Booksy has become the default for a lot of barbers and independent stylists, and the reasons are sound: it is inexpensive, the mobile app is built for people who run their business from a phone, and the marketplace puts you in front of clients searching for a cut nearby. If your business is you, a chair, and Instagram, Booksy fits that shape well. Mako is built for the stage after that — staff, commissions, retail, and knowing whether the whole thing is profitable.
Booksy: $29.99/month plus tax for the core plan, with additional users at $20/month each. Card processing is charged separately — roughly 2.69% + $0.30 for keyed and mobile entry, and about 2.49% with the Booksy card reader. No commitment, cancel anytime.
Mako: Pulse is free. Paid plans are Mako Basic at $139/month, Mako Team at $249/month, and Enterprise at $999/month — roughly 20% less on annual billing at $1,334, $2,390, and $9,588 per year. Basic includes 3 team members, Team includes 15, Enterprise is unlimited. No per-user charge.
Solo, Booksy is far cheaper — $29.99 against $139. With a team of five, Booksy is $29.99 plus four extra users at $20, or roughly $110/month, still under Mako Basic. Past six users Booksy crosses $139, and at twelve users it is around $250, which is where Mako Team sits with fifteen members included. The per-user line is what decides this, and it only moves one way.
Booksy's marketplace is a real acquisition channel, particularly in barbering, and it fills gaps in a slow week. It is also a shop window where your competitors are one scroll away, and clients who found you through a marketplace tend to behave like marketplace clients — price-sensitive, loyal to convenience rather than to you.
That is a fair trade when you are building a book. It is a worse trade when you already have one and are paying for discovery you no longer need. The retention side of the business — rebooking cadence, win-back campaigns, knowing which clients are drifting — is where the money actually is once your chair is full.
Booksy: $29.99/month, hard to beat for one person.
Mako: $139/month at Basic for the operational platform; Pulse is free if you only want the retention numbers.
Edge: Booksy, decisively.
Booksy: Marketplace with real consumer traffic, especially strong in barbering.
Mako: No marketplace.
Edge: Booksy, decisively.
Booksy: Built for running everything from a phone. Excellent at it.
Mako: Mobile-friendly across the platform, but designed for a business with a back office.
Edge: Booksy for phone-only operators.
Booksy: $20/month per additional user, indefinitely.
Mako: No per-user charge — 15 team members included at Team.
Edge: Mako past roughly six staff.
Booksy: Appointment and revenue reporting suited to a solo book.
Mako: P&L, cash flow, service profitability, LTV, and forecasting, plus free market retention benchmarking.
Edge: Mako, significantly.
Booksy: Light product sales support.
Mako: Full inventory, low-stock alerts, service-linked usage, and retail margin.
Edge: Mako.
Pick Booksy if:
Pick Mako if:
Your salon is a business. Not a hobby, not a side project, not a calendar with a cash register. It deserves software that treats it accordingly. If your platform cannot tell you whether you are financially healthy, it is not doing its job. And in 2026, you have better options.
See Mako in action — no sales call required
Mako is built for independent salon owners who would rather spend their time on clients than on demo calls. Open the live demo, poke around, and see exactly how scheduling, billing, and financial intelligence come together in one place.
Try the demo: https://app.makocrm.so/demo
Self-serve. Instant access. No forms, no calendars, no "talk to sales."
