Top 10 Alternatives to Acuity Scheduling: Leading Salon Software Solutions

Businesses in the beauty and wellness industry have fast-paced, time-consuming, and complex operations. Salon software streamlines important processes like appointment management, customer relationship management (CRM) and email marketing integration. It also features social media integration, tracking revenues, automated reporting, inventory management, staff management, and security on point of sale systems and client and employee data.

Scribbling down appointments and tracking inventory with pen and paper is no longer an efficient system for salons. Manually doing the inventory is a time-consuming process with a high potential for human error. Eighty-seven percent of salon owners revealed the manual method of doing inventory tasks is a major weak point in the business.

Having a reliable and convenient system also differentiates your business from your competition in the market. A salon appointment scheduling solution provides benefits like increased efficiency, boost profitability and a sense of security. Hence, you must choose which one fits your business needs best. With 70% of salon and spa website visitors as potential new clients, your software must make a great impression by providing convenience and showcasing your brand effectively.

There are a lot of excellent salon management products to choose from. In this article, you will get to know various solutions available depending on your business niche and requirements.

What is Acuity Scheduling?

Acuity Scheduling supports over 50,000 major corporations and businesses with their focal point on managing schedules. The vendor understood the difficulty and challenges of scheduling such as needing to always have your email or phone open for possible contact from clients even during day offs or personal occasions, the waiting time that could lose you a client over a competitor, and the frustration of asking back-and-forth which schedule is available for you and your client. Hence, it developed a system that solves these issues. With focus on online scheduling, the software also integrates other valuable features to help salons and spas grow their businesses and manage their admin tasks so you and your team can focus on your company’s core operations and provide superior services to your customers.

Key Features of Acuity Scheduling

1. Organized schedule. Send reminders to clients, easily cancel or reschedule their booked appointments, and auto-adjust according to their timezone.
2. 24/7 availability. Choose what availabilities and services you want your clients to see and manage your employees in multiple locations.
3. Client data. Gather relevant client data in your system by asking clients to answer intake forms when scheduling.
4. Payment systems. Accept payments from PayPal, Stripe, Square, Braintree, and Authorize.net.
5. SMS/email notifications. Send branded or customized alerts, follow-ups, and reminders to customers through text messages or emails to avoid no-shows.
6. Calendar coordination. Integrate your existing calendars like Google, Outlook, iCloud, and Office 365 and get notifications when new bookings are received.

Despite Acuity’s robust tools, you may be interested in looking at other solutions. We have reviewed the top 10 alternatives to Acuity Scheduling with powerful, easy-to-use features that are leading in their own specialties.

Top 10 Alternatives to Acuity Scheduling

1. SimplyBook.me

Simplybook.me is another great Acuity Scheduling alternative that you can use to streamline your scheduling and booking procedures. It offers a wide range of appointment scheduling tools, enabling you to manage online bookings without any haste. The platform is highly customizable as well, and it lets you create your own mobile-optimized booking website and choose from a variety of themes that match your brand. In addition, Simplybook.me provides features such as intake forms, membership management, and Book Now buttons that you can embed on your social media accounts. You can also choose from more Simplybook.me alternatives here.

2. Rosy Salon Software

Rosy Salon Software is a full-featured appointment scheduling software ideal for businesses in the salon and spa industry. It helps you manage client appointments, work out plans for multiple appointments, personalize reminders, and access client history. With features like double booking, workflow automation, and cancellation management, Rosy Salon Software ensures that you’ll be able to run your spa or salon business efficiently. It also comes with a mobile web app that provides your customers with easy access to your site. This way, they can easily book appointments and reserve products directly from their phones. In case Rosy Salon Software does not fit your needs, you can also check out these Rosy Salon Software alternatives.

3. 10to8

10to8 is an excellent all-in-one appointment scheduling software for independent beauticians and salon businesses. It increases your organization’s efficiency by letting you focus on your work while the system takes care of the other vital admin operations like filling your schedule and looking for new clients. It ensures last-minute cancellations are reduced by sending interactive messages to your customers which encourages them to show up in their booked schedule on time. If they don’t respond, you will be notified. 10to8 users experienced a 90% decrease of no-shows. The tech also manages appointment scheduling and diary management to free up your time in accommodating your clients and reduce waiting time. Some of its essential features are 24/7 appointment booking, an up-to-date calendar, email and SMS reminders, booking button and forms, two-way chat with clients, and more. To get a fuller picture of this software you can match it against other 10to8 alternatives.

4. Shedul

Shedul is a free salon and spa management software used by over 40,000 businesses in the beauty and wellness industry. Most of their users are hair salons, massage centers, health clinics, beauty salons, spas, and personal trainers. It is a simple yet flexible tool that’s loaded with powerful features. Your customers can schedule their appointments online on the clean and easy-to-use platform with a calendar. It lets you manage your clients efficiently as you can view a detailed appointment history, contact details, and their future bookings. Your clients will receive custom automated messages to remind them of their scheduled appointment to reduce no-shows or alert them of any changes. You can keep track of all your daily tasks with the app’s activity dashboard and take care of all your sales transactions, receipts, and invoices.

5. Square Appointments

Square Appointments is a booking app that provides you with an all-in-one solution for accepting bookings and payments. The platform offers a calendar that you and your clients can use in any device you have, whether it is a computer, tablet or smartphone. It also works in multiple locations which is useful if you have remote employees on other branches. Personal events block certain times on your calendar—which you can easily sync with Google Calendar—to ensure you won’t have conflicting appointments. Since your online booking site is open 24/7, you will not lose clients by not being available during their free time. It gives you an all-around solution for managing your team and clients. You can check other Square Appointments alternatives.

6. Mindbody

MINDBODY is an online business management software for 59,000 enterprises and small business in the beauty and wellness industry such as fitness, yoga, wellness, spa, massage, salon, personal training, pilates, and more. You will get your own branded mobile app to increase your brand exposure and connect with your clients easily, especially since many people do most transactions using their smartphones. Boost client retention with automated push notifications through deal and event announcements and cancellation notices. Real-time scheduling is a convenient way for your customers to see your available schedule and then book and pay for it. It also has membership management, performance metrics, and more. If you’re unsure about this software, you have other options. Check these Mindbody alternatives.

7. Vagaro

Vagaro lands in the top 10 alternatives to Acuity Scheduling as it’s one of the most downloaded spa and salon software. They focus on three niches in the wellness industry which are spa, salon, and fitness. Robust features are available to help you grow your business. Its calendar lets you reschedule or change your availability anytime when needed to avoid clashing of schedules. Marketing is also covered by the software as it helps your business get discovered by new customers and keep the old ones. The Daily Deals feature lets you promote your discounts. Improve your client retention with automated birthday emails, follow-ups to schedules, and reminders to patients who haven’t visited you in a while. Online booking is available through the Vagaro app and site, Yelp, and Facebook.  There are more Vagaro alternatives out there if you want to expand your options.

8. Booker

Booker is used by more than 128,000 local businesses to grow their companies by taking care of the relevant admin tasks such as bookings, accepting payments, managing customers, and marketing. This lets you have more time to deliver your services to your customers. The cloud-based software allows you to post your free time slots to Booker’s distribution partners like Yahoo, Bing, YellowPages, and more. Social promotion is valuable for today’s savvy target market. You can publish your deals, discounts, and specials through the app to various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Its other features include an online booking page, mobile and tablet accessibility, schedule management, point of sale (POS) system, credit card processing, mobile payment processing, employee scheduling, customer relationship management (CRM), and more. Want to try other options? Go check these Booker alternatives.

9. Timely

If one of your organization’s main focuses is time tracking, Timely is an excellent software for you to use. Tracking your team’s schedule is an important part of managing your business, especially when it’s salon-related. When your clients book an appointment, you want to ensure the right people are employed on the schedule to cater to the client’s beauty and wellness needs. If they are scheduled for a hair treatment appointment, it will be a disaster when only nail care specialists are on duty. The app creates a timesheet and all that’s left for you to do is confirm. It has automated tracking of hours, an efficient task overview, automatically-logged meetings, and a robust copy feature for logging repeating tasks. It also has an all-in-one dashboard that your team can use when logging into their schedule so you won’t have to chase them down to track their time. This lets you efficiently deliver services and manage your business on time and within the budget. You have plenty of Timely alternatives also to choose from if you’re not sure about this solution.

10. Full Slate

An easy-to-use appointment scheduling software is vital for salon and spa businesses. Full Slate takes the stress out of scheduling and works in the background in filling up your schedule as you focus on providing great services to your customers. The online scheduler can convert clicks on your website, booking page, or Facebook page into confirmed bookings. It’s convenient for your customers when they’re only available after business hours or they don’t want the hassle of making phone calls. Eliminate the instances of no-shows when clients forget their appointments. Using the system, they will receive reminders on their scheduled appointment through emails or texts. Because your time is precious, there’s also an option to let the clients pay for their appointment or make a deposit ahead of time. Other features are calendar sync, recurring appointments, CRM, class scheduling, multiple locations, client reviews, iOS/Android optimized, and more. Remember to compare this software with other Full Slate alternatives for a more comprehensive product review.

By Astrid Eira

Astrid Eira is a resident B2B expert of FinancesOnline, focusing on the SaaS niche. She specializes in accounting and human resource management software, writing honest and straightforward reviews of some of the most popular systems around. Being a small business owner herself, Astrid uses her expertise to help educate business owners and entrepreneurs on how new technology can help them run their operations. She's an avid fan of the outdoors, where you'll find her when she's not crunching numbers or testing out new software.