.
The Essentials package costs $165 a month, and includes services for up to 10 staff members.
If you want express booking, waiting room, and membership features, you’ll need to move up to the Standard package, which costs $245 per month. This tier allows up to 20 staff members, making it a good choice for larger barbershops.
The Unlimited package costs $375 and includes Quickbooks integration, as well as a custom API and unlimited staff.
Fresha is a little different from the other services we’ve covered here, because it doesn’t feature a monthly payment plan. Instead, you pay them for bookings and any transactions you complete in the app.
Fresha offers appointment scheduling, payment processing, POS services, and marketing promotion. It gives you the ability to set up your own online store, and also has some reporting and analytics functionality.
The scheduling options may not be as advanced as with GoReminders, but users do get customizable message templates, advanced client targeting options, and messages personalized for individual customers.
Commission-based charges can get expensive, and may even have you losing money every time you take on a new client. Some users report raising prices to make up for that. Some barbershops report having to pay fees even for no-show customers. But other salons and beauty shops report a great experience with Fresha, so it may be worth a look.
Rather than paying for a monthly plan, Fresha works on a commission-based pricing model. For every new client, expect to pay 20% of your booking costs. There’s also a 2.19% (plus $0.20) charge per transaction. Aside from that, Fresha is free to use and there is no cost to sign up.
The fifth barbershop scheduling app to make this list is Booksy. This booking service is the most internationally friendly of the options we’ve looked at. You’ll be able to set up your scheduling system in English, Spanish, French, Polish, Portuguese, Ukrainian, or Russian. Not many other booking services can make a boast like that.
Booksy offers calendars and appointment scheduling, payment processing, and marketing tools. These options may not be completely customizable, but they aren’t hard to set up. For Pro users, Booksy also provides a ‘complete front desk solution’ that includes inventory management, shift management, a POS system, and automatically generated reports.
If you’re a lone provider, Booksy will cost $29.99 per month. This allows you to manage appointments and calendars through the Booksy app, collect feedback from past customers, and automate your marketing. If you have more employees, each one will cost you an extra $20 per month. There are also fees for commissions if you decide to go that route in your business.
There are a lot of great scheduling options out there. Some are geared toward larger corporations and chain businesses. Others are focused more on small businesses.
If you’re a smaller independent barbershop, you’re likely better off with an easy-to-use option like GoReminders. You don’t need the complicated automation options you’ll find in software that’s more specialized for the beauty industry, and you don’t need to overpay for a commission-based app.
GoReminders has everything you need to improve communication with customers, decrease no-shows, and boost revenue. Plus, our customer service team is dedicated to helping you make the best use of all the features the platform has to offer.
I tried another system, but there were too many goof-ups so I went back to pen and paper. Until I foundGoReminders! I love how simple it is on my iPad, and I do a week’s worth of scheduling in the time it took me for one client! Now I can focus on making my clients beautiful!
As a very busy mom, wife and business owner, GoReminders has been a game changer. Our days feel less chaotic, more productive and business is up!
I manage donor recruitment for a small community blood bank in northern California. I want to thank you for providing an option for small and non-profit organizations without a huge investment. It’s often difficult to find a balance between 90% functional freeware and an investment that I’d have to lay someone off to afford. GoReminders seems like a great balance.
I use this to keep my appointments and remind my customers for my grooming business. My customers love it and it saves me time!
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