Online booking for a salon: where to start, step by step
Right now you collect bookings through Instagram messages, phone calls and sometimes a notebook at the front desk. A client writes in the evening, you reply in the morning, and once in a while two people land on the same slot. The order in which you move this online matters: services with prices and duration first, then working hours, and only after that the look of the page and payments.
Short answer. Start with services, prices and duration, then working hours, then one link: on Instagram and your Google profile. In Slotsy the assistant after signup builds a nine-step plan and estimates it at about 15 minutes; a client books from a service link in three screens, no account, in Polish, Ukrainian or English. Set cancellation rules and reminders before the first booking; online payments can wait. To start: the Free plan, 0 zł, one person, no booking limit.
Create a Free account: 0 zł, no card, alongside your current system.
Before you start
You need three things on hand to set up: a price list with the duration of each service, working hours for yourself and your team if you have one, and a client list if you want to import it instead of typing it in by hand. Everything else, including the look of the page and payments, can wait until the page already takes its first bookings.
Without services and hours the page has nothing to show a client; without cancellation rules the first no-show catches you the same way it does now. The page look and online payments change how a booking looks and how it gets paid for, but the earlier steps are what make a booking possible at all.
Services and prices
This is the core of the booking page: without services, a client has nothing to choose from. For each service you set a name, duration (15, 30, 45, 60, 90 or 120 minutes), a price, where zero means a free service, an optional description, a photo, and a buffer after the visit of 5 to 30 minutes so you have time to reset the room before the next client. You assign staff to a service; when you stop offering something, you mark it inactive instead of deleting it, so booking history stays intact.
Once you have more than six services and at least two categories, the price list on the page splits into sections on its own, so a client is not scrolling one long list. Name categories the way a client thinks about them, not the way you account for them internally: "Manicure," "Lashes," "Massage," not internal service codes. Details: service management.
Hours and staff
Company hours are the outer window: each staff schedule can only narrow them, never widen them. If you work alone, you switch on solo mode; a client does not pick a person, because there is nothing to pick, and sees open times right away. Settings: company hours, solo mode.
If you still keep private appointments in Google Calendar, connect it under My calendar (the owner: Settings → Integrations) and turn on “Close my busy hours”: your events close those hours on the booking page within 10 minutes, and Slotsy bookings appear in your calendar. Each master connects their own; Outlook cannot be connected yet (October 2026). My calendar.
The booking page
The page lives at slotsy.io/place/{your-name}. The page builder gives you four hero layouts, colors, a cover photo, section order and an About section, all of it without a developer. You translate service names and descriptions into Polish, Ukrainian and English; the page picks the client's browser language on its own, and they can switch it with one click.
At the studio in Kraków where I started, most clients have Ukrainian numbers, which is why the booking page speaks Polish, Ukrainian and English, not only Polish. If your clients write to you in two or three languages, translate the services before you send out the first link. Settings: page builder, translations.
A test booking from your phone
Before you send the link any further, book an appointment with yourself from your phone, the way a client would. On 27 September I checked this flow myself: from a link to a specific service, a client goes through three screens, date, time, details with confirmation, and fills in four fields, first name, last name, phone, email. No account, no password, no app.
The full write-up of that measurement, alongside a comparison with five other systems, is in a separate article: simple online booking without an account.
Rules before the first client arrives
Before you send the link further than to yourself, set up two things that protect your schedule. The first is cancellation rules: a notice period with no consequences, any length or between 1 and 48 hours, 24 by default, plus your own sentence of explanation, shown to the client on the last booking screen right above the confirm button. The second is reminders: an email goes out 24 hours and 1 hour before the appointment on every plan, and on paid plans an SMS follows 1 hour before.
- Cancellation rules: set the window and the sentence a client reads right before confirming.
- SMS reminders: what they cost on each plan and how to turn them on.
- Reducing no-shows: what else, besides the reminder itself, cuts the number of empty slots in your schedule.
Where the link goes
In the admin header there is a Share button: a link and QR code for the whole page, for one service, or for one staff member, in which case the client only sees that person's services. You download the QR code as a PNG for printing at the front desk, and you can add UTM parameters to the link and later check in analytics where bookings actually came from: Instagram, Google, or the code at the desk.
You paste the service link into your Instagram bio, into a story about an open slot, and into your Google business profile. The city catalogue on slotsy.io is free and adds one more place where your salon is visible, with no separate signup. More: sharing the booking page, clients from Instagram to online bookings.
Payments, if and when
Online payments are optional, and you can add them at any point after launch, not only on day one. They run through the studio's own Stripe account: BLIK costs 1.6% plus 1 zł, cards 1.5% plus 1 zł, per the stripe.com/pl/pricing rate card checked on 29 September 2026, on top of which comes Slotsy's own fee, 2% on the Free plan, 1% on Start. Paying on site stays available regardless of whether you turn on online payments.
Step-by-step setup: Stripe Connect. On the cost of BLIK and cards without a terminal: BLIK and card payments without a terminal. On prepayment and deposits, once no-shows become a problem: deposits for salon appointments.
What to set up on day one
The table below shows which steps from the assistant's nine-step checklist matter right away, and which can wait without hurting the first booking.
| Step from the assistant's checklist | Day one | Can wait |
|---|---|---|
| Company information | yes | |
| Working hours | yes | |
| Staff | yes | |
| Services with prices | yes | |
| Online payments | yes (optional) | |
| Booking page look | yes (optional) | |
| Test booking | yes (optional on the list, but do it before you send the link) | |
| Data import from CSV | depends where you start | |
| Going live | yes |
Moving from Booksy or Fresha
You import a client list from a CSV file with column mapping and a preview before saving; the same works for services and staff. Booking history and reviews stay in the old system; the contact list carries over. Nothing stops both systems from running side by side for two weeks while you test Slotsy on part of your client base.
Detailed comparisons: Slotsy vs Booksy, Slotsy vs Fresha.
For a hair salon and for a stylist working from home
Two versions of the same sequence of steps, fitted to a specific situation: online booking for a hair salon and online booking for a stylist working from home.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to start? The Free plan costs 0 zł: one person, one location, no booking limit, every feature. The Start plan is 79 zł net a month for a team of up to 5.
How long does setup take? The assistant after signup estimates the setup plan at about 15 minutes. That covers company information, hours, staff and services; the rest, such as the page look or payments, can wait.
Does a client have to create an account? No. They book in three screens and fill in four fields: first name, last name, phone, email. No account or password is needed.
Can I move clients over from Booksy or Fresha? You import a client list from a CSV file. Booking history and reviews stay in the old system and do not move over with the contacts.
Does the page work in Ukrainian? Yes. The booking page works in Polish, Ukrainian and English, picks the client's browser language, and they can switch it.
Does Slotsy have a "Book now" button on Google and Instagram? No. You paste your booking page link into your Instagram bio and your Google business profile; clients go from there to your page.
Features and prices checked on 29 September 2026. If something changed, let us know and we will fix it and show the update date.
Create a Free account: 0 zł, no card, alongside your current system; the assistant walks you through nine steps.