A checklist, not a ranking
The best salon booking app is the one that answers four questions
Nobody can rank these systems for you, because they are not ranked on the same things. What decides whether a booking app fits one chair is what it takes from a booking, what cards cost you, whose client list it is, and what you can take with you when you go.
Free to try, up to 15 bookings/month · calendar protection included on every plan
Cancel any time. No phone call.
Four questions, and where we stand on each
Ask any of them about any system, including this one. The answers are short, which is the point.
What do they take from a booking?
A percentage of every appointment is the most expensive way to rent software, and it grows with your busiest month. Ours is 29 a month, flat, and no per-booking fee on any plan.
What does a card payment cost you?
Whichever rate the processor charges, and nothing on top. Deposits are a direct charge on your own Stripe account, and Chairwarden never adds a percentage to it.
Whose client list is it?
Yours, and it should not take a support ticket to prove it. Names, phone numbers, emails, notes and visit history export to one file whenever you want, without asking us.
What happens when you leave?
Cancelling is self-serve: the billing portal on the web, Apple settings on iPhone. No retention call, and nothing of yours is held back to keep you.
Best for one chair is a different question
Most booking systems are built for a shop: several calendars, a front desk, staff permissions. Those features are not neutral on a page about one person, because you pay for them and then work around them.
- One calendar, one client list, one booking link: if the system asks who the appointment is with, it was not built for you.
- Your services and hours typed in by you, in your own words, not a category list you have to fit into.
- A free tier you can test with your real prices before a card is involved, because a demo calendar tells you nothing.
- A cancel path you can find yourself, and an export that works without an email to support.
The comparison pages take this further: each claim there carries the source it came from and the day it was read, including the places where another system is the better choice.
A full week and a profitable week are different things
Almost every system can show a free slot. The question is whether it understands that some slots are worth more than others, which is the difference between a full week and a profitable one.
Mark a long service as protected and a short one is never shown a time inside it. Relaxed mode loosens that for services at or under your quick threshold, and nothing longer.
Synced events block online booking in both modes, so the only appointments clients can take are the ones you meant to offer.
Booking someone in yourself always works and is saved as an override, so the rule never argues with the person in front of you.
What you are buying, in plain terms
Calendar protection, on the free tier as well as the paid one.
A public booking page on your own link, no account for the client.
Email reminders on every plan, and 500 texts a month on the paid one.
Deposits through your own Stripe account, taken before the appointment.
Import from a CSV or an export file, with a preview first.
Export the same way: clients, services, bookings and hours, in one file, whenever you ask.
And what it is not
Not a marketplace, and not a marketing tool. It will not bring you clients.
No staff accounts, rotas or front desk. One chair per account.
No card terminal, no retail and no inventory.
No Android app yet, and no app for your clients either.
The price is the whole of it
$29 a month, or $23 a month billed annually. No percentage of your work, and nothing that grows when your month does.
Starter
$0
no credit card, enough bookings to prove the protection works
- Up to 15 bookings/month
- Calendar protection, Strict & Relaxed modes
- Public booking link, your own URL
- Email reminders
- Deposit & no-show protection via Stripe
- Google Calendar sync
No credit card needed to start.
Get startedIndividual
$29/mo
or $23/mo billed annually
Everything in Starter, plus:
- Unlimited bookings
- SMS + email reminders (500 SMS/mo included)
- Import wizard: bring your client list from Vagaro, Square & more
- Full stats dashboard: revenue, utilization, top services
Cancel anytime from your dashboard.
Get startedCancel from your dashboard on the web, or in Apple’s subscription settings on iPhone. Both are self-serve, and both leave your data exportable.
Questions about choosing
No, deliberately. A ranking of booking software is either a paid placement or somebody's guess, and neither helps you. What is on this page is the four questions that decide whether a system fits one chair, and where Chairwarden stands on each of them. The comparisons we did write, with a source and a date on every figure, are under Alternatives.
Whichever one answers the four questions the way you want them answered. For us that is no commission on a booking, deposits straight into your own Stripe, a flat price, and a client list you can export and keep. If you would rather pay a percentage and get a marketplace in return, that is a reasonable choice, and it is not this one.
Leaving is self-serve. On the web, the billing portal opens from your dashboard and cancels the subscription there, with no phone call and no email. On iPhone, the subscription belongs to Apple, so it is cancelled in Apple's own subscription settings. Either way, the export gives you your client list, your services, your bookings and your working hours in one file.
No percentage and no per-booking fee, on any plan. Deposits are a direct charge on your own Stripe account, and card payments cost you Stripe's own standard rate and nothing on top. One flat price a month is the whole of what we take.
The import wizard reads a CSV or an export file and shows you exactly what will come across before anything is written: names, phone numbers, emails and visit history. It is the mirror of the export, so you can try it and change your mind without losing anything.
It is 15 bookings a month with no card, and it is not meant to be permanent. It exists so you can put your own services and hours in and watch whether the calendar does what you need, before any money changes hands. Email reminders work on it too.
Answer the four questions with your own calendar
Put your services in, see what the booking page does with them, and decide after that rather than before.
Start freeNo card required, and your clients stay exportable the whole time.
More on this, from the blog
Booth Renter Booking Software: What to Check Before You Pay
Booth renters need booking software that protects long service blocks. See what Chairwarden does differently and what to look for before paying.
ReadSalon Software That Respects Your Time: A Practical Guide
What to look for in salon software. Real pricing, booking logic, and migration facts. How to avoid the traps that cost you money and time.
ReadSalon Suite Software: What Booth Renters Actually Need
Booth renters need booking tools that stop double-booking and deposit fraud. Here's what to look for, with real limits and pricing from Chairwarden.
Read