Tattoo Studio Scheduling Software: How Each Vendor Prices Its Subscription

How does each vendor count the thing it charges you for?

Each vendor counts a different unit: Acuity, Bookedin and Vagaro count calendars; Booksy and Setmore count team members or users; Calendly counts seats; GlossGenius, Tattoo Studio Pro and DaySmart Body Art sell plans by team size; and Square, Mindbody and Porter's Studio Pro charge by location. Venue Ink's two free plans are funded by a card fee that is charged to clients by default.

Vagaro publishes an explicit definition of its billing unit. Its US help center, read September 27, 2026, says a license fee applies to each "Service Provider", described as "Team members who manage their customers and appointments on the Vagaro calendar and perform services", while an "Account Admin", such as a receptionist, "typically doesn't have their own calendar". Your manager is not a bookable calendar. Your guest artist is. Vagaro's plans and pricing article, read September 25, 2026, prices each additional employee calendar at $10 a month for up to seven licenses, after which new employees add nothing, and shows the US base subscription only at a limited-time $23.99 a month, with no list price printed.

Acuity Scheduling counts calendars, and tells you to "use separate calendars per employee or location, depending on business needs." Starter carries "1 calendar" at $20 / month billed monthly, or $16 / month billed annually. Standard carries "Up to 6 calendars" at $34 a month billed monthly, or $27 a month billed annually. The Premium card carries "Up to 36 calendars" at $61 a month billed monthly, or $49 a month billed annually. Acuity's pricing page, read September 25, 2026, states all prices are in USD and do not include applicable taxes.

Booksy counts people, and says so twice. The pricing page, read September 25, 2026, prints a base of "$29.99 per month + tax" beside an offer to "Add extra users for $20/month each". Its FAQ restates the same rule: "Booksy costs $29.99 per month, plus $20 per month for each additional team member (+ tax)". It is per additional team member, each, plus tax.

Setmore counts users with a hard free ceiling. Free is $0 for "Up to 4 users". On its pricing page, read September 25, 2026, Setmore makes Pro $12 per user per month billed monthly, and $5 per user per month billed annually. Pro carries "Unlimited users".

Bookedin counts calendars in fixed steps rather than one at a time: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 20 and Unlimited. On its pricing page, read September 25, 2026, Free is $0 a month and capped at "50 bookings per month." The Pro ladder billed monthly runs $48, $60, $72, $84, $96, $108, $132 and $156 a month across those eight steps. Plus at 1 Calendar is $24 a month billed monthly, or $19 per month billed annually at $228/year. Pro at 1 Calendar is $48 a month billed monthly, or $39 per month billed annually at $468/year. Text reminders sit on Pro, not on Plus.

Porter calls itself software "designed specifically for tattoos", and its pricing page, read September 25, 2026, splits its plans between a "For Independent Artists" tab and a "For Full Studios" tab. Artist Essentials is "$35 / mo". Artist Pro is "$65 / mo" under a "Recommended" ribbon. Studio Pro is "$250 / mo" under a "One Location" ribbon and covers "Unlimited artists & staff" with "Automated commission splits" and "1099s for artists". Studio Ultimate, under a "Multi-location" ribbon, is listed as "Contact sales for pricing".

Square Appointments and Mindbody count locations, not people. Square's pricing page says "With Square Plus and Square Premium, the monthly fee applies to each location you run," listing $0/mo. per location, $49/mo. per location and $149/mo. per location. Mindbody's pricing page says "Starting at $79 USD/month per location" and lists "Unlimited users" on every plan (both read September 25, 2026).

GlossGenius bands its tiers by team size rather than by seat, and prints a monthly rate beside an annual one. On the Beauty and Wellness tab of its pricing page the cards read Standard "$28" or "$24", Gold "$56" or "$48", and Platinum "$168" or "$148" a month for one location, billed monthly or annually respectively. The annual figure sits under "Billed annually, you save 14%", or 12% on Platinum. Gold is scoped to "Revenue-boosting features for businesses up to 9 staff" and Platinum to "Full power for established businesses and teams 10+". The comparison table's Staff Management row agrees: "Teams of less than 10" under Gold, "Teams of 10+" under Platinum. A footnote, read on September 25, 2026, says "Each additional location is charged the plan price, at a 15% discount."

GlossGenius's pricing-page FAQ, read September 27, 2026, says the Standard Plan "starts at $24/month" and the Gold Plan "starts at $48/month", both annual-billing rates, so quote the cards rather than the FAQ if you are billing monthly. These cards are JavaScript-rendered, so they were read in a browser rather than from raw HTML.

Calendly counts seats. Its tooltip says "Seats are required for users to connect calendars and host Calendly meetings", and adds that meeting invitees do not require a seat. Billed monthly, Standard is $12 and Teams $20 per seat a month; billed yearly, they are $10 and $16 (pricing page, read September 25, 2026). Enterprise "Starts at $15k /yr" from 50 seats.

Tattoo Studio Pro sells plans by the number of team members active at the same time. On its pricing page, read September 27, 2026, Solo is $29 a month for one person, Crew $69 for up to five, Tribe $119 for up to 10, Clan $179 for up to 15, Guild $239 for up to 20 and Legion $299 for up to 25, billed monthly. Annual billing, which the page says "saves 30%", is $239, $579 and $999 a year for the first three. The page says "the limit is on how many people are active at once, not on how many you can ever add", that managers are "free and never count", and that "Team means anyone with a login: artists, apprentices, desk staff, assistants."

DaySmart Body Art sells plans with a set number of users. Its pricing page, read September 25, 2026, lists Basic at "$29 / Month" with one user, Deluxe at $69 with three users and Premium at $199 with six users. Only Basic prints a billing unit beside its price, and the page shows no price for users beyond six.

Venue Ink funds two plans with a card fee instead of a subscription. Its pricing page, read September 25, 2026, lists Solo and Studio at $0 a month, with "10% to process deposits and payments by card (charged to clients by default)". Solo Pro is $50 a month and Studio Pro $150 a month, billed monthly, each with a 5% card fee charged to clients by default, and Studio Pro covers "Up to 5 residents or guests per month (+$35/mo per active artist)".

Two vendors have no subscription total below, and the reasons are worth stating rather than hiding. Mindbody publishes no per-plan figure at all: Starter, Accelerate and Ultimate each show a "Let's talk" button, and "Starting at $79 USD/month per location" is the only subscription price on the page. Schedulicity no longer publishes a price of its own. Opened in a browser on September 25, 2026, schedulicity.com/pricing redirected into Vagaro and ended on a Vagaro "Page not found" page, and Vagaro's page says "Schedulicity is now Vagaro." Vagaro's own totals below use its limited-time rate, marked with an asterisk. None of the gaps was filled with a third-party figure.

What is the monthly subscription for a five-artist studio?

A five-artist studio at one location, billed monthly, pays from $29.99 to $250 a month on the paid plans priced here, or $0 on Square Free and Venue Ink's Studio plan, before tax, card processing and add-ons (vendor pricing pages, read September 25, 2026; Twizzlo's on September 27).

Take one example: one location, five artists who each need their own bookable calendar, no front desk seat, billed monthly rather than annually so nothing is locked in for a year. Unless dated otherwise, every competitor price input below was read on the vendor's own pricing page or help center on September 25, 2026.

Twizzlo Business Pro is $29.99 per month flat per business, with unlimited employees and unlimited locations. Acuity Standard is $34 per month billed monthly, because five calendars fit inside "Up to 6 calendars." Square Plus is $49 per month per location, and adding artists at that location does not change that monthly fee. Square Free is $0/mo. per location, but Square pitches it "For solo professionals" and charges higher processing fees, on its pricing page read September 25, 2026. This comparison uses Plus, whose card listed "Cancellation policy and no-show fees" and "Multi-staff appointment booking" when read the same day.

GlossGenius Gold is $56 per month billed monthly, and five artists sit inside its "up to 9 staff" band. Setmore Pro at $12 per user per month billed monthly, times five, is $60 a month. Bookedin Pro at 5 Calendars is $96 a month billed monthly, while Bookedin Plus at 5 Calendars is $48 a month but does not include text reminders. Booksy is $29.99 a month plus four extra users at $20 per month each, which is $109.99 a month, plus tax. Booksy's line is quoted before tax, and so is Acuity's, whose page says its prices "do not include applicable taxes".

Five more vendors price the same shop in their own units. Calendly Standard is $60 a month for five seats. Vagaro is $63.99 a month: its limited-time $23.99 base plus four calendars at $10, with no list price printed. Tattoo Studio Pro's Crew plan is $69 a month for up to five active team members. DaySmart Body Art needs Premium, listed at $199 with six users, because Deluxe includes three. Venue Ink's Studio plan is $0 with a 10% card fee charged to clients by default, and Studio Pro is $150 a month (vendor pages read September 25, 2026; Tattoo Studio Pro's read September 27, 2026).

Porter Studio Pro is $250 per month. That is the only line here whose pricing page lists both "Automated commission splits" and "1099s for artists". Porter's cheaper Artist Pro at $65 / mo sits on its "For Independent Artists" tab. Porter puts its "One Location" label on Studio Pro, and lists Studio Ultimate (Multi-Location), with "Unlimited shop locations", only as "Contact sales for pricing". Mindbody is "Starting at $79 USD/month per location" with unlimited users per location, and individual plan prices sit behind a "Let's talk" button.

The spread between Twizzlo's $29.99 and Porter's $250 is $220.01 per month, or $2,640.12 across a year. It is the price of Porter's commission splits, sales-tax collection (read September 27, 2026) and artist 1099s, and Twizzlo has no commissions or payroll. You do not need tattoo software for commission tools alone: Square Plus and GlossGenius Platinum listed them when read on September 27, 2026. If 1099s, retail and payroll are all in scope, you are shopping for tattoo shop management software rather than for a scheduler, and you should expect to pay management software prices. The useful question is not which number is smallest. It is whether the unit you are billed on will still fit the shop in 12 months.

Where does the next artist cost more than the last one?

The next artist can cost more than the last when a hire crosses a plan boundary. On pages read September 25, 2026, the steps include Setmore's fifth user, Acuity's seventh calendar, GlossGenius's tenth staff member and DaySmart Body Art's fourth user; Tattoo Studio Pro's page, read September 27, 2026, adds a step at the sixth active team member.

Per-seat pricing in tattoo studio scheduling software is not always smooth. On several platforms one specific hire costs many times what the previous hire cost, because that hire drags the whole shop into the next tier. Setmore. Users one through four carry no subscription, because Free covers "Up to 4 users". The fifth user moves the entire team onto Pro. Billed monthly at $12 per user per month, five users is $60 a month. The marginal cost of that fifth artist is therefore $60.00 per month billed monthly, not $12.00 per month. Annual billing softens it: five users at $5 per user per month is $25 a month, so the fifth artist costs $25.00 per month.

Acuity. Calendars two through six sit on Standard at $34 per month billed monthly, the first calendar having already put you on Starter at $20 a month. A seventh calendar, which might be a guest artist booked for two weeks, requires Premium at $61 a month billed monthly, all three before tax. The marginal cost of that seventh calendar is $27.00 per month billed monthly, or $324.00 over a full year, before tax, for one person. Acuity has no free tier, and its FAQ states it "doesn't offer free appointment scheduling at this time".

GlossGenius. The price moves with the staff band, not the seat. Gold at $56 per month billed monthly, for one location, covers "businesses up to 9 staff". The tenth person moves the shop onto Platinum at $168 per month billed monthly, so that one hire costs $112.00 per month, or $1,344.00 a year, while the ninth added nothing to the subscription.

Bookedin. Pro at 5 Calendars is $96 a month billed monthly and Pro at 10 Calendars is $108 a month. The sixth artist adds $12.00 per month billed monthly to the subscription, and artists seven through ten then add nothing until you pass ten.

Booksy. No cliff, and no volume discount either. Every extra team member is $20 per month each plus tax, from the second person onward.

Square. Adding artists at one location adds nothing to the subscription on any tier. Adding a second location costs another $49 a month on Plus, or another $149 a month on Premium, because the monthly fee applies to each location you run.

Twizzlo. On Business Pro, the marginal subscription cost of an artist is $0.00 per month. Business Pro is $29.99 per month flat per business, with unlimited bookings, unlimited employees, unlimited locations and unlimited customers. The Twizzlo plan in full sits on one screen.

The table below shows, for each vendor, the hire that changes the subscription and what that one hire adds, billed monthly at one location.

Cost of the next artist on tattoo studio scheduling software, billed monthly at one location, before tax. Sources: each vendor's own pricing page or help center, read September 25, 2026 (Tattoo Studio Pro and Twizzlo read September 27, 2026). * Limited-time rate.

The practical rule: ask a vendor what one more chair costs, then ask what the chair that crosses a tier boundary costs. The two answers can differ fivefold, as Setmore's $12.00 and $60.00 per month billed monthly do, and only the second one shows up on the invoice that surprises you.

How current are the prices in tattoo studio scheduling software roundups?

Roundup prices can lag the vendors' own pages: when checked on September 27, 2026, the Venue Ink roundup that ranks for this search printed figures for four vendors that differ from those vendors' pricing pages (Porter, Square, Bookedin and Tattoo Studio Pro) and gave Acuity's plans names Acuity does not use. Venue Ink sells its own tattoo booking app, as Twizzlo sells booking software.

We read the pages currently surfacing for tattoo studio scheduling software on September 27, 2026, and checked their price claims against the vendors' own pricing pages. Several price claims on one page are wrong or incomplete. Venue Ink's "Best Tattoo Scheduling Software for Studios and Artists [2026]" says of Porter: "Studio Pro is $200/month for multi-artist shops with commission splits, tax collection, and 1099 forms." Porter's own pricing page prints "$250 / mo" for Studio Pro, under a "One Location" ribbon. The gap is $50 per month, or $600 across a year.

Venue Ink's page prices Acuity correctly and names the plans wrongly, quoting Acuity's billed-monthly rates: "The Emerging plan, the lowest-cost tier, is $20/month... The Growing plan is $34/month... The Powerhouse plan is $61/month. It has 36 calendars." Acuity's page names those tiers Starter, Standard and Premium, and the Premium card reads "Up to 36 calendars", not 36 calendars, though the page's compare table further down prints a bare "36".

Venue Ink's roundup describes Bookedin this way: "The lowest-cost tier Solo plan is $30/month for one calendar. The Group plan is $50/month for five calendars, and the Team plan is $70/month for unlimited calendars." Bookedin's own pricing page has no Solo, Group or Team plan. The tiers are Free, Plus and Pro. Per month, billed monthly, Plus at 1 Calendar is $24, Plus at 5 Calendars is $48, and Plus at Unlimited Calendars is $78.

The same roundup lists Square Appointments with "a Plus plan ($35/month per location), and a Premium plan ($85/month per location)". Square's pricing page, read September 25, 2026, prints $49/mo. and $149/mo. per location. For Tattoo Studio Pro, the roundup says "Annual billing gets you roughly 25% off" and mentions "a 14-day trial"; Tattoo Studio Pro's pricing page, read September 27, 2026, says "Annual billing saves 30%" and offers a "30-day free trial".

Venue Ink's GlossGenius entry quotes annual-billing rates without saying so: "Cost. The lowest-cost Standard plan is $24/month. The Gold plan is $48/month". GlossGenius's own cards print "$28" and "$56" as the billed-monthly rates, so the month-to-month subscription is $28 and $56 a month for one location. The confusion is understandable, because the FAQ further down that same GlossGenius page still says the plans start at $24 and $48 a month, the annual-billing rates. Read the cards, not the FAQ. None of this means that page was wrong when it was published. Prices move. The point is that a stale figure in a roundup becomes a budget in a real studio.

How should deposits and consultations shape the calendar?

A no-show is costly on a tattoo calendar, because one missed session can take a long block out of a single artist's day. That makes deposit gating a core job of tattoo studio scheduling software, and it changes what you should be checking in a tier list.

Book in two stages. A short consult, free or low cost, produces the design brief, the placement and an honest time estimate. Only then do you open a session slot, and only against a paid deposit. Reserving time before the deposit clears turns your calendar into a wishlist. Our tattoo booking system guide walks through that sequence in order, and how to structure tattoo deposits covers the policy layer. The paperwork that has to clear before the needle is set out in our tattoo consent form template.

Reminders matter here because the lead times are long. A large piece booked months out needs a nudge at booking and another close to the date. Check which tier carries text reminders instead of assuming they are included. On Bookedin they sit on Pro, not Plus. On Acuity they start at Standard, not Starter.

On Setmore, SMS reminders are a Pro feature with 500 SMS credits a month, and the pricing page notes that availability varies by country (read September 25, 2026). On Booksy, whose base plan is $29.99 per month + tax, "Appointment confirmations and reminders are always free", while the "2,000 free SMS marketing messages per month" are a separate product (pricing page, read September 25, 2026). Read the row rather than the headline. Our guide to appointment reminders that cut no-shows sets out a workable cadence.

What does Twizzlo do, and not do, for a tattoo studio?

Twizzlo covers online booking, email reminders (SMS on Business Pro), client records, staff schedules and Stripe payments, with Business Pro at one price per business, and leaves payroll, commission splits, memberships and marketing automation to other tools.

Naming the gaps is quicker than letting you find them in week three. Twizzlo has no membership autopay and no package builder, which matters if you sell touch-up bundles or prepaid session blocks. It has no payroll and no commissions, so booth rent and commission splits stay wherever they live today. Porter Studio Pro at $250 / mo for one location lists "Automated commission splits" and "1099s for artists" (pricing page, read September 25, 2026). There is no marketing automation suite.

Online payments carry your Stripe processing rate plus a 1.5% Twizzlo platform fee. Our article on how Twizzlo payment processing works sets that out in full. If your decision hinges on an all-in processing rate, do the arithmetic against your own monthly card volume rather than trusting any headline percentage, including ours.

What Twizzlo does do is keep the subscription the same as the team grows. Business Pro is $29.99 per month flat per business: unlimited bookings, unlimited employees, unlimited locations, unlimited customers, 50 SMS included and then $0.03 per message, 24/7 email support and a 30-day money-back guarantee. The Free plan is free forever, not a trial, capped at 150 bookings per month, with no SMS. For a two- or three-artist shop testing whether online booking sticks at all, that cap may be enough to start.

A prepaid booking on Twizzlo collects the full service price at booking, not part of it, and after a no-show the business decides whether to keep or refund it.

Tattoo booking software pricing at 1, 5 and 10 artists

Tattoo booking software pricing for one location, billed monthly, runs from $29.99 to $250 a month at five artists on paid plans, or $0 on Square Free and Venue Ink's Studio plan, depending on what each vendor counts. Every row below names its source and read date, with a link to the vendor's own pricing page or help center.

Tattoo booking software pricing: monthly subscription at 1, 5 and 10 artists, one location, billed monthly, before tax, card processing and add-ons, sorted by the five-artist price. Sources: each vendor's own pricing page or help center, read September 25, 2026 (Tattoo Studio Pro read September 27, 2026); Twizzlo from twizzlo.com/pricing/, read September 27, 2026. * Limited-time rate.

Six vendors also publish $0 plans with a real limit: Twizzlo Free (150 bookings a month, no SMS), Setmore Free (up to 4 users, email reminders only), Bookedin Free (50 bookings a month), Calendly Free (one event type and one calendar connection), Square Free ($0 per location, with higher processing fees) and Venue Ink's Solo and Studio plans (a 10% card fee charged to clients by default). Mindbody's row shows only its floor price, because its plans are sold by quote.

The subscription is only part of tattoo booking software pricing. Card processing adds its own fees. On Twizzlo, online payments carry your Stripe processing rate plus a 1.5% Twizzlo platform fee. Text reminders also move the bill: on Twizzlo Business Pro, 200 reminder messages a month cost $4.50 on top of the subscription, because the first 50 are included, for a total of $34.49 a month (twizzlo.com/pricing/, read September 27, 2026).

How do you choose without regretting it in six months?

Choose on the unit you are billed by, priced for the hires you already plan, because a tier boundary can cost more than the next artist's seat.

Work in this order. Count your bookable people the way the vendor counts them, not the way you think about your team. A manager who never tattoos may be billable on Booksy and excluded by Vagaro's own definition of a bookable calendar. A guest artist visiting for two weeks can push you over an Acuity calendar ceiling for a whole month. Then price the shop you expect in 12 months rather than the one you have today.

If you plan to grow from four artists to seven, the Setmore free ceiling at four users and the Acuity Standard ceiling at six calendars both fall inside that window, and both cost real money to cross. Tattoo Studio Pro's Crew plan ends at five active team members, so the sixth moves you to Tribe. The GlossGenius Gold band ends at nine staff, which is the next boundary out. Then check which tier carries the tools your booking process depends on, such as deposits and text reminders, because those can decide your tier.

If 1099s for artists are in scope, budget for a management platform and stop comparing it against scheduling software for tattoo artists, because the two are not the same product. A general scheduler can take a booking, collect payment before the session and send a reminder without knowing what a tattoo is. Some general platforms list commission tools on higher tiers. When their pages were read on September 27, 2026, GlossGenius's pricing FAQ listed customizable commissions with its Platinum plan, and Square listed "Tip pooling and commissions tracking" on Plus and Premium, not Free.

Read the trial terms last, because they vary by vendor. Porter offers a 30-day free trial on the Artist plans and a 14-day free trial on Studio Pro. Bookedin offers a free 14-day trial with no credit card required. Acuity offers a 7-day trial with no credit card needed. Square Plus and Square Premium each offer a free 30-day trial. Setmore lets you try Pro risk-free for 30 days and request a refund. Booksy offers two weeks free. Tattoo Studio Pro offers a 30-day free trial, DaySmart Body Art a 14-day free trial with no credit card required, and GlossGenius a 14-day free trial (pricing pages, read September 25 and 27, 2026). Twizzlo runs a free-forever plan with no countdown, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee on Business Pro. For a features-first comparison rather than a billing-unit one, see our tattoo scheduling software comparison.

Vendor prices change, so check each vendor's page before you buy. If a flat rate fits how you are growing, start with Twizzlo's tattoo booking software and test it on the free plan.