Slotora vs Timely, at six chairs
Start with the honest part: Timely takes no commission on a booking and neither do we, so 0% wins nobody this row. What is left is the subscription — and where the team half of the product sits. On Timely, targets, staff pricing and team payouts are a weekly add-on above a weekly plan whose price rises with how busy you are. Here they are the product, at nothing. Sources and dates below, and the four things Timely does better.
What six chairs costs each week
Timely charges by booking volume rather than by head, so there is no per-person figure to multiply. The sum below uses their own published starting prices for the plan a salon would actually be on, plus the add-on that carries the team tools.
- Timely Boost, starting from £7 a week
- £364 a year
- Advanced team management add-on, £8 a week
- £416 a year
- Both, at the starting price
- £15 a week — £780 a year
- What a six-chair salon really pays
- higher, and not published
Slotora's salon product has no weekly or monthly fee, nothing per person, no add-on to unlock the team tools, and 0% commission. Card processing is Stripe's own rate on the salon's own Stripe account; we add nothing to it.
Every Timely figure above is a starting price: their own plan cards say the price adjusts based on bookings, and there is no calculator or booking band published anywhere on their pricing page — you are asked for your weekly booking volume during sign-up. A six-chair salon is not at the bottom of that curve, so £780 a year is a FLOOR and not a quote. Their prices are billed in GBP. One thing that floor does include and ours does not: text messages to your guests, which we sell separately.
The rows a salon asks about
Every cell in the Timely column comes from the numbered source under the table, read on the date printed there. Where a cell says their pages do not name something, that is a statement about the pages — not a claim about the product.
| The question | Slotora | Timely |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs for a six-person team | Slotora: £0, whatever the size of the team and however busy it is | Timely: Run from £4 a week, Boost from £7, Thrive from £9, billed in GBP, and the price adjusts with your booking volume1 |
| Charged per person | Slotora: No. The code that adds a colleague has no limit and nothing is charged per head | Timely: No — every plan says unlimited team members1 |
| Commission on a booking | Slotora: 0% on bookings, deposits, prepayments and card payments | Timely: 0% — their pricing page opens with no new client fees1 |
| Staff targets, staff-specific pricing and team payouts | Slotora: Included. A percentage on services and a separate one on retail, per person, with a fixed wage beside it and a monthly statement | Timely: The Advanced team management add-on, £8 a week on top of a plan1 |
| Card processing | Slotora: Stripe's own rate, on the salon's own Stripe account. Slotora adds no application fee | Timely: 1.59% + 5p in person with Tap to Pay or their terminal, 1.85% + 30p online, and an international card fee of 3.00% + 30p1 |
| Text messages to your guests | Slotora: Sold as credits and charged at what they cost; nothing is bundled into a plan, because there is no plan | Timely: Included per booking — one on Run, two on Boost, three on Thrive — with extra texts at 8p, 5p and 4p on those plans1 |
| A waiting list when the day is full | Slotora: Yes | Timely: Not on the Run plan; included on Boost and Thrive1 |
| Stock and the back bar | Slotora: Yes, deducted when the visit is completed | Timely: A stock app connected to Timely, on the Thrive plan1 |
| A front desk login that is not the owner's | Slotora: Yes, free and unlimited. She runs the whole diary, opens the client book, takes payment and refunds at the counter; the salon's takings, the settings and the price of a visit stay with the owner | Timely: Every staff member has their own login with customisable access, and their staff page says admin access for people who are not bookable costs no extra2 |
| Rota and clock in / clock out | Slotora: Yes. A weekly rota per person, a different one on odd and even weeks if you need it, the salon's opening hours over everybody, and clock in and out for the team | Timely: Hours, shifts and rosters per team member are named among their staff tools2 |
| Somebody renting a chair, settled | Slotora: Her guest pays into her own account, your day-close counts your cash and not hers, a refund follows whoever was paid, and a rent ledger records what each renter owes and has paid | Timely: Their pages do not name a chair-rent settlement2 |
| A marketplace that brings you new clients | Slotora: Yes — a free listing in our own consumer directory, with no commission on anything it brings. It is a small directory, and that is the caveat | Timely: No consumer marketplace at all — that is why there are no new client fees. Reserve with Google is on the Boost plan1 |
| Bringing your future calendar across | Slotora: Yes. Future appointments come across from your old system's appointments export, matched to your clients, services and team, and your guests are sent nothing. You do it yourself, in the browser | Timely: Their pricing page offers help switching to Timely and a call with their team1 |
| Signing up | Slotora: Open, free from the first day: no trial period, no card and no contract | Timely: Free for 14 days with no credit card, no contract, and 14 days notice to cancel1 |
What Timely charges for and we do not
Not commission, and not the team count — Timely charges neither, and this page does not pretend otherwise. These four are the real differences.
The team tools are the product, not an add-on
Targets, per-person pricing and what each person is owed are what this product is for, at no charge. On Timely, Advanced team management is £8 a week — £416 a year — on top of whatever plan you are already on.1A price that does not move with how busy you are
Slotora's salon product is £0 in a quiet January and £0 in a full December. Timely's own plan cards say the price adjusts based on bookings, so a good month raises the bill and the curve behind it is not published.1Commission and wage in one monthly statement
A percentage on services, a separate one on retail, a fixed wage beside them, and one statement per person at month end. Timely's staff pages name targets and staff reports; the payout half sits inside the paid add-on.2The chair-rent ledger
What each renter owes you, and what she has paid, per week or per month, with arrears and how full her chair really was. In the salon account in the browser; the app shows it read-only. It records the rent, or, if she agrees, takes it from her saved card into your salon's Stripe account.2
Where Timely is the better buy
Two of them, and either can decide a switch on its own. If one is what your salon runs on, Timely is the honest answer today.
Your texts are in their price and are a separate purchase here
Every Timely plan includes SMS scaled to your bookings — one message per booking on Run, two on Boost, three on Thrive — with extra messages at 8p, 5p or 4p. Slotora sells SMS as credits on top of a £0 product, so a salon that sends a reminder for every appointment is buying something from us that Timely folds into the weekly bill. Compare the two on your own message volume before you compare anything else on this page.1Ten years and fifty thousand businesses of it working
Timely's own pages claim more than a decade in hair and beauty and over 50,000 businesses using it, with onboarding help and a switching service to go with that. Slotora's salon product is new: its sign-up opened at the end of September 2026. That is not a feature comparison and it is the fair thing to weigh a new product against.3
Britain and Ireland — and the other live markets this page is not written for
One locale, two countries, and a deliberate absence behind it. This is worth being explicit about rather than quiet:1
- Every Timely figure above is their British list, billed in GBP, read on their own pricing page on the date in the sources below.
- Timely is one English website. There is no Hungarian, Polish or Romanian version of it, no language switcher and no local currency, so there is no Hungarian, Polish or Romanian version of this page either — a comparison written in a language the rival does not sell in is a page written for nobody.
- Their own FAQ draws the same line: the SMS their plans include is available in New Zealand, Australia, the United States, the UK, Ireland, Canada and South Africa, and payments in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, the US and the EU. Of the countries Slotora is live in, Britain and Ireland are the two Timely really sells to.
- Slotora's side is the same in both of those countries and in every other market it is open in: £0 and €0, no monthly fee and no per-person charge anywhere we operate.
- Card processing is Stripe's, on the salon's own Stripe account, at Stripe's published rate for its own country. Slotora takes no cut of it and never holds the money.
Sources
- Timely — pricing and plans — https://www.gettimely.com/pricing/ · read on 2026-09-28
- Timely — staff management — https://www.gettimely.com/features/staff-management/ · read on 2026-09-28
- Timely — why choose Timely — https://www.gettimely.com/why-choose-timely/ · read on 2026-09-28
Questions before you switch
Does Timely take a commission on my bookings?
No, and neither do we. Their pricing page opens with no new client fees and there is no consumer marketplace behind it, so the 0% line that wins the Fresha and Treatwell comparisons wins nothing here. We would rather say so at the top of the page than have you find it out in another tab.
What will Timely actually cost my six-chair salon?
We cannot tell you, because they do not publish it. Every plan price is a starting price and the plan cards say it adjusts based on bookings; there is no calculator and no booking band on the page, and the figure is settled when you enter your weekly booking volume during sign-up. The £780 a year in the sum above is the floor for a Boost plan with the team add-on, not a quote.
Do I have to buy the team add-on?
Only if you want the team half. Unlimited team members and their own logins come with every Timely plan; staff targets, staff-specific pricing and team payouts are the Advanced team management add-on at £8 a week. A salon with six chairs is exactly the salon that wants those, which is why the sum on this page includes it.
What about text messages?
Timely wins that one and the page says so. Their plans include SMS scaled to your bookings and charge 8p, 5p or 4p beyond it. Slotora sells SMS credits on top of a £0 product. If you send a reminder for every appointment, work out your own message volume on both sides before anything else here matters.
Is Slotora really £0 for six chairs?
Yes. No weekly or monthly fee, nothing per person, no add-on to unlock the team tools, and 0% commission on bookings, deposits, prepayments and card payments. What costs money is named on the pricing page: SMS credits, the AI phone receptionist on a fixed pack of minutes, and what the AI makes for you, charged per use with the price shown before it runs.
Can I sign up now?
Yes, in the UK and Ireland. The salon account has its own sign-up and costs nothing; there is no trial to run out, because there is nothing to start paying for.
The three pages behind the rows above
Each of these is the long answer to one row in the table, with the same rule: anything not built yet is marked coming.
The rest of this product
The other pages about Slotora for busy salons.
- The team's diary
- Rooms and chairs
- The front desk
- Reports and the log
- Fresha compared
- Treatwell compared
- More than one location
- No per-seat fee
- UK salon software compared
- Switching software
- Self-employed stylists
- API and webhooks
- Rota and holidays
- Colour records and patch tests
- Two stylists, one visit
- One bill at the counter
- Packages and courses
- Salon software in the UK
Set up tonight, take bookings tomorrow
Register, add your services and each colleague's hours, and your booking page is live. No card, no contract, no notice period.