10+ Best WordPress Salon Booking Plugins: Free & Premium
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For every owner of beauty, hair, nail salons, and the like, one of the most crucial aspects of their business operation is the efficient handling of customer reservations. While it’s possible to maintain records on paper or in Excel sheets, a more modern approach would be to implement an online booking system on your website. This technical solution serves two purposes: firstly, it allows visitors to schedule appointments themselves, eliminating the need to coordinate with a manager for available dates and times; secondly, it centralizes all reservations in one location for easy review and control. So, if you’re seeking a salon booking plugin to integrate into your WordPress website, read on.
6 Best Premium WordPress Salon Booking Plugins
While countless premium plugins are available, not all were created equal. This list delves into the best of the best among paid booking solutions for salons.
Offering an array of advanced features, such as enhanced payment system integration, the capability to set up SMS reminders via Twilio, and a comprehensive administrative area for managing reservations and team schedules, these extensions have been tried, tested, and loved by thousands. Let’s explore each one.
1. Appointment Booking by MotoPress
| Author | Rating | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| MotoPress | 5.0 | 1,087 |
With this tool, clients can easily schedule and book appointments directly on the website, selecting services, staff members, and preferred times without leaving the page. Features include automated email and SMS notifications, and online and on-site payment options through multiple gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Square. Also, it is possible to handle group bookings, allowing clients to reserve for several people at once.
Special widgets are available to showcase team members, services, and more. Admins can easily manage and oversee all reservations via a centralized dashboard, modify personal customer information, and adjust service costs. The built-in calendar ensures that all team members can view past and future bookings in real-time, enhancing efficiency. Restline and Lotus Spa are outstanding salon WordPress themes that come with this plugin out of the box. If you need a free theme, there is the barbershop free theme with the free version of this software included.
MotoPress Appointment Booking can become your best salon booking system thanks to offering customizable service and staff management, discount coupon creation, and smooth integrations with popular WordPress builders like Gutenberg, Elementor, and Divi. It supports multiple languages, ensuring a broad reach, and caters to individual professionals and larger business chains. Feel free to take a look at a list of real client websites made with this booking plugin.
More Details Membership Free Version
2. Salon Booking WordPress Plugin
| Author | Rating | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| WordPressChef | 4.33 | 1,153 |
Although it can be used for any appointment-related business, this is probably one of the only booking extensions positioned specifically as a salon reservation system. The tool boasts various features including diverse viewing options for the back-end calendar, various email and SMS notifications, support for multiple payment providers, customizable checkout and service settings, an advanced discount system, two-way Google Calendar synchronization, and detailed customer archives and reports.
Furthermore, this salon booking plugin allows website owners to select their preferred date and time format, manage reservation rules, adjust payment options, and modify services to match their business model. The importing feature allows for migration from other platforms, while various frontend pages, such as booking forms, customer reservation management, and assistants’ calendars, enhance user experience. The plugin also emphasizes security and functionality by offering protection against spam.
3. Calendarista
| Author | Rating | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| Typps | 4.93 | 1,742 |
This tool is akin to a Swiss Army knife for booking needs. It’s designed to cater to a wide range of businesses, from hotels and travel agencies to beauty salons and restaurants. Relevant to our topic, its key features include 12 booking modes, multiple date and time format options, integration with Stripe and PayPal, and two-way synchronization capabilities with Google Calendar and iCAL. To enhance user retention, email and SMS reminders are provided, and seasonal rates are available, along with discount options.
The best booking WordPress plugin includes style customization, WooCommerce support, and form builder availability. Also, Calendarista ensures flexibility with functionalities like unlimited extras, translation support, tax computation, and some special options such as staff member additions, holiday settings, and automatic updates. For business owners, the back-end interface provides a comprehensive view of appointments, sales, and reservations, and allows for the creation or editing of appointments directly.
4. Ozapp — Salon Booking Plugin With Mobile App
| Author | Rating | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| OzPlugin | 5.0 | 772 |
Meet a dynamic WordPress plugin tailored for diverse service appointments ranging from doctors to hairdressers and stylists. This versatile tool places user experience at the forefront, offering a user-friendly interface where clients can view, book, or cancel their appointments seamlessly. Backend features are equally comprehensive, providing functionalities such as an appointment calendar, employee profiles with customizable working hours and services, service categorization, and robust client management tools.
Furthermore, Ozapp boasts an array of important supplementary features, including SMS and WhatsApp reminders (via Twilio integration), multiple payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe, flexible scheduling options, and video conferencing capabilities with built-in live chat. Additionally, business owners can take advantage of the plugin’s mobile app for Android. The tool also integrates smoothly with WPML and WooCommerce, ensuring a holistic solution for salons seeking a comprehensive appointment management system.
5. Timetable
| Author | Rating | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| QuanticaLabs | 4.54 | 10,495 |
Firstly, it’s important to emphasize that this tool is marketed as a timetable, not primarily a salon booking plugin like previous extensions, but specifically a scheduling tool. That said, it does come equipped with reservation functionalities, making reservations simple for your visitors. With the shortcode generator, customization becomes straightforward. Website owners can adjust colors, fonts, and CSS to match their branding or site aesthetics, and even integrate it with WPBakery.
The booking management system is advanced, allowing for restrictions on event slots and customization of booking procedures. Admins can easily import dummy data for quick setups and integrate with Google Calendar for seamless synchronization. They also have the flexibility to define event characteristics, from naming and categorization to color and URL settings. Overall, this plugin stands out as the most sophisticated, having the largest number of features compared to all others previously mentioned.
6. ARB
| Author | Rating | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| Fluent-Themes | 4.77 | 416 |
Unlike previous examples, which are entirely self-sufficient creations, this tool is built upon the WooCommerce plugin. It enables customers to book services such as doctor appointments, courses, and salon services, to name a few. The plugin’s features include but are not limited to, reservations by the hour or even by fractions of an hour, tax and discount configuration, front-end color customization, manual booking confirmations, and the creation of multiple reservation forms.
More advanced functionalities of ARB include an integrated Request for Quote feature for custom pricing negotiations, advanced scheduling scenarios, and intricate pricing grids, like differentiated pricing for adults and children. Notifications and reminder emails are automatically sent with professional templates. Moreover, it supports all WooCommerce payment gateways, allowing for a broad range of transaction methods, including PayPal, Stripe, Square, and many others.
5 Best Free WordPress Salon Booking Plugins
Whether you run a bustling beauty salon, a tranquil spa, or any other appointment-driven establishment, having a reliable reservation system can make all the difference. To simplify your search, we’ve curated a list of top-notch free plugins that are not only popular but also boast a reliable history and high ratings. While premium solutions might offer the most comprehensive features, these no-cost options are worth considering for the core functionalities they can offer to your business.
7. Amelia
| Author | Rating | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| TMS | 4.5 | 50,000+ |
The main functional capabilities of this tool, as in all previous cases, are related to online appointment scheduling and event reservations. With a user-friendly experience for both service providers and clients, Amelia caters to various businesses, including salons, among others, ensuring no more missed appointments with its email and SMS reminders. Features include easy embedding of booking forms, a calendar view for scheduled events, customization of reservation confirmations, prevention of double-booking, etc.
Setting up the Amelia Lite Booking System is a breeze. In five simple steps: site owners can add services and categories, import existing customer databases, adjust the reservation form colors, embed the corresponding shortcode to their website, and are then ready to start receiving bookings. For those who need more advanced features, the commercial version of Amelia provides capabilities such as creating service packages and event tickets, managing multiple locations and employees, accepting online payments, and more.
More Details Premium Version Hosting
8. Simply Schedule Appointments
| Author | Rating | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| N Squared | 5.0 | 20,000+ |
This comprehensive appointment scheduling solution is trusted by over 20,000 businesses globally. It’s optimized for professionals ranging from hairdressers, barbers, and spas to therapists, tutors, and health centers, among others. Starting with a flexible front-end booking form, its core features include a user-friendly back-end calendar with monthly, weekly, and daily views; and customizable email and SMS notifications.
Also, seamless Google Calendar synchronization for both administrators and team members is available, along with an array of payment, checkout, and assistant options, extensive service settings, a robust discount system, comprehensive customer and revenue reports, and easy data import. The premium version further enhances the capabilities important for each salon booking plugin thanks to integrations with third-party platforms like Mailchimp, Zoom, and Google Meet.
9. Booking Calendar
| Author | Rating | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| WPDevelop, OPlugins | 4.5 | 60,000+ |
Offering a seamless interface to show calendar availability, this tool allows one to receive and manage reservations from website visitors. It provides Google Calendar synchronization, avoiding overlaps with other services. The Booking Calendar comes equipped with customizable email notifications, a robust admin panel for overseeing reservations, easy data import, and third-party app integrations.
Designed with businesses like beauty salons and spas in mind, apart from multiple other similar establishments, this salon booking plugin facilitates smooth client scheduling, allowing owners to focus on their service provision. With its mobile-friendly design, you can efficiently handle reservations on any device. Features like the ability to define available dates, customizable reservation form fields, and the prevention of double bookings are critical for a bustling salon.
10. BookingPress
| Author | Rating | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| Repute Infosystems | 4.5 | 9,000+ |
Designed to cater to a wide range of businesses, BookingPress is a versatile appointment reservation plugin for WordPress. It offers features such as an intuitive user interface, extensive customization options, and seamless website integration. Business owners can enjoy a professional booking system complete with advanced dashboards. Additionally, anti-spam protection and integration with PayPal as a payment gateway are available for free. For those seeking added capabilities, multiple add-ons enhance its functionality.
The premium version of BookingPress amplifies the plugin’s feature set even more. Website administrators can benefit from advanced booking systems with customizable forms, integrations with numerous online payment gateways, calendar platforms like Google and Apple, and tools like Zapier and Mailchimp. Additionally, the system supports multiple languages, provides email, SMS, and WhatsApp notifications, and enables the creation of custom booking fields.
11. Bookly
| Author | Rating | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| Bookly | 4.5 | 70,000+ |
One of the most popular free scheduling plugins for WordPress, that allows businesses to automate the reservation process. Suitable for various sectors, including beauty, hair, and nail salons, among other appointment-based business types, Bookly offers an intuitive interface that is fully responsive on any device. Customers can easily schedule appointments, choose services, and receive email and SMS notifications. The booking form can be customized to suit your business needs, and there’s a user-friendly admin panel for managing appointments and customers.
Some additional key features include multi-language support through WPML, monthly, weekly, and daily calendar views, and smooth compatibility with Elementor. For those seeking enhanced capabilities, the Bookly Pro extension offers advanced features such as an unlimited number of staff and services, online payment processing with various platforms, synchronization with Google Calendar, compatibility with WooCommerce, comprehensive analytics, and connections to Zoom and Google Meet.
More Details Premium Version Hosting
Concluding Words: How to Choose the Best Salon Booking System
Nowadays, nail, hair, beauty salons, and other appointment-based businesses have an unparalleled opportunity to optimize and centralize their booking processes, especially when their websites are built on WordPress. Through a comprehensive exploration of both free and premium salon booking plugins, we have made in our article, several critical takeaways can be concluded.
- First and foremost, these extensions prioritize user-friendliness, ensuring that both business owners and their clientele have a seamless experience.
- A commonly recurring feature is the synchronization with Google Calendar, highlighting the importance of integrating with widely-used platforms.
- Additionally, most plugins offer customization options, ensuring businesses can tailor the interface to their branding and aesthetic preferences.
- Notifications, especially through SMS and email, have also emerged as a standard offering, emphasizing the need for timely reminders in the appointment-based industry.
- And, of course, extensions of this type are also regularly integrated with popular payment gateways, such as PayPal and Stripe, facilitating easy transactions.
Overall, there are a multitude of plugins available, each with its unique strengths. They universally aim to provide streamlined booking processes, integrative functionalities, and enhanced user experiences. Business owners should carefully assess their specific needs against these common extensions to select the ideal tool for their operations.
Disclosure: this article may contain affiliate links for third-party products. If you click a link and later make a purchase, we may earn an affiliate commission that doesn’t result in additional charges to you.
FAQ
What are the benefits of using a salon booking plugin?
- Automated booking systems reduce manual labor for administrators and minimize the risk of double reservations or overbookings.
- Clients can make, change, or cancel appointments any time of day, giving them flexibility and improving their overall user experience.
- Automated reminders via SMS, messenger (WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, etc.), or email can significantly reduce no-shows.
- Almost all extensions of this type offer online payment capabilities, streamlining the transaction process and potentially increasing the speed of cash inflow.
- Salon owners can view and manage all appointments, staff schedules, and client information from one convenient dashboard.
- Some extensions provide insights into business performance, client behavior, and other metrics that can help in strategizing and forecasting.
What are the best premium salon booking plugins?
- Appointment Booking by MotoPress: Not just a plugin focused on the needs of various salons, but a full-fledged appointment software that integrates well with WordPress.
- Bookly: Known for its high popularity, and a huge amount of add-ons to expand the default feature set.
- Amelia: Praised for its intuitive UI and efficient automated booking system.
- Salon Booking: Offers a complete set of features tailored for salon businesses with multi-location support.
- Timetable: A straightforward extension that’s great for those who want simplicity without sacrificing functionality.
It’s important to note that the best plugin largely depends on a business’s specific needs and budget. Test a few and see which one aligns best with your requirements.
What are the main features that should be present in salon booking software?
- User-friendly Interface: It should be easy for everyone, whether it’s a client booking an appointment or the business owner managing things behind the scenes.
- Calendar Integration: The ability to synchronize with popular third-party planners, such as Google Calendar, should be present to streamline scheduling.
- Automated Notifications: This feature involves sending reminders via SMS, popular messengers, or email. It not only keeps clients informed and engaged but also significantly reduces the instances of no-shows.
- Payment Integrations: Thanks to compatibility with leading payment platforms like PayPal, Stripe, and others, businesses can cater to a wider audience. These integrations not only offer convenience but also ensure safe and speedy transactions.
- Reporting and Analytics: In-depth insights into booking patterns shed some light on client behaviors and preferences. Additionally, comprehensive financial reports offer a clear snapshot of the business’s fiscal health.
- Multiple Staff Management: This functionality offers the capability to easily oversee and adjust schedules for multiple staff members, ensuring everyone is aligned and organized.
- Flexible Scheduling Options: Allows for buffer times to ensure there’s no rush between appointments, offers flexibility in service durations to cater to varied client needs, and respects days of rest by accommodating blackout dates or holidays.
