Real talk: is Treatwell worth listing your spa on?
Stacey Brooks
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Salon / Hair Studio · Newcastle · 7mo ago
I want to be honest about this because I wasted money making the wrong choice first. I started with BookPin when I opened my spa in Liverpool 6 years ago. It looked great on the surface but the client-facing booking page was clunky and I had ten people drop off mid-booking every week. Switched to Shedul two years ago and haven't looked back. Here's what the switch actually involved and what I think matters most when choosing a system.
First thing: don't just look at the price. Look at the booking flow from a client's point of view. I had a client tell me my old booking page made her feel like she was filling in a tax return. That stung but she was right. Shedul took me about half a day to set up properly, and within the first week I noticed clients were actually completing their bookings rather than dropping off halfway through.
Second: SMS reminders are non-negotiable. Email reminders get ignored. My no-show rate went from roughly 20% down to almost nothing once I turned on the automated text reminder 48 hours before each appointment. Worth every penny of the monthly cost.
Third: deposits. I introduced a £25 deposit about two years after switching and honestly I should have done it from day one. The people who complained were the people who would have wasted my time anyway. My regulars didn't blink.
First thing: don't just look at the price. Look at the booking flow from a client's point of view. I had a client tell me my old booking page made her feel like she was filling in a tax return. That stung but she was right. Shedul took me about half a day to set up properly, and within the first week I noticed clients were actually completing their bookings rather than dropping off halfway through.
Second: SMS reminders are non-negotiable. Email reminders get ignored. My no-show rate went from roughly 20% down to almost nothing once I turned on the automated text reminder 48 hours before each appointment. Worth every penny of the monthly cost.
Third: deposits. I introduced a £25 deposit about two years after switching and honestly I should have done it from day one. The people who complained were the people who would have wasted my time anyway. My regulars didn't blink.
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The no-show stats in this post match my experience almost exactly. I was losing roughly £15 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.
#1
The point about analytics is underrated. I had no idea which of my services was actually the most profitable until Shedul showed me the data. It completely changed how I structured my pricing and my service menu.
#2
The point about filtering your client base with deposits is something I wish someone had told me when I started. It sounds harsh but your business actually runs better with fewer, more committed clients than with a packed diary full of flaky ones.
#3
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.
#4