The Features Salon Owners Look For in Salon Management Software (and What They Cost)

Which booking features fill the calendar and protect it?

Online booking itself is included on every plan of the five vendors compared; none charges for the booking page. The protection layer is where the differences start. On pages read September 25 to 28, 2026, booking deposits are included on every plan at Square, GlossGenius and Boulevard, and at Mangomint when you use its own payment processing. Square adds cancellation and no-show fees from its Plus plan, $49 a month per location. Vagaro’s base subscription includes cancellation and no-show policies, while deposits and cancellation fees for online bookings come with its Online Shopping Cart add-on at $10 a month. Setting the fee itself is a separate decision, covered in the no-show charge guide.

Reminders are the other half of no-show protection, and every platform sends them; the differences are allowances and add-ons, which get their own section below. What reminders can and cannot fix, and how to sequence them, is covered in the appointment reminders guide.

Where do must-have features sit behind paywalls?

Fewer features sit behind paywalls than the checklist suggests: on the five vendors’ pages, forms, payroll, phone lines and no-show fees are where add-ons and higher tiers start. Table 1 shows each checklist row as the vendor’s own page prints it.

Table 1. The features salon owners look for in salon management software, and where each sits on five vendors’ own pages.

Scroll sideways to see every column.

Feature	Square	Vagaro	GlossGenius	Mangomint	Boulevard
Online booking page	Included on every plan	Included	Included on every plan, with login-free client booking	Included	Included on every plan
Deposits and no-show protection	Deposits and prepayment on every plan; no-show fees from Plus, $49 a month per location	Cancellation and no-show policies included; online deposits and cancellation fees need the Online Shopping Cart add-on, $10 a month	Deposits, card-on-file and no-show policies on every plan	Deposits and cards on file included, with Mangomint’s payment processing	Booking deposits and saved cards on every plan
Appointment reminders	Text and email reminders on every plan	Text and email reminders in the base subscription	Unlimited client notifications on every plan	Unlimited text and email reminders at no extra cost	Text and email reminders on every plan
Two-way texting and phone	Two-way texts on every plan; dedicated business phone number from Plus	Connect is free to start, with a text plan recommended, from $20 a month for 1,000 credits	Not itemized	Web chat included; calls and texting from one number: Phone add-on, $70 a month per line	250 free two-way texts a month on Essentials; booking line on every plan
Forms and waivers	Intake forms not itemized; contracts with e-signature on every plan	Forms add-on, $10 a month	Gold and Platinum, from $56 a month; not on Standard	Included (forms and charting)	Add-on on Essentials and Premier; included on Prestige
Memberships and packages	Packages from Plus; service subscriptions on the website from Plus; memberships not itemized	Included in the base subscription	Included on every plan	Included	Included on every plan
Gift cards	Every plan; 2.5% load fee on Free and Plus, none on Premium	Included; online sales through the Online Shopping Cart	Included on every plan	Included	Included on every plan
Retail inventory	Low-stock alerts on every plan; inventory history from Plus	Inventory and retail in the base subscription	Included on every plan	Included	Included on every plan
Payroll	From $35 a month plus $6 per person paid	Vagaro Payroll, $34 a month plus $5 per employee	Add-on, $40 a month plus $6 per seat	Add-on, $50 a month plus $8 per worker	Not itemized

Read on each vendor’s own page: Square September 25 and 27, Vagaro’s help center September 25 and 28, GlossGenius September 27, Mangomint September 25 and 27, Boulevard September 25 and 27, 2026. “Not itemized” means the page neither lists nor prices the feature. Fresha is not included: its US pricing page could not be read from our location.

The billing model changes the picture as much as the feature list. Mangomint’s pricing page, read September 27, 2026, includes forms, memberships, gift cards, web chat and multi-location support in one core platform at $120 a month per location plus $10 per user, and sells calls and texting from one business number as a Phone add-on at $70 a month per line. GlossGenius, read the same day, includes memberships, packages and gift cards on every plan but starts forms and waivers at Gold, $56 a month. Vagaro keeps a long feature list in its base subscription and sells forms, its online shopping cart and payroll as add-ons. Square gates most extras by plan; its appointments pricing page lists packages and service subscriptions from Plus but does not itemize intake forms or memberships.

A not-itemized cell cannot be budgeted from public information; ask for it in a demo.

What do text reminders really cost month to month?

On the five vendors’ pages read September 25 to 28, 2026, every entry plan lists automated appointment reminders, and GlossGenius and Mangomint say outright that they are unlimited. Two-way texting and phone lines are listed and priced separately.

Take a three-stylist salon sending about 400 reminder texts a month. GlossGenius prints unlimited client notifications, and Mangomint unlimited text and email confirmations and reminders at no additional cost. Square lists text and email reminders on every plan with no allowance printed. Boulevard lists text reminders on every plan and 250 free texts a month on Essentials, without saying whether reminders count toward them. Vagaro lists text and email reminders in its base subscription. Conversation is priced separately on the same pages: Mangomint’s Phone add-on is $70 a month per line, Square’s dedicated business number starts on Plus, and Connect by Vagaro, its messaging feature, is listed as free to start with a text plan recommended, from $20 a month for 1,000 credits.

Reminders are the feature owners use every day, so read the text terms before the logo.

Which client management features earn their keep?

The client record is the retention engine: history, notes, preferences, spend and the ability to greet a client like you remember them, because the software does. Every platform in Table 1 ships profiles and history in some form. The gates appear on structured intake, on pages read September 25 to 28, 2026: forms and waivers are included at Mangomint, start at Gold ($56 a month) on GlossGenius, cost $10 a month at Vagaro, are an add-on on Boulevard Essentials and Premier and included on Prestige, and are not itemized on Square’s appointments pricing page, which lists contracts with e-signature on every plan instead. A signed agreement for a wedding party is a different document from an intake form; our bridal hair and makeup contract template covers that job. Where the record itself stops and a true CRM begins is its own topic, covered in the salon CRM software guide.

Which back-office features matter once you grow?

On pages read September 25 to 28, 2026, staff permissions come with the plan at Vagaro and Boulevard, and Mangomint includes staff management in its core platform. GlossGenius adds staff management at Gold, for teams of fewer than 10, and Square’s custom permission sets start on Plus. Payroll is the clearest add-on economy in the category: from $35 a month plus $6 per person paid at Square, $34 plus $5 per employee at Vagaro, $40 plus $6 per seat at GlossGenius and $50 plus $8 per worker at Mangomint, while Boulevard’s pricing page does not itemize payroll. Commission tracking is listed on every Boulevard plan, in Vagaro’s base payroll reports and on Square from Plus; GlossGenius prints a commissions report on every plan and customizable commissions on Platinum.

Multi-location is the quiet multiplier, and on pages read September 25 to 28, 2026, each vendor bills it differently. Square prices each plan per location; GlossGenius bills each added location at the plan price less 15%; Mangomint charges $120 a month per location; Boulevard’s multi-location support starts on Premier, $325 a month per location at list price or $260 on a limited-time fall offer for new customers; and Vagaro’s help center prints no subscription price for an added location.

What does the whole checklist cost a three-stylist salon?

For one location with three bookable stylists that wants forms, memberships, gift cards, no-show protection and payroll for all three, the monthly bill runs from $112.99 on Vagaro, at its limited-time base rate, to $224 on Mangomint, on vendor pages read September 25 to 28, 2026. Square and Boulevard leave at least one row unpriced.

Table 2. Monthly cost of the full checklist: one location, three bookable stylists, billed monthly. Read on each vendor’s own page: Square September 25 and 27, Vagaro’s help center September 25 and 28, GlossGenius September 27, Mangomint September 25 and 27, Boulevard September 25 and 27, 2026.

Scroll sideways to see every column.

Platform	What the checklist needs	Monthly total
Vagaro	$23.99 base, a limited-time rate, with one calendar; two added calendars at $10; Forms $10; Online Shopping Cart $10; Vagaro Payroll $34 plus 3 x $5	$112.99
GlossGenius	Gold, $56 ($48 billed annually), which adds forms and staff management; payroll $40 plus 3 x $6	$114
Mangomint	$120 per location; 3 users at $10 (anyone with a profile counts as a user); payroll $50 plus 3 x $8	$224
Square Appointments	Plus, $49 per location (no-show fees, packages); payroll from $35 plus 3 x $6; intake forms and memberships not itemized; gift cards carry a 2.5% load fee on Plus	$102, with two rows unpriced
Boulevard	Essentials, $159 ($143 billed annually), up to 5 providers; the forms add-on, price not printed; payroll not itemized	$159, with two rows unpriced

Totals are billed monthly and exclude card processing, texts beyond any allowance, optional add-ons such as Mangomint’s Phone line, and tax. Our Square Appointments pricing, Vagaro pricing and GlossGenius pricing comparisons break each bill down further.

Where Twizzlo fits on the salon feature checklist

Twizzlo is web-based online booking and appointment scheduling software for appointment-based service businesses, and it covers online booking, reminders, client records and staff scheduling from the checklist, and Business Pro includes every Twizzlo feature with no add-on modules. Free is $0 a month for up to 150 bookings, with no SMS, and is free forever; it sends email reminders. Business Pro is $29.99 a month per business for unlimited bookings and 50 SMS a month, then $0.03 per additional SMS, with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Both plans include unlimited staff and locations, so a second stylist or a second location never raises the price. Online payments carry your Stripe processing rate plus a 1.5% Twizzlo platform fee. The details are on Twizzlo’s feature list and Twizzlo plans and pricing, both read September 28, 2026.

Clients can pay the full service price when they book with a prepaid booking, and no-show fees are supported, applied at the business’s discretion; whether a skipped prepaid booking is kept or refunded is the business’s decision. At 400 reminder texts a month, Business Pro’s 50 included texts leave 350 at $0.03, about $10.50 a month on top of the plan. Twizzlo does not run payroll, commission tracking or memberships. A salon that runs any of them inside its salon platform should compare the vendors in the tables above. Support runs 24/7.

How should you run this checklist before you buy?

First, mark your dealbreakers and delete columns: if gift cards are non-negotiable, the included and add-on cells in that row are your shortlist, and the not-itemized cells tell you which vendors need a sales call before they earn a place on it. Second, price your own column, not the advertised one: base plan, plus every add-on you will actually switch on, plus per-user or per-location fees and payroll per person. Third, book a test appointment on each finalist’s real booking page as a client, on a phone, and count the taps. Fourth, re-check the vendor pages the week you buy: on September 25, 2026, Vagaro’s base price was labeled a limited-time rate and Boulevard’s Premier plan showed a fall offer for new customers, so this article’s figures have a shelf life. When the checklist narrows to actual products, our best salon software guide compares the platforms side by side.