Vertical · Salons, Spas & Fitness

Apps for booking-driven businesses

Mindbody and Vagaro work. They also cost $129–$249/month forever, charge per-booking fees, and put another brand on top of yours. A custom app gives you the booking + memberships + loyalty stack without the monthly subscription tax — and your clients see your name, not a marketplace's.

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Why the booking platforms eventually hurt

$129–$249

/month per location for Mindbody or Vagaro — regardless of bookings. Add a second studio and it doubles.

~3%

transaction fee on every booking or class pack, on top of your Stripe/Square processor fees.

Theirs

the marketing list is theirs. Clients get emails branded by the platform and discoverable by your competitors in the same app.

A custom-branded booking app pays itself back in 6–18 months for most multi-location studios, and immediately tightens control over the client relationship.

What we build for salons & fitness

Online booking

Multi-practitioner scheduling, service durations, buffer times, recurring appointments, waitlist, and cancel/reschedule policies you set.

Class packs & memberships

Drop-in, 5-pack, 10-pack, unlimited monthly, annual. Auto-expiring credits, pause-membership flows, and group billing for corporate accounts.

Client records & history

Intake forms, service history, product preferences, loyalty tier, notes. Searchable. Yours. Exportable any time.

Retail + gift cards

Sell products and gift cards through the app with inventory sync. Gift cards redeemable for services or retail, no balance tracking spreadsheet.

Reminders + reactivation

SMS/push reminders before appointments, re-book prompts after a visit, win-back campaigns for clients who've drifted 60+ days.

Owner dashboard

Utilization rates, revenue per practitioner, top services, no-show rate, membership retention. On your phone, not stuck in a vendor portal.

Common questions

Booking-driven apps typically fall in the Companion App tier ($4,500–$6,500) for simpler booking + loyalty extensions, or the Business Utility tier ($6,500–$9,000) for full scheduling with memberships, class packs, and staff management. The right tier depends on practitioner count, service types, and whether you need membership billing built in. Estimate your cost →
Yes, for the core functionality: booking, memberships, class packs, loyalty, and client records. A custom app doesn't charge per-location monthly fees or transaction percentages on top of your payment processor, and your clients interact with your brand — not a marketplace platform. Payback period for most multi-location studios is 12–18 months.
Companion booking apps typically take 4–6 weeks. Full utility apps with multi-practitioner scheduling, memberships, and class pack billing take 8–12 weeks. Every project starts with a Discovery phase before any timeline is committed. See the process →
Yes — client-facing self-booking is a core feature. Clients can view availability, book appointments or classes, manage recurring bookings, and handle cancellations within the app. You set the rules: advance booking windows, cancellation policies, waitlist behavior, and buffer times between appointments.

See all app development FAQs →

Also building for: restaurants & food service · ecommerce & retail

Your brand. Your clients. Your margin.

Tell us what you're currently paying for booking + memberships and we'll model the payback on a custom app.

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