Tattoo Studio Scheduling Software: How Each Vendor Prices Its Subscription

By Roger Grekos, founder and editor, Twizzlo. Prices were read first-hand from each vendor's own website between September 8 and September 11, 2026.

Twizzlo sells booking software and competes with every vendor priced on this page.

Tattoo studio scheduling software mostly bills by calendar, seat, extra user or location. Read first-party September 8, 2026, a five artist studio's monthly subscription at one location, billed monthly, is $29.99 flat on Twizzlo Business Pro, $34 before tax on Acuity Standard and $49 on Square Plus. Booksy is $109.99 a month before tax, Porter Studio Pro $250 a month.

Every vendor priced on this page will schedule a tattoo appointment. What separates them is the billing unit. Tattoo studio scheduling software is mostly priced per calendar, per seat, per extra user or per location, and those four units produce very different subscription prices for the same shop. This article prices the units, not the feature lists. Unless dated otherwise, every competitor price we assert below was read from that vendor's own pricing page on September 8, 2026.

What does tattoo studio scheduling software have to do that a plain calendar cannot?

A tattoo studio breaks a generic scheduling tool in five predictable places. Session length varies and large pieces run across several sittings. Calendar time should not be reserved until a deposit clears, and consent has to be signed before the needle. The roster moves too, as booth renters, guest artists and apprentices come and go. That last point is where the money hides.

Most tattoo studio scheduling software is priced by how many people can be booked, at least on the pages checked here, and vendors do not all define that unit the same way. Before you compare features, work out what each one is actually counting. A shop of five artists, one piercer and a manager who never tattoos can be billed as seven users on one platform, six calendars on another and one business on a third.

If you want the feature checklist first, our tattoo booking software for studios page sets out per artist calendars, deposits collected at booking and booking rules configured per artist and per service. Our guide to digital scheduling for tattoo artists covers the daily mechanics of artist controlled calendars. This article is about the subscription price.

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

Vagaro publishes an explicit definition of its billing unit. Its pricing FAQ says a bookable calendar is "a calendar for an individual who is performing services within the business who requires their own scheduling. This does not include admin staff, like the front desk." Your manager is not a bookable calendar. Your guest artist is. One caveat on that fetch: our request to www.vagaro.com/pro/pricing was redirected to the en-ca path and served Canadian dollars, so the Vagaro US price is recorded here as NOT FETCHED rather than guessed.

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. The page states all prices are in USD and do not include applicable taxes.

Booksy counts people, and says so twice. The pricing page 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)". Read the qualifiers. It is per additional team member, each, plus tax.

Setmore counts users with a hard free ceiling. Free is "$0 user / mo" for "Up to 4 users". The site's Pricing menu advertises Pro as "$5* user / mo", and the asterisk resolves to "*Annual pricing". The pricing page's Pro card shows "$5 USD user / month" with the "Annual billing" toggle on. With the toggle switched off, the card showed "$12 USD user / month" and, on September 10, 2026, a "switch to $5" prompt. The toggle's screen reader label then read "monthly billing - free plan $0 per month, pro plan $12 per month, team $9 per month" but was not displayed. So Setmore's own label 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. 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 is the only platform here built solely for tattoo, as its page said on September 11, 2026, and it splits its pricing 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 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 says "Starting at $79 USD/month per location" and adds "You get unlimited users per location."

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 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 11, 2026, says "Each additional location is charged the plan price, at a 15% discount."

GlossGenius's older FAQ still 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. Standard is "$10 /seat/mo" and Teams is "$16 /seat/mo", both on the billed yearly toggle the page loads with. Enterprise "Starts at $15k /yr" from 50 seats.

Four vendors are missing from every subscription total below. Vagaro is absent because its US price was NOT FETCHED, and Calendly because its seat prices are quoted here only on the billed yearly toggle. The other two 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 11, 2026, schedulicity.com/pricing redirected into Vagaro and ended on a Vagaro "Page not found" page that returned HTTP 404. None of the four gaps was filled with a third-party figure.

What is the monthly subscription for a five artist studio?

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. Every price input below was read on the vendor's own pricing page on September 8, 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 at solo professionals (read September 10, 2026) and charges higher processing fees (read September 8, 2026). Both were read again on September 11, 2026. This comparison uses Plus, whose card listed "Cancellation policy and no-show fees" and "Multi-staff appointment booking" when read September 10 and 11, 2026.

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".

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. That is not a scandal. It is the price of Porter's commission splits, sales-tax collection (read September 10, 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 11, 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 twelve months.

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

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 a fortnight, 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 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.

What does a page ranking for tattoo studio scheduling software get wrong?

We fetched the pages currently surfacing for tattoo studio scheduling software and checked their price claims against the vendors' own pricing pages on September 8, 2026. Several price claims on one page are wrong or incomplete. Venue Ink's "Best Tattoo Scheduling Software for Studios and Artists" 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". Dropping "Up to" turns a ceiling into an allowance.

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.

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 one of the most valuable things tattoo studio scheduling software does, 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 and the page notes they are "Subject to fair use policy". 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. Read the row rather than the headline. Our guide to appointment reminders that cut no-shows sets out a workable cadence.

Twizzlo Business Pro includes 50 SMS, then charges $0.03 per message, pay as you go. A five artist studio sending 200 reminder messages a month would pay 150 times $0.03, which is $4.50 a month, for a subscription and SMS total of $34.49 a month. At a known message count, and before payment fees, that is a number you can put in a budget.

What does Twizzlo not do for a tattoo studio?

Twizzlo sells booking software and competes with every vendor priced on this page, so read this section before you read the rest. Naming the gaps is quicker than letting you find them in week three. Twizzlo has no retail inventory, so aftercare balm, jewelry and flash prints are not tracked. It 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". There is no POS hardware, no marketing automation suite and no charting or SOAP notes.

Twizzlo does not publish a card processing rate. Payments run through Stripe, and Twizzlo adds a 1.5% platform fee on top of Stripe's own fees. 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 hold the subscription price still. 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 support and a 30 day money-back guarantee. The Free plan is permanent rather than 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.

How do you choose without regretting it in six months?

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 twelve 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. The GlossGenius Gold band ends at nine staff, which is the next boundary out. Then check where deposits, consent forms and text reminders sit in the tier list. Those three can decide your tier, and they are the three a tattoo studio genuinely cannot work without.

If 1099s for artists are in scope, budget for a management platform and stop comparing it against tattoo studio scheduling software prices, because the two are not the same product. A general scheduler can take a booking, hold a deposit 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 11, 2026, GlossGenius marked "Customizable commissions" on Platinum only, 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. Twizzlo runs a permanent free plan with no countdown, plus a 30 day money-back guarantee on Business Pro. For a features-first ranking rather than a billing-unit one, see best tattoo booking software.

Prices in this article were read from each vendor's own website between September 8 and September 11, 2026, and they will drift, so check the 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.