Nail salon booking software that knows a BIAB build is not a gel polish
Your treatment list is not four rows. Gel polish, a BIAB build, an acrylic infill, a soak-off and thirty minutes of art are five different lengths of time, and a diary that treats them as one appointment type is the reason your six o'clock waits. Slotora books them at their own lengths, reserves the art time, and puts the next infill in before she has her coat on.
Built for the individual professional — one person, one diary.
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Why a nail diary leaks where a hairdresser’s does not
A nail tech's diary breaks in a way a hairdresser's does not. Nothing develops, nothing processes, there is no window in the middle of a set where the chair is free — you are on the hand in front of you from the first file to the last cap of top coat. So every minute you lose is lost at the edges: the twenty minutes of soak-off you did not book, the art she asked for once she was sitting down, the infill that turned out to need two repairs, and the message at ten at night asking whether you have anything tomorrow.
And the work is on a clock. A BIAB client comes back at three weeks whether you booked her or not; an acrylic set needs an infill before the regrowth makes it a full rebalance; a gel polish that lifted on day four is a repair you will fit in somewhere. Your income is not really made of appointments — it is made of cycles, and the whole job of a booking system in this trade is to stop a cycle from quietly ending.
That is what this page is about. Not a calendar with your name on it: the specific places a nail diary leaks, and what Slotora does about each one.
The twenty minutes of art, and the three places it can live
She booked a gel polish. On the chair she asks for a design on two nails. Every nail tech has had this week; the question is only whether the minutes were reserved before she sat down. Slotora can do it three ways, and all three put the time in your diary.
Scroll the table sideways.
| How you set it up | What she does | Choose this when |
|---|---|---|
| A separate service called Nail art, with its own length and price | She taps gel polish, then taps nail art as well — up to six services in one visit | The art is a real piece of work you would charge separately for, and sometimes she does not want it |
| An optional extra underneath the service, carrying extra minutes and an extra price | She ticks a box under the treatment she has already chosen | The art is not another job, it is the longer version of the same one |
| Two variants of the same treatment, at two lengths | She chooses the one she wants from the list — plain or with art | Almost everybody has one or the other and you would rather not explain a tick box |
The reason all three are worth knowing is that the wrong one costs you the same twenty minutes every week. If nail art is a tick box on your list and the minutes are not on it, Slotora books the plain length and your next client is in the doorway while you are still on the ring finger. Put the minutes wherever they belong and the booking page stops offering a slot that was never long enough.
Four sentences you hear with your hands full
The rebook is the single most valuable thirty seconds in a nail tech's day and it happens while your hands are wet. These are the four sentences you actually hear, and where each one lands.
- “Same again in four weeks?”
- Set the new booking to repeat every four weeks and choose how many times — anything from two to twelve. The whole run goes in at the same time of day. Any date that would land on top of something you have already got is left out rather than forced, and named for you on the spot, so week nine is not where you discover it.
- “I'll message you nearer the time.”
- She will not. Send her the booking link instead and she can set up the repeat herself, up to eight visits, with the same weekly, fortnightly, three-weekly or four-weekly rhythm you would have used.
- “Have you got anything sooner? This one's lifted.”
- A full day does not turn her away; it puts her on the list for that treatment on that date. Five separate events can then hand the hour back — either of you cancelling, either of you moving something, a no-show marked before the time comes round, or a deposit checkout abandoned halfway — and each one mails the twenty-five who have waited longest, with the hour in the message. Nobody has it reserved. The quickest to book takes it, which is exactly the point, because you are asleep when this happens.
- “Sorry, I completely forgot I was coming today.”
- Every confirmed booking gets a reminder email a day ahead by default, and you can add more times — forty-eight hours and two hours, say. Email costs nothing and there is no cap on it. A text is available too, paid from a credit balance you top up, and it sends nothing at all until you turn it on.
The soak-off, the repair, and the money that goes missing
Two treatments earn a nail tech nothing and cost her most: the removal she did not charge for, and the set she sat waiting for that never arrived. Both are settings rather than sympathy.
Put soak-off on your list as its own twenty-minute service. It is not a favour and it is not free time — an acrylic removal is a fifth of an hour of your day and the booking page cannot protect a treatment that does not exist on it. The same goes for a repair: a twenty-minute row on your list is what stops it being squeezed into somebody else's appointment.
For the no-show, connect your own Stripe account and decide what a booking has to carry. A percentage of the price, a fixed amount, or the whole thing, taken when she books. The money goes into your Stripe account, not ours — Slotora takes none of it, and the card fee is Stripe's, the way it would be with any card machine. If you would rather not ask your regulars for it, you can switch the deposit off on a particular client's record and leave it on for everybody else.
A late-cancellation fee and a no-show fee work the other way round: she saves her card when she books and the charge comes off it afterwards. The no-show fee is taken automatically an hour after the appointment should have ended, which is the hour you have to undo a no-show you marked by mistake. If you would rather decide each one yourself, turn the automatic charge off. And a client who does this repeatedly can be stopped from booking online altogether from her own record — she can still ring you.
The link, and where you put it
Your booking page is a public address of the form slotora.io/b/your-name. It shows your real free times, your treatments at their real lengths, and your prices. She books on her phone in a browser; she does not download anything and she does not make an account.
There is no Instagram or Messenger integration here, and that is a plain statement rather than a roadmap. Slotora does not read your direct messages and does not answer them. What you do is put the link in your bio, on your Facebook page's booking button, and in your autoreply — and send it back to whoever asks at ten at night instead of listing your Tuesday out loud.
There is one thing that does answer on your behalf, and only on your own booking page: a chat that replies from your own information — your prices, your hours, where you are, your cancellation rule. It is free, and if you want it to go further and offer real free times you tick one box in your settings. That is the whole of it. It does not go into anybody's inbox.
Pictures, because a nail tech is chosen by her work
Nobody books a set from a price list. Four places on Slotora hold a picture, and they are the four places a decision is actually made.
- A gallery on your booking page, up to twenty-four of your own photographs.
- A photograph on each treatment, so a baby boomer finish and a French are not two words in a list.
- Up to three pictures from her, attached to the booking — the saved post she wants, the state of her current nails — so you know what you are walking into before she sits down.
- Before and after shots kept on her own record, not published. If she is happy for you to use one, you can move it into your gallery; until then it stays where it is.
Every one of those is a picture you upload. Slotora never asks you to paste a link to an image hosted somewhere else, anywhere in the product, which is a decision rather than an omission: somebody else's server dies, changes, or serves something different next month, and it would be your booking page it happened on.
What Slotora will not do for you
Do not come to Slotora to be found. You can appear in our public directory — it is searchable by treatment and by town, it costs nothing, and a booking that arrives through it is charged the same 0% as every other — but it is young and small, and the number of people browsing it in your town on a Tuesday is not a number that will fill your week. You have to publish a price before you appear in it at all, which is deliberate: a menu of zeros sent to a stranger is worse than no listing. Plan on the assumption that every guest who books is one you sent the link to, and treat anything the directory brings you as a bonus rather than a channel.
Two smaller ones while we are here. The waiting list holds nothing and it is narrower than it sounds: the notice goes out by email only, to the first twenty-five people waiting, and the fastest phone wins — so a client who waits for your reply will lose the slot to one who did not, and a client who gave you a number but no email address never hears about it at all. And there is no nail-specific record of which product went on which finger: what you get is a free-text note, a separate field for a warning like a product sensitivity, and photographs on her record — not a formulation log.
What nail techs ask before they move
Is it really free, or does the commission arrive later?
There is no monthly fee and no percentage of what you charge, with no cap on bookings or clients, and no card is needed to register. What costs money is optional and separate: a credit balance for text messages, credits for the things the assistant makes for you, and the AI telephone receptionist. Card payments are not on that list at all — they run through your own Stripe account and Stripe's transaction fee is Stripe's.
How do I stop a gel polish booking turning into two hours of art?
By deciding where the extra minutes live, and there are three places they can. Add nail art as a separate service and let her tap it alongside the gel polish; or hang it under the treatment as an optional extra with its own minutes and price, which she ticks; or list the treatment twice at two lengths. All three reserve the time in your diary and all three add up the price. What does not work is treating the art as something you will fit in, because the booking page cannot offer a length nobody told it about.
Can I set a three-week infill rather than four?
Yes. From your own calendar the repeat is weekly, fortnightly, three-weekly or four-weekly, for up to twelve visits; from your booking page a guest can set the same rhythms for up to eight. Three weeks is the one most BIAB clients actually need and it is the one a monthly-only system cannot express.
What happens when someone cancels the afternoon before?
She can cancel or move it herself from the link in her confirmation email, inside the deadline you set — a day, by default. The slot going back on sale emails the first twenty-five people waiting for that service on that day, with the time that came free in the message. If you charge a late-cancellation fee and she saved her card when she booked, it comes off the card. You do not have to be holding your phone for any of that.
I work alone from a room at home. Is this for a salon or for me?
For you. Slotora's beauty product is built for one person working with her own hands and her own diary, and that is not a polite way of saying it scales down — it is what it is for. If you take somebody on and another person starts keeping the day running while you are with a client, that is a different job and there is a separate Slotora written for it.
Do my clients have to download an app or create a login?
No. Your booking page opens in the browser on her phone. She picks the treatment, picks a time, leaves her name and a way of reaching her, and that is the end of it. The confirmation and the reminder arrive by email.
Can I move a booking onto a time that is already taken?
Yes, when you are the one doing it. A booking you enter or move yourself can overrule your own rules, a clash included — you are asked to confirm and afterwards both the browser and the app tell you the two overlap. Guests booking online are never offered a time on top of an appointment.
The settings this page named, step by step
Is there a team on your floor?
If several people work in your salon, and somebody else keeps the day running while you are with a client, that is a different job from one diary — and there is a Slotora written for it.
See Slotora for busy salonsPut your treatments in at their real lengths tonight
Registering takes a few minutes and no card. Add gel polish, the BIAB build, the infill, the soak-off and the art, each with the time it actually takes, set the hours you work, and your booking page is live. The next time somebody asks whether you have anything tomorrow, you answer with a link.