Online booking for a stylist working from home
A chair in a room, a lamp, two clients a day after work, and a calendar on the phone where every other entry reads "Kasia? Saturday?". When you work alone at home you do not need a system for a salon. You need one page where a client sees free times and books herself, and you get a reminder and never have to reply to anyone at 11 pm.
This article is for a hairdresser, beautician, nail or lash technician who sees clients at home or travels to them. No team, no front desk, often no business registered at the start. It says what to set up so bookings work by tonight, what a client sees of your address, and from when you need a business. A salon with several chairs is covered separately.
We checked the rules and prices on 27 September 2026: unregistered activity on biznes.gov.pl, the Free plan in Slotsy's pricing. Slotsy is described as in the help centre.
Short answer. For one person Slotsy is free: the Free plan is 1 staff member, 40 bookings a month and every feature, no card. You switch on solo mode: the client picks a service and goes straight to a time, without the "choose a staff member" step. You set hours with breaks, services with prices, pay on site (no Stripe to begin with) and cancellation rules with your own wording. The client books without an account, gets a confirmation by email and reminders 24 hours and 1 hour before. The address from your profile is visible on the booking page and in the catalogue; if you do not want it public, switch off catalogue visibility and give the link only to your own clients.
Start tonight: create a Free account; the five settings below take under half an hour.
Five settings that make the difference
- Solo mode. Settings → Solo Business, switch it on. The "choose a staff member" step disappears, every visit is yours, and the booking page is one screen shorter. If you ever hire someone, one switch turns it off. Solo mode.
- Hours with breaks. You work Mon–Wed 16–21 after your job, Sat 9–15? Enter exactly that, with a break to pick up a child. The client sees only what you enter; there is no "please call". Leave and trips go in as exceptions on specific days. First Steps.
- Services with duration and a buffer. The name as on Instagram ("gels", "2D lash extensions"), price, duration and a buffer of 10–15 minutes to clean the station and air the room. Without a buffer the system sells every minute. Service Management.
- Pay on site. To begin you need neither Stripe nor a business: Settings → Payment Processors → Allow pay on site is on by default, and the client pays you as before. BLIK and cards at booking come later, once you have a NIP: how it works.
- Cancellation rules. A minimum notice of 24 h and your own sentence in the field below it: "later, write to me and we will move it". The client sees it before confirming and accepts it. It is the only protection against an empty evening that needs no deposit. Cancellation Rules.
Then one more thing: the Share button in the header gives a link and a QR code to your page. The link goes into your Instagram bio, the QR onto a business card. How to move clients from messages to bookings in a week is described here.
What the client sees, and what she sees of your address
| Element | What the client sees |
|---|---|
| Booking page | Your name, description, logo or photo, services with prices, free times, in her browser's language: Polish, Ukrainian or English |
| Address | The address from Company Info is shown on the booking page and in the Slotsy catalogue |
| Booking | Service → time → name, phone, email → confirmation. No account |
| After booking | An email with a summary and a link to reschedule or cancel within your window |
| Reminders | Email 24 hours and 1 hour before; SMS if you buy a package |
The address needs a decision. Working from home, you often do not want your flat number seen by anyone who types "manicure Podgórze" into the catalogue. Today Slotsy has no "address only after booking" option; you have two routes:
- Switch off catalogue visibility (Settings → Company Info → Visibility). The booking page keeps working at its link but does not appear in the catalogue or map search. You give the link only to your own clients: from Instagram, from messages, from a business card. Catalogue Visibility.
- Enter a general address, the street without the flat number or just the district, and send the exact address to the client in reply to the confirmation. It works, but takes one message per visit.
If you travel to clients, the address in your profile is your contact address, and the place of the visit goes in the booking note.
Do you need a business
Not straight away. Unregistered activity (działalność nierejestrowana) lets you take clients without a CEIDG entry as long as quarterly revenue does not exceed 225% of the minimum wage, 10,813.50 zł since the limit became quarterly on 1 January 2026, and you have not run a business in the last 60 months. You settle in the annual PIT return and pay no ZUS. Three caveats:
- The cash register applies regardless. Hairdressing and beauty services must go through a register from the first sale whatever the form of activity (§ 4 of the regulation of 17 December 2024). This is the most often missed point.
- Ukrainian citizens: unregistered activity requires the same residence conditions as a JDG; check them before the first client.
- Online payments via Stripe require a business with a NIP; until then it is pay on site.
Once you pass the limit or want to take BLIK, you register a JDG in a day; we described it step by step, with ZUS and tax, in how to open a salon in Poland. This is not tax advice: confirm the limits and obligations with the tax office or an accountant.
Five mistakes we see most often
- Hours "just in case". 9–21 every day entered, three evenings in reality. A client books Tuesday 11:00, you are at work. Enter only the hours you really see clients.
- No buffer between clients. Gels 75 minutes, the next one at minute 75. The first one's lateness shifts the whole evening.
- The address in the catalogue without a thought. The flat number visible to all; then a request to remove it. First the visibility decision, then publishing.
- No cancellation rules. The first empty Saturday teaches the same lesson the notebook would.
- Working off the books with the cash in a drawer. Unregistered activity is legal and simple; no cash register for hairdressing services is not.
Frequently asked questions
Does the client need an account or an app? No. She comes from the link, picks a service and a time, enters name, phone and email. The confirmation and a link to reschedule come by email.
Can I hide my address? Not fully: the address from the profile is on the booking page. You can switch off catalogue visibility so only people with the link see the page, or enter the address without the flat number and send it after booking.
What happens after 40 bookings a month on Free? Further bookings that month will not go through until you move to the Start plan (29 € a month, up to 5 people). The counter resets with the new month.
Can I take prepayment without a business? Online payments via Stripe require a business with a NIP. Without a business it is pay on site.
How do clients from Ukraine see the page? In Ukrainian, if that is their browser language; you translate service names in settings. Confirmations and reminders come in their language too.
What if I hire a friend? You switch solo mode off, add her under Staff with her own schedule and move to the Start plan. Existing visits stay yours.
Price lists and rules checked 27.09.2026. If something has changed, write to us and we will correct it and show the update date. This text does not replace tax advice.
Five settings and a link in your bio: create a Free account and take your first booked client this week.