What salon software actually costs in India, and why the quotes vary so wildly
Four pricing models, one of which does not look like a price at all. Comparing them needs the same sum done four different ways.
How much does salon software cost in India?
Anywhere from nothing up front to several thousand rupees a month, because vendors charge on four different bases: a flat subscription, a fee per branch, a fee per staff login, or a percentage of the bookings they send you. Two quotes are only comparable once you convert both to what you would actually pay in a normal month at your own volume.
Why one quote says ₹0 and another says ₹4,000
Because they are not pricing the same thing. A flat subscription prices the software. A per-seat plan prices the size of your team. A per-branch plan prices the size of your business. A marketplace prices the customers it introduces, and shows you no bill at all — the cost arrives as a smaller payout. All four are defensible ways to charge. The trouble starts when you line up their headline numbers side by side, because those numbers are denominated in different units.
| Model | You pay for | Predictable? | Gets expensive when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flat subscription | The software | Yes — same every month | Never; it is flat |
| Per branch | Each location | Yes, per location | You open more branches |
| Per seat / per user | Each staff login | Only if headcount is stable | You hire, or staff turn over |
| Marketplace commission | Customers introduced | No — scales with revenue | You get busy |
Flat subscription
One figure a month or a year, unaffected by how much you bill or how many people you employ. Its virtue is that it is boring: the cost per booking falls every time you take another booking, and the number in your budget for next March is the number you are paying now. Its weakness is that you pay it in a slow month too, and a very small salon may find a fixed floor harder than a percentage that shrinks when trade does.
- Cheapest per booking at high volume, most painful at very low volume
- Check whether the headline covers one location or the whole business
- Check what is a tier rather than an inclusion — messaging and reporting are the usual upsells
Per branch, and per seat
Both are subscriptions that grow, and the axis they grow along matters. Per-branch pricing tracks something you decide deliberately and rarely — you know months ahead that a second location is coming. Per-seat pricing tracks headcount, which in a salon moves constantly, and it quietly taxes the thing you want to encourage: giving every stylist their own login rather than sharing one. Shared logins destroy the attribution that commission and performance reporting depend on, so a plan that charges per seat is charging you for accurate data.
- Per branch: predictable, because you control when a branch opens
- Per seat: moves with hiring, and penalises giving everyone their own account
- Watch for a seat minimum, which turns a per-seat plan into a flat one at small sizes
Marketplace commission, and what it is really selling
A marketplace lists your salon to people searching for a treatment nearby and takes a percentage when one of them books. This is worth understanding rather than dismissing: it is not selling you software, it is selling you customers, and for a new salon with no list that can be the cheapest introduction available. The catch is that the cost is invisible — it arrives as a reduced payout rather than an invoice — and that not every booking it charges on is a customer you would have missed.
- Rates and rules differ by vendor and by country, and they change — read the vendor's own current terms
- Check whether commission is charged once per new customer or on every visit they ever make
- Check what is excluded: products, tips, memberships and gift cards often are
- Check whether a subscription now sits alongside the commission — several platforms that launched free have added one
The one sum that makes four quotes comparable
Convert everything to rupees per month at your real volume, then again at the volume you are aiming for. Take a normal month: your bookings, your headcount, your locations. Price each option against those three numbers, add payment-processing fees to all of them because they apply under every model, and only then compare. Do it twice — once for today and once for the business you want in two years — because the flat figure does not move and the percentage does.
- Use a real month, not your best one
- Count only the customers a marketplace genuinely introduced, not every booking routed through it
- Add processing fees to every option; no model makes them disappear
- Include what you would have to buy separately — messaging, reporting, extra logins
Where Salvoro sits
Flat subscription, with a per-branch add-on and no commission on anything. Eight hundred rupees a month covers one branch, or eight thousand for a year; each further branch is five hundred a month. WhatsApp messaging, GST billing, memberships and loyalty are included rather than tiered, staff logins are unlimited, and the thirty-day trial does not ask for a card. What it does not sell is demand — there is no marketplace, so it will not introduce you to anyone.
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly | ₹800 / month | 1 branch, unlimited staff logins |
| Yearly | ₹8,000 / year | 1 branch, unlimited staff logins |
| Additional branch | ₹500 / month each | Added to either plan |
Common questions
- Is free salon software actually free?
- Sometimes, and sometimes the cost has moved rather than disappeared — into a commission on bookings, a cap on features, or payment processing at a higher rate. Work out what you would pay in a normal month under each model before treating any of them as free.
- Is per-seat or flat-fee pricing better for a salon?
- Flat pricing usually suits salons, because headcount moves constantly and per-seat plans quietly discourage giving every stylist their own login. Shared logins break the attribution that commission and performance reporting depend on, so paying per seat means paying for accurate data.
- When is paying booking commission worth it?
- When the platform introduces customers you would genuinely never have reached, and you count only those. Commission on a regular who would have called you anyway is money spent keeping a customer you already had.
- What should I check before comparing two quotes?
- Whether the price covers one location or all of them, whether staff logins are capped, what is a paid tier rather than an inclusion, and what payment processing costs on each. Those four differences account for most of the gap between quotes.
Worth knowing
- This post deliberately quotes no competitor's prices. Rates change, they differ by country, and a specific figure written here would be wrong within a quarter — read each vendor's own current pricing page and check the date on anything that quotes it for them.
- Salvoro's figures above are the published plan prices at the time of writing. The pricing page is the current source.
- Payment-processing fees are charged by whoever processes the payment and apply under every model described here.
- Nothing here is a recommendation about a specific vendor. The sum at the end is the point; the answer it gives depends entirely on your own volume, headcount and locations.
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