Vagaro Vs. GlossGenius: Which Is Best for Your Business?

With the shear variety of booking and management software on the market, it can be difficult to find the one that best suits your business’s needs. Toward the top of the market, Vagaro and GlossGenius are two great choices, especially for salons, spas and beauty businesses. But what separates these two and how does Vagaro match up against GlossGenius?

Who is Vagaro Best For?

Vagaro began in 2009 as an online appointment booking and scheduling tool for professionals in the beauty and wellness industries. It was also envisioned as a way for people to search and book haircuts and similar services in their local area more easily—and the Vagaro Marketplace was born.

Vagaro’s flexibility makes it ideal for independent professionals, mid-size businesses and large-scale operations alike. Its extensive list of features also makes it adaptable to many professionals regardless of the industry they’re in:

Barbers
Estheticians
Nail, Lash & Brow Artists
Massage Therapists
Gyms & Fitness Studio Owners
Personal Trainers
MedSpa Owners
Mental Health Therapists
Chiropractors
Tattoo Artists
Hair Stylists

Who is GlossGenius Best For?

Like Vagaro, GlossGenius is an all-in-one booking and client management software. They are known for their user-friendly interface and feature set tailored mainly to the beauty and wellness industry.

Hair salons & Barbershops
Estheticians
Nail, Lash & Brow Artists
Massage Therapists

Like Vagaro, GlossGenius is also effective for single-calendar users and business owners alike. However, it’s essential for a business to assess its specific needs and goals to determine if Vagaro’s more comprehensive suite of tools make it the better fit for their operations.

Best for Scheduling & Booking

Vagaro: Vagaro’s Online Booking features are included in its basic plan (just $30 per month for a single user). In addition to managing a schedule from a desktop, the Vagaro Pro App enables users to manage appointments—and everything in between—on any device. Their calendar feature is intuitive, flexible and allows you to store client information, as well as automate recurring appointments. Vagaro’s automated waitlist feature lets you customize the priority in which waiting clients are booked with customizable settings.

Vagaro’s booking widget integrations enable you to place booking buttons on your Facebook, Instagram, Google Maps, Apple Maps and Yelp profiles—in addition to a business website and Marketplace booking page.

Vagaro’s additional client-facing app also makes it incredibly easy for clients to book and rebook. The client experience is simplified further with such features as self check-in and customized client notifications, like appointment reminders.

GlossGenius: GlossGenius also offers a streamlined, intuitive and color-coded booking system. In fact, they offer many of the same features that Vagaro offers, including a client waitlist, appointment reminders and client notes. GlossGenius’s software also features a mobile app from which users can run their business, but not a customer-facing app for clients to use. There’s an app for everything these days, and if you don’t want another one on your home screen, then this makes sense. However, there is a growing preference among consumers for using an app for scheduling appointments or making purchases over a business website.

GlossGenius’s calendar functions similarly to Vagaro’s, though synchronizing it between staff members requires an upgrade to their Gold Membership. Like Vagaro, GlossGenius offers protection against no-shows and cancellations in what they call their No-Show Protection Stack (client deposits, payment info on file, etc.). They also offer an advanced waitlist feature, but this requires an upgrade to their Gold Membership, whereas this comes included in Vagaro’s base plan.

The Takeaway: Both Vagaro and GlossGenius offer robust software that streamlines booking, keeps appointments organized and protects your income. Where they differ most is that Vagaro offers a customer-facing app that makes it incredibly easy for clients to book appointments, and integrations that can significantly increase total bookings. GlossGenius also requires an upgrade to their Gold Plan to access certain features.

Best for Team Management

Vagaro: Vagaro offers a bevy of features that make managing a team of any size easier, from auto-assigning roles to setting commission tiers.

Among their many payroll-based features, Vagaro’s Rent Collection feature is an especially useful tool for salons and solves what has always been a major issue. Among other things, it enables salon owners and managers to charge booth renters, schedule recurring payments, store digital renter's agreements and deduct commission from booth rent.

GlossGenius: GlossGenius offers many of the same Team Management features that Vagaro does, such as a synced staff calendar, customizable permissions and commission reports. The caveat is that most of them only become available with GlossGenius’s Gold Plan. Their software does not offer a rent & fees collection feature.

The Takeaway: Vagaro and GlossGenius have similar features for running a team of employees. A significant difference is that Vagaro makes many of their strongest employee management features available straight away, without the need for tier upgrades. GlossGenius requires a plan upgrade for nearly all of them.

Best for Pricing

Vagaro: Vagaro’s pricing begins at $30/£30 per month for a single user, which increases by $10/£10 for each additional calendar, but it caps out at seven and any more than that are free. This pricing structure is meant to accommodate businesses of varying sizes.

This standard plan gives you access to most of the features needed to start and manage your salon business.

Beyond what is included in their base plan, Vagaro’s approach is to give businesses the option to choose features that are most useful and important to them by providing an à la carte feature structure, rather than having them upgrade to a more expensive plan that bundles added features they don’t need. In this way, you only pay for what you need & use with Vagaro. GlossGenius: GlossGenius offers two simple pricing plans:

**Standard Plan: $24/Month

Gold Plan: $48/Month**

GlossGenius offers highly competitive pricing, and many basic features are included in their Standard Plan. However, several of GlossGenius’s employee management tools require a membership upgrade to access. The Takeaway: On one hand, Vagaro’s individual premium features can become expensive for some, especially those with multiple accounts. On the other hand, GlossGenius requires an upgrade for several client & employee management tools that Vagaro makes available right away. So, you may not need as many premium features as you think with Vagaro’s base package.

Still, with such features as Forms & Waivers, both Vagaro and GlossGenius require you pay a little more—Vagaro with adding premium features, and GlossGenius with a plan upgrade.

When it comes to comparing the pricing structures of Vagaro and GlossGenius, much depends on your business and what you need most. Factors such as number of staff, complexity of your services, and marketing requirements will influence which plan—and which pricing structure—is the best fit.

Best for Customer Support

Vagaro: Providing reliable and responsive customer support is something Vagaro prides itself on. Vagaro offers multiple channels for assistance, including 24/7 live phone support and live chat, as well as email support. This diverse range of options ensures that customers can get help in the way that suits them best when they need it.

It's particularly crucial for businesses in the salon and spa industries, where any technical issues could potentially disrupt appointments, affect customer satisfaction and, ultimately, revenue.

GlossGenius: Like Vagaro, GlossGenius offers live support from actual human beings, as well as email support. Their help center is available Monday–Friday from 10am–8pm EST and Saturday from 11am–8pm EST. This is also good, because, as we said, not all booking software companies offer live support.

The Takeaway: Both companies value quick problem resolution and assistance—in fact, Vagaro’s Customer Support team has a companywide call response benchmark of 3 minutes.

Best for Credit Card Processing

Vagaro: Vagaro provides customers with a free Contactless Card Reader (with Merchant Services), which carries flexible payment processing rates geared toward a business’s size, with the lowest being 2.2% +19¢, geared toward high-volume merchants.

GlossGenius: GlossGenius charges one flat rate of 2.6% for all transactions. Charging a fixed rate like this can make it easier for businesses—especially as they grow in number. GlossGenius does provide credit card processing and payment solutions as part of their Standard Plan. However, chargeback protection for card reader transactions and Tap to Pay on iPhone transactions are only available at their Gold Plan. GlossGenius also only offers a discount on the first card reader for Gold Plan members.

The Takeaway: Both Vagaro and GlossGenius offer competitive payment processing rates. The choice between GlossGenius’s fixed credit card processing or Vagaro’s rates depends on your business’ size and number of employees.

Best for Marketing

Vagaro: Vagaro provides several features that help you market your business. One of these is automated emails, of which Vagaro gives you 1,000 free per month. Businesses can also add text marketing as an add-on. Vagaro also leverages a Marketplace where millions of people search for services daily. Vagaro businesses average 3 new customer bookings per staff member, per month (at $100 per booking) thanks to their Marketplace listing. A free listing with unlimited Daily Deals and bookings that never carry any fees come with a Vagaro Merchant Services Vagaro account.

GlossGenius: GlossGenius also offers many of the same marketing features as Vagaro—sans a Marketplace and its accompanying benefits. They do, however, make email and text marketing available in their Standard Plan. An advanced AI email feature becomes available after upgrading to their Gold Plan.

The Takeaway: Both Vagaro and GlossGenius offer automated email & text marketing tools, though GlossGenius makes them available without an upgrade, or in Vagaro’s case, an add-on. Vagaro’s big advantage, however, is its Marketplace and all the benefits therein. GlossGenius does not offer this benefit, nor does most booking software on the market.

Best For Business Growth

Vagaro: Over time, Vagaro has added features focused on significant growth and managing multiple business locations.

Vagaro Pay Later: An example of the buy now, pay later (BNPL) model, Vagaro Pay Later enables its users to sell more luxurious, high-ticket services, packages and memberships by giving clients the option to pay in four interest-free installments while you get paid in full, upfront. *(Currently available in US only)

Vagaro Capital: Vagaro Capital is small business funding that makes a sizable cash advance—anywhere from $1,000–$300,000—available to approved businesses in 48 hours to grow, expand or diversify their operations. *(Currently available in US only).

Enterprise & Multilocation Features: Vagaro also offers several tools designed for multi-location businesses. These include multilocation appointment, employee, payroll management, enterprise security features, fast data import & onboarding, and a dedicated customer success manager.

GlossGenius: Such multi-location and enterprise features listed above, presently, are not offered by GlossGenius.

The Takeaway: Like GlossGenius, Vagaro offers a strong set of tools for solopreneurs and small businesses. But Vagaro’s software is also ideal for solopreneurs who aspire to open their own salon, and salon owners who envision opening a second, third (or fourth!) location.

Both Vagaro and GlossGenius offer robust booking and management solutions for salons & spas. Both offer good value for your money, while taking different routes on pricing & structure. Despite servicing businesses in a range of industries, Vagaro knows the needs of the salon & spa industries well, and offers an extensive feature set, strong customization options, and responsive customer support. Keep in mind that your choice should be based on your specific business needs, preferences and budget. The proof is there for you, as you are invited to take advantage of Vagaro’s 30-day free trial so you can experience what the software can do, firsthand.