Honest review of Phorest after a year as a beauty salon owner
Rory Green
🏪 VIP Seller
🥇 Gold Seller
Freelancer · Bradford · 7mo ago
I tested four different booking systems back to back last year because I couldn't decide and I thought I might as well be thorough about it. Here's my genuinely unbiased breakdown for a small UK holistic therapy practice.
Appointy: Really strong on the client-facing side. The booking page looks polished and professional. The free plan is genuinely usable if you're just starting out. Downsides: the reporting is basic and customer support takes forever to respond.
Acuity Scheduling: Best calendar interface of the lot. Really intuitive if you have multiple staff. A bit pricier but the features justify it. Not great if you're a solo operator — feels like it's designed for bigger businesses.
Fresha: Still hard to beat on price (free for everything). The client marketplace gives you extra visibility. The catch is the 1.29% transaction fee on payments, which adds up if your treatments are high-value.
The one I landed on: Appointy. For a solo holistic therapy practice in a mid-size UK city, it hit the right balance of price, features, and ease of use. The SMS reminders work reliably, the deposit system is clean, and clients have said the booking experience feels professional.
Happy to answer questions if anyone wants to go deeper on any of these.
Appointy: Really strong on the client-facing side. The booking page looks polished and professional. The free plan is genuinely usable if you're just starting out. Downsides: the reporting is basic and customer support takes forever to respond.
Acuity Scheduling: Best calendar interface of the lot. Really intuitive if you have multiple staff. A bit pricier but the features justify it. Not great if you're a solo operator — feels like it's designed for bigger businesses.
Fresha: Still hard to beat on price (free for everything). The client marketplace gives you extra visibility. The catch is the 1.29% transaction fee on payments, which adds up if your treatments are high-value.
The one I landed on: Appointy. For a solo holistic therapy practice in a mid-size UK city, it hit the right balance of price, features, and ease of use. The SMS reminders work reliably, the deposit system is clean, and clients have said the booking experience feels professional.
Happy to answer questions if anyone wants to go deeper on any of these.
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Really useful breakdown — thank you. I've been sitting on the fence about Setmore for months and this has pushed me to just go and do the free trial. Will report back.
#1
The no-show stats in this post match my experience almost exactly. I was losing roughly £10 a month to no-shows and cancellations before I introduced deposits. That money was just gone. Now it's protected. The maths on deposits is completely obvious once you see it.
#2
The deposit psychology point is spot on. I've said this for years — a £25 deposit doesn't stop genuine clients, it stops time-wasters. Anyone who values the appointment enough to actually show up doesn't think twice about a deposit.
#3