Your free trial and subscription in Canada, step by step
Canada is the one country where Slotora is a paid subscription. You get a 14-day trial with everything switched on and no card asked for, then a monthly or yearly plan in Canadian dollars, priced by the number of people your clients can book. This guide walks through the Your plan screen from the first day to the first renewal.
Start your 14-day trialWhy Canadian salons get their own guide here
The general help centre was written for the UK and Europe, where the booking side of Slotora costs nothing. If you followed that guide from a salon in Calgary or Halifax you would be looking for a line that says “free” and finding a trial counter on your dashboard instead. Everything below is what a salon registered in Canada actually sees.
The diary, the booking page, the client records, email reminders, deposits, gift cards and the app all come with the subscription. There is still no commission: what a client pays for a pedicure or a fade lands in your own Stripe account, and Slotora keeps none of it.
From sign-up to your first paid month
Five moments, in the order they happen. Nothing is charged until you press a subscribe button yourself.
Day 1
The trial starts the moment your business is created
Registration writes the end of your trial onto your account: 14 days from that day, not from the day you add your first service. Every feature is open, so you can import clients, take a real deposit and let regulars book while you decide.
Every day
The banner keeps count
Your dashboard carries a strip reading “Free trial: … days left.” with a See your plan button. The same count sits at the top of the Your plan screen, under the heading “Free trial — … days left”, together with the exact date everything stays open until.
When ready
Open Your plan and choose monthly or yearly
Your plan is in the menu (search for “plan”, “trial” or “subscription” if you cannot see it). The screen shows the price for your team as it stands today, and two buttons: Subscribe monthly and Subscribe yearly. Either one opens Stripe's secure payment page; your card is held by Stripe, never by us.
After paying
The heading changes to “Your plan is active”
Back on Your plan you see “Thank you — your subscription is starting”, and within a minute the heading becomes “Your plan is active”, with the date you are paid until. It renews by itself, and Manage subscription and card appears for anything you want to change later.
If you wait
Missing the end of the trial is not the end of your salon
If the trial runs out before you subscribe, you get 7 more days in which everything keeps working and the heading counts down to the pause. Subscribe at any point in those days and nothing is interrupted. Our guide to cancelling, failed payments and a paused account covers what comes after.
Who counts as a bookable person
The price is counted by the people a client can choose on your booking page — each active team member with a column in your diary. You are the first one, so a salon is never counted as fewer than one.
A front-desk login that has no diary of its own is not counted. Neither is a team member you have deactivated under Team. Deactivating stops her login and takes her off the list clients pick from; her past bookings stay where they are, and from the next renewal she is no longer on the bill. Archived people from the past are never counted.
When the team changes, the price follows from the next period, never halfway through one. Hire a lash artist in the middle of your month and this month stays as it was; just before the renewal Slotora recounts the active people and the next invoice carries the new figure. Let someone go and the next invoice falls in the same way. There is no proration and no surprise charge on the day you add her.
There is a ceiling. Past a certain team size the monthly price stops rising, however many more people you add, so a busy salon with a dozen chairs pays the same as one with six.
The price for Canadian salons
Charged in Canadian dollars by Stripe, monthly or yearly, after the trial. These are the figures the Your plan screen works from.
| One bookable person (you) | C$19 a month |
|---|---|
| Every further bookable person | + C$10 a month |
| Example: you and two colleagues | C$39 a month |
| From 6 bookable people | C$69 a month, whatever the headcount |
| Yearly, for one person | C$190 a year (ten months' price) |
Prices in Canadian dollars. No GST/HST is added at present. The figure on Your plan is always worked out for your own team on the day you look. Optional extras, such as credits for AI pictures, are bought separately and never renew on their own.
What the subscription covers, and what sits outside it
One plan, no tiers to compare. A few things are deliberately outside it, and one is not offered in Canada at all.
Inside the plan
The diary, your booking page, the client book and its records, email confirmations and reminders, deposits and no-show fees through your own Stripe account, gift cards, passes, the reports and both phone apps.
Credits, bought when you want them
AI pictures, posters past the monthly allowance and the posts Nita writes for you are paid in credits, priced in Canadian dollars on the Credits screen. Credits do not expire and are never bought automatically.
Not sold in Canada: the AI phone line
The phone receptionist that answers your salon number is not on sale to Canadian salons. If you see it mentioned in the general guides, it does not apply to you yet.
Reminders go by email
Messages to Canadian mobile numbers are not sent yet, so no part of your subscription or your credits is ever spent on them. Our guide to reminders in Canada explains how to set email up so clients still turn up.
Subscribing when you mostly work from an iPhone
Inside the iPhone app the Your plan screen tells you where you stand — the days left, the active date, a pause — but it shows no price and no buttons. That is Apple's rule for apps, not a fault on your phone.
To subscribe, open slotora.io in Safari or on a computer, sign in with the same email and password, and go to Your plan. Once you have paid there, the iPhone app reads the same account and the banner disappears from it as well. Owners on Android see the full screen in the app.
GST/HST on the subscription
No GST/HST is added to the subscription today: Belavin Limited, the company behind Slotora, is not registered for GST/HST in Canada, and the screen says “Prices in CAD” rather than “+ GST/HST”. That can change if the company registers; if it does, the screen and your receipts will say so before anything different is charged.
If your salon is itself a GST/HST registrant, the GST/HST registration number box on Your plan takes your number in the form 123456789RT0001. Recording it now means that, should tax ever apply to our sales, a registered business is treated as one from the first invoice. Your receipts are under Your receipts, linked from the same screen.
Things to weigh before the trial ends
Said plainly, so the first invoice holds no surprises.
- Every column in the diary is counted
- If you keep a column for a room, a machine or a stylist who left, deactivate it before the renewal, or it is counted as a person on the next invoice.
- No buying inside the iPhone app
- An owner who only ever uses an iPhone has to open the website once to subscribe. We would rather say it here than have you hunt for a button.
- Québec salons cannot start a trial
- Sign-up is closed in Québec while the French version is not finished. A Québec postal code is refused in Settings for the same reason.
- The plan page belongs to the owner
- Everyone on the team can open Your plan and see the state, but only the owner (or an admin) sees the subscribe buttons. A colleague reads “Only the owner of this business can change the plan.”
Questions about the trial and the plan
Do I need a card to start the trial?
No. The 14 days start when your business is created, with nothing to enter. A card is only asked for on Stripe's page, after you press Subscribe monthly or Subscribe yearly.
What happens on the last day of the trial if I have not subscribed?
Nothing stops that day. You get 7 further days with everything working, and the heading on Your plan counts them down. After that the account pauses until you subscribe; your clients and bookings are kept.
I added a new stylist halfway through the month. Am I charged today?
No. The current period keeps the price you paid. Just before the next renewal Slotora recounts the active bookable people, and the next invoice uses the new count.
Can I pay for a year up front?
Yes: Subscribe yearly charges ten months' price for twelve. It renews once a year, and the yearly price is also recounted from your team before each renewal.
Is GST/HST added to my subscription?
Not today. Belavin Limited is not registered for GST/HST in Canada, so the price on Your plan is the price charged. If that changes, the screen will show “+ GST/HST” before you are charged differently.
Can my front-desk colleague subscribe for me?
No. Any login can open Your plan and read the state, but the buttons and the GST/HST box are for the owner and admins only.
Use the trial on a real week
Bring this week's appointments in, share your booking link and take one deposit before the 14 days are up. You will know by then whether the subscription earns its place.