The best Phorest alternative depends on how you want to be charged. Phorest publishes no plan prices and offers no free trial, so if you want a figure before a sales call, look at platforms that price per location, per user or per staff member on their own pages, then price your own salon on two of them in an hour.
Phorest sells itself as one system for salons and med spas, covering booking, point of sale, marketing and client loyalty. So this page starts with money and fit, then lists eight platforms worth a demo, and ends with a test you can run before you speak to a single salesperson.
Why salon owners go looking
For many owners the trigger is pricing they can't see. Phorest's US pricing page lists four plans, Starter, Grow, Complete Advantage and Elite, with no prices against them and a "Request a quote" button instead. The same page says there's no free trial, so a demo is the only way to see it working.
Every Phorest plan includes unlimited staff and unlimited devices ("Unlimited devices. Unlimited staff." in its own words), so the bill doesn't grow when you hire. The page also describes its plans as suited to salons with three or more staff, which tells a solo stylist or a two-chair studio that they're not the customer it's built around.
Text messages are where the meter runs. On Phorest's pricing page, SMS costs 5 cents each on Starter, while Grow includes 1,000 a month, Complete Advantage 5,000 and Elite 27,000, with bundles of 7,500 for $99. If you send a reminder and a confirmation for every booking, that line matters more than the headline plan.
So before you book a single demo, be clear which of three problems you're solving: you can't get a price, you're too small for a system built around teams of three or more, or texts are eating the margin. Each one points to a different kind of platform below.
The fork that decides your bill
Before you compare features, decide which charging model suits the salon you'll be running in two years, not the one you run today. Every platform below fits one of five shapes, read from their own pricing pages on 13 Nov 2026.
Per location. Boulevard, Square Appointments and Mindbody charge each site separately. Great if you've one salon and plan to keep it that way; painful if you're opening a second. Check whether users are unlimited within each site, because where they are, hiring costs you nothing extra.
Per location plus per person. Mangomint is the example of this model, charging for each site and adding a fee for every user. Clear and predictable, but a growing team grows the bill with it, so price in the juniors you plan to take on.
By team size. Zolmi and GlossGenius both scale with the size of your team. The catch to look for is a cap on bookable providers or team members on the entry plan, because your next hire can push you up a whole tier.
By quote. Zenoti, like Phorest, prices on request. Multi-site pricing in this group is shaped around your footprint, so expect a sales process, and expect to negotiate.
Marketplace commission. Salonized offers an optional route into the Treatwell marketplace for salons wanting new clients. Where a marketplace is involved, the commission on the pages behind this list is 35% of a new client's booking, plus a small cut of prepaid online bookings. That's a charge for bringing you new people, which can be worth it, but price it as marketing, not software. Other platforms here say plainly they take no booking commission.
Which shape fits which salon
A solo stylist or a two-chair studio wants a team-size or payments-led tool with a free or cheap entry plan and a trial, because a quote-only system built for bigger teams is the wrong conversation. One busy salon with a settled team gets the clearest bill from per-location pricing, ideally with unlimited users. A salon that's hiring fast should avoid anything that charges per person. A group with several sites, or a med spa with clinical treatments, belongs with the quote-led and multi-site platforms, where the setup is shaped around how the group runs.
If treatment rooms share a building with classes or a gym floor, look for a platform that already handles fitness and wellness as well as beauty, so you aren't running two systems for one front desk.
Eight salon and spa platforms to shortlist
Boulevard
Built for self-care businesses running one site or several, and one of the few here that names med spas alongside salons and spas as the people it serves.
GlossGenius
Booking, payments and marketing shaped around independent beauty and wellness owners who'd rather spend their day on clients than on software.
Mangomint
Salon and spa software pairing booking and point of sale with an AI receptionist, aimed at lightening the front-desk load in busy studios.
Mindbody
Stretches across fitness, beauty and wellness, so it makes sense where treatment rooms share a building with classes or a gym floor.
Salonized
Salon software covering online booking and checkout, with an optional route into the Treatwell marketplace for salons that want help finding new clients.
Square Appointments
Appointment booking from the Square payments family, a natural fit if you already take cards at the desk through Square.
Want AI doing the heavy lifting in your marketing?
I build the systems that handle the boring 80 percent, so you get your week back. Done properly, with the human kept in.
Zenoti
Enterprise software for salon, spa and med spa groups whose setup across several sites needs shaping around how the group runs.
Zolmi
Booking software for independent salons, sized around how many people are on your team and taking no commission on online bookings.
A one-hour test with your own numbers
Sales demos show the software at its best. This test shows you the bill.
- Write down four numbers: how many locations you run, how many people take bookings, how many appointments you booked last month, and how many reminder texts went out.
- Open the pricing pages of two alternatives that use different charging models from the list above, and price your salon on each, adding every location, every user and every text beyond the included allowance.
- Send Phorest the same four numbers with your quote request, so you're comparing like with like.
- Start a trial where one exists, book an appointment through the client booking page on your own phone, and time how long it takes.
- Ask each vendor, in writing, what a full export of your client records and future appointments looks like, and whether moving in costs anything.
That fourth step is the one owners skip, and it's the one clients feel. If booking takes longer than it does now, your no-show and drop-off problem gets worse, not better. If booking is the only part you're changing, my guide to choosing booking software for a service business walks through that one decision. And if no-shows are why you're moving, see how hair salons use automation for bookings and no-shows.
What salon software costs
Five of the eight alternatives here publish prices. On those pages, read on 13 Nov 2026, the paid entry plan for a single location runs from $24 a month (billed annually) to $143 a month, the top tiers go past $300 per location, and one of the five has a $0 plan for a single site. That's before card fees, payroll add-ons and extra texts, which several list separately. Two more quote on request, as Phorest does, and the rest are best priced on their own pages with your team size in hand.
Three lines get missed. Card processing: on the pages here it runs from 2.9% plus 30 cents per card payment to a fixed fee of 10 to 30 cents per transaction on a platform's own payments. Texts: some include appointment reminders without limit but charge credits for marketing texts, others meter every message; the verified spread runs from 5 cents a text on one entry plan to 11 to 15 euro cents on credit packs. Payroll: where it's an add-on, the two pages that show it charge $35 to $40 a month plus $6 per person.
Add those three to the subscription and the gap between platforms often narrows. A cheap plan that meters every text can cost more than a dearer one that includes reminders, if you send a reminder and a confirmation for every booking.
What has to come with you
Client names and phone numbers are the easy part. The things that hurt when they go missing are future appointments, client notes and colour formulas, patch test records, gift card and package balances, deposits already taken, and staff rotas. Ask for each one by name when you request the export, and check whether the new platform will import it or whether someone on your team has to re-key it.
Then check the marketing side. Your review history, your loyalty points and your booking link in Instagram bios and Google listings all need a plan, or clients will try to book through a page that no longer works.
Mistakes that cost salons money
Pricing today's salon. A per-location model looks cheapest until you open the second site. A per-user one looks fine until you take on three juniors. Price where you'll be, not where you are.
Ignoring texts. Reminders cut no-shows, so you'll send more of them, not fewer. Put your real monthly volume into every quote.
Treating marketplace commission as a software cost. If the marketplace brings clients who come back, it's cheap marketing. If they come once on a discount, it's expensive. Look at how many marketplace clients rebooked before you judge it.
Losing gift card and package balances. A client who bought a course of treatments and finds no balance on the new system will not be quiet about it. Move balances before you switch off the old system.
Switching in your busiest month. Pick a quiet stretch, run both systems side by side for a short overlap, and move the client-facing booking page last.
Where I'd start
If you're a solo stylist or a two-chair studio, Phorest's own page says you're not its core customer, so start with a payments-led tool or a team-size priced one with a trial. If you're one busy salon planning to stay that way, a per-location platform gives you the clearest bill. If you're a growing group or a med spa, shortlist the platforms that name med spas or multi-site groups, and get a written quote from each against the same four numbers. Whichever way you go, the test above will tell you more than the brochure.
Do you make salon, spa or clinic software? Tool makers can ask to be considered for a featured place on this list.
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