Free salon booking software — with no booking cap and no commission
Slotora is £0 a month for UK salons, barbers and beauty professionals. Unlimited appointments, unlimited staff, 0% commission. The only things that cost money are SMS reminders and card payments, and both are optional.
£0/month · unlimited bookings · unlimited staff · 0% commission · SMS reminders and card payments cost extra
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, removing someone else's branding from your booking page. Slotora paywalls none of those except SMS, which is a real per-message cost we pass through rather than a lock.
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, an automatic waitlist that offers a cancelled slot to the next person, 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 and redeem automatically at checkout.
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
Two things, and both 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 stay unlimited and free, so SMS is a choice rather than a requirement. Card payments run through your own Stripe Connect account: Slotora adds nothing on top, and you pay Stripe's standard processing fee directly to Stripe. Nothing else is billable, and there is no card required to open an account.
Why it is free, and how it stays free
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 one optional extra, SMS credit, 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.
Free plans, compared
Where each platform's free tier stops. Competitor figures come from their own published pricing pages — check them yourself before you decide, because they change, and a comparison you cannot verify is worth nothing.
| Slotora | Typical free plan elsewhere | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | £0, every feature | £0, with limits below |
| Bookings per month | Unlimited | Commonly capped at 20–50 |
| Team members | Unlimited, each with their own diary | Commonly 1–4 seats |
| Commission on bookings | 0% | 0% — or a % on marketplace-sourced clients |
| Card processing | 0% from Slotora; Stripe's own fee, paid to Stripe | Platform fee often added on top |
| Deposits & no-show fees | Included | Often a paid tier |
| SMS reminders | Pay-as-you-go, published per-text price | Often bundled into a paid tier |
| Email reminders | Unlimited, free | Usually included |
| Gift cards & passes | Included, 0% commission | Often a paid tier |
| Client export | CSV or full JSON bundle, any time | Varies |
| Client-facing languages | 6, emails included | Usually 1 |
| Card required to sign up | No | Varies |
“Typical” describes the pattern across the free tiers we reviewed, not any single competitor. For a named, line-by-line comparison see the Fresha and Booksy pages.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a genuinely free salon booking system with no booking limit?
Yes. Slotora has no monthly booking cap, no staff cap and no commission, on a plan that costs £0 and requires no card to open. The optional paid extras are SMS reminders and card payments, both priced openly on the pricing page.
Does Slotora take commission on bookings?
No. 0% on every appointment, gift card and pass, including clients who find you through the Slotora directory. There is no marketplace fee and no charge for a rebooking.
What does Slotora actually charge for?
SMS reminders, as pay-as-you-go prepaid credit, and nothing else. Card payments go through your own Stripe account and Slotora adds 0%, so what you pay there goes to Stripe, not to us.
Do I need a card to sign up?
No. There is no card field, no trial period and no expiry date, because there is nothing to convert you to.
Can my whole team use it for free?
Yes. Every team member gets their own working hours, their own column in the calendar and their own limited login, with no per-seat charge at any team size.
How long does it take to switch from another platform?
Usually under a day. Export your client list from your current system as CSV or Excel, upload it to the Import Centre, and it detects the columns and brings across clients, services and prices. There is no paid onboarding and no data-entry service to buy.
Take your first booking today
Free to open, free to run, and free to leave — your client list exports in one click whenever you want it.
Free salon booking software · What “free” usually means in salon software