Free salon booking software — with no booking cap and no commission

What “free” usually means in salon software

Almost every booking platform has a free plan, and almost every one of them is free in a way that stops working the month you get busy. It is worth knowing where the ceiling is before you move your client list, because moving it twice is the expensive part.

Booking caps

The most common limit is a monthly booking count — often somewhere between 20 and 50. A solo beauty technician doing six appointments a day passes fifty in under two weeks. The cap is not sized to stop hobbyists; it is sized so that a working salon outgrows it in month one and upgrades. Slotora has no booking cap.

Staff and user caps

The second most common limit is seats. Free plans typically allow one to four users, so the moment you take on a second stylist or a Saturday junior, the price starts. Slotora gives every team member their own diary, their own working hours and their own limited login, at no cost, however many of them there are.

Commission and per-booking fees

Marketplace platforms are subscription-free but take a percentage of clients they introduce, and some take a cut of card payments on top. That is a defensible model — they are buying you customers — but it means the software is only free if you never get a new client through it. Slotora takes 0% of every booking, gift card and pass, and 0% of card payments. Card payments run through your own Stripe account, so the money lands with you and Stripe charges its own processing fee directly.

Feature paywalls

The third pattern is charging for the features that actually protect your calendar: deposits, no-show fees, SMS reminders. Slotora paywalls none of those except SMS, which is a real per-message cost we pass through rather than a lock. One thing is not for sale at any price, and it is fair to know before you sign up: a small “Powered by Slotora” line stays at the foot of your booking page. It carries your own referral code, so anyone who signs up through it counts as yours.

What Slotora includes at £0 a month

Calendar and bookings

A branded booking page that takes appointments around the clock. The scheduling engine handles split shifts, buffers between clients, processing time so you can take another client while colour develops, group classes with a capacity limit, recurring appointments and multi-service baskets — and it respects every team member's own hours, so a double-booking is not possible.

Clients and records

A client record with visit history, spend, tags, private notes, no-show tracking, consultation and consent forms with e-signature, and before-and-after photos. Import your existing list from a spreadsheet or an export from your old system; the importer detects the columns for you.

Money and no-shows

Automatic email reminders, self-service rescheduling and cancellation, a waitlist that emails the first 25 people waiting for that day when a slot frees up with enough notice left to book it, a block list for repeat no-shows, and optional deposits or no-show fees through your own Stripe account. Gift cards, prepaid session passes and coupon codes are all included, each redeemed with its code at checkout or at the counter.

Brand and reach

Your colour, logo, cover photo, gallery and reviews on your own booking page; a button, popup widget or full embed for your website; a free listing in the Slotora directory; and client-facing emails in six languages, so a Polish or Romanian client reads their confirmation in their own language.

What actually costs money

Three things, and all three are optional. SMS reminders are pay-as-you-go prepaid credit, priced per market — the current rates are on the pricing page, and email reminders are unlimited and included, so SMS is a choice rather than a requirement. Nita, the AI assistant who writes your posts and answers guests on your booking page, is a monthly subscription from £9.99. The AI phone receptionist is £49.99 per 100 minutes, prepaid. Card payments are NOT one of them: they run through your own Stripe Connect account, Slotora adds 0%, and Stripe's processing fee goes to Stripe. Nothing else is billable, and there is no card required to open an account.

Why it is free, and where the money comes from

No ads, no selling data, no commission. Slotora is built on infrastructure that costs a fraction of what the incumbents were built on a decade ago, so a free tier is not a loss-leader we are waiting to close — it is the product. Revenue comes from the optional extras — SMS credit, Nita and the AI phone — priced at cost plus a thin margin and published in full. Slotora is operated by Belavin Limited, a UK company registered in Birmingham (no. 16735157), so there is a real, checkable entity behind the promise.

Live in an afternoon

Sign up, add your services with prices and durations, set your hours, pick your brand colour, and your booking page is live. Import your client list if you have one. Then put the link in your Instagram bio and on your Google Business Profile. Most salons are taking bookings the same day; switching from another platform usually takes under a day because the export-and-import path is the whole job.