Evidence note: Evaluate technician permissions, service duration and room or station rules against the actual schedule. No market census, feature test or qualification standard is provided. Source status: No primary source was found for the earlier universal claim as of 2026-09-01.
If you run nails, lashes, brows, waxing or skin, you've probably been sold a salon platform designed around a hair stylist's day and found it doesn't quite describe yours.
The difference is structural, not cosmetic.
A hair salon has stylists who mostly do the same category of work. A beauty salon has a nail tech, a lash artist, an esthetician, and a brow specialist — and they are not interchangeable. A client booking a lash fill cannot be assigned to whoever's free.
That single fact breaks a surprising amount of software. Booking has to know which technician performs which service, what each service actually takes in minutes, and which room or station it needs. If your platform lets a client book a 20-minute brow wax into a 2-hour full-set slot, you'll spend your week rebuilding the schedule by hand.
Here's the number that should drive your software choice.
Evidence note: Use each service’s observed repeat interval, average spend and lost-return rate from first-party cohorts. Repeat intervals, spend, price changes and client responses vary by service and market. Source status: No primary source was found for the earlier universal claim as of 2026-09-01.
That predictability is an asset almost nobody uses. If a lash client rebooks on cycle, they're worth well over a hundred dollars a month, indefinitely. If they slip from three weeks to five, the fill becomes a full set, it costs them more, and a meaningful share of those clients quietly go elsewhere rather than pay the difference.
So the question to ask of any platform is narrow and specific: does it know each service's expected rebooking window, and does it tell you when a regular has drifted past it?
Most booking software will happily tell you today's appointments. Very few will tell you that eleven of your lash clients are now four weeks out when they should be at two and a half.
Evidence note: Mako documents customer profiles, bookings, history and operational notes; its retention materials describe attendance or recency-based staff-review signals. Vendor documentation does not establish clinical-record status, safety compliance, predictive accuracy or outcome improvement. Describe Mako as operational profiles, history and staff-review signals; do not call it a medical-record or compliance solution. Sources: Mako first-party: Mako CRM feature documentation (first-party.
Beauty work touches skin, and the record-keeping is not optional.
Evidence note: FDA explains that cosmetic ingredients can cause allergic reactions and that product safety and ingredient information matter. FDA guidance does not establish state cosmetology rules, universal patch-test duties, liability outcomes or required records for every service. Keep product, consultation and patch-test records where product directions or local rules call for them and verify state requirements. Sources: FDA Allergens in Cosmetics guidance (official.
In beauty, retail isn't a separate business at the front counter. The esthetician recommends the serum she just used, and the client buys it because they watched it work.
That means stock needs to decrement at the point of sale, retail needs its own commission rate separate from service, and the technician needs to see both in their earnings. If retail is more than incidental for you, check that inventory is real inventory rather than a product list with prices attached.
Beauty salons run more pay models under one roof than almost anyone: commission on service, a different rate on retail, booth rent for the independent nail tech, hourly for the front desk, tips across all of it.
We've written the mechanics up in detail — tiered rates, service-versus-retail splits, and where commission tracking stops and payroll processing starts — in salon software with payroll and commission tracking.
Evidence note: Mako’s checked pricing page lists Pulse free, Basic at $139 per month and Team at $249 per month. Prices and plan inclusions are date-sensitive; competitor prices, rankings and comparative value are not established by this source. Date the Mako prices and remove ranking or competitor-price claims unless each is supported by a current primary source. Sources: Mako first-party: Mako Pricing (first-party.
Related reading: Salon Iris Alternatives: Tier and Per-User Pricing Compared; Phorest Alternatives: Salon Software That Publishes Its Prices.
