Vagaro Vs Fresha Vs Trafft: Which Is Best for Your Salon?

Milos Timotic
March 31, 2022
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Do you want to make a success of your salon business? Make sure that you use the best salon software.

You may have already looked into different salon management software solutions. If so, you will likely have read many online reviews of different salon software.

This article compares three of the best appointment schedulers that you may never have heard of. Read on to discover some interesting details of Vagaro vs Fresha vs Trafft.

Table of Contents

Overview of Vagaro vs Fresha vs Trafft

Vagaro

Vagaro offers a complete salon management software solution for wellness and beauty centers. It also has a wide range of tools for keeping track of business operations.

It offers:

Inventory management
Employee management
Invoicing
Credit card processing
Marketing
Website building

The app generates reports on client retention and other important client management statistics.

The Vagaro app is accessible on Android and Apple devices. The developers can tailor it to the needs of your business, whatever its size.

Fresha

Fresha is the rebranded name of Shedul. This is an online scheduling application and point-of-sale system (POS).

Its design caters to the specific needs of spas and salons. As such, it has retail capabilities, inventory management, marketing tools, and statistics.

The free version allows unlimited team members. This is perfect for small businesses with several employees.

Also included is a client marketplace for salons. Here you can promote your salon and become accessible to a larger pool of potential clients.

A downside is that it does not provide for paid extras on a service. It is possible, but you have to generate a new service in the app or add the costs by hand.

Trafft

Trafft is a comprehensive platform for scheduling meetings, virtual appointments, and other events. Customers can make online bookings without taking up the time of your employees.

It caters to businesses that rely on appointments like clinics, salons, and gyms. Others, like musicians, housekeepers, and freelance photographers will also enjoy Trafft’s features.

Booking appointments is a time-consuming task. Trafft takes away much of the work that it involves.

Clients will also enjoy using it. It gives them the power to make and manage an appointment whenever they want.

Who Is It For?

Vagaro

Vagaro is best for busy salons needing solutions that make their work simpler. It also helps them to keep everything in one place.

This online booking software option works well for three main kinds of businesses:

Beauty centers like barbers, nail salons, and spas
Wellness businesses such as life coaches, nutritionists, and chiropractors
Fitness centers including gyms, personal trainers, and yoga instructors

Even people with little technical skill will enjoy it. They will be able to complete complex tasks like setting up marketing campaigns.

Fresha

Fresha, too, is for beauty and wellness centers, but its features are somewhat basic. So it is less suitable for larger salons or medical practices.

Yet, this free salon software is a good fit for smaller businesses in the industry. Because it allows for multiple team members, it is great for parlors and salons with more than one employee.

Trafft

Many businesses will find this online booking and scheduling software is a perfect option. Freelancers, small, and medium-sized businesses are already using it.

Trafft has among its clients:

Barbershops
Consultants
Gyms
Hairdressers
Housekeepers
Personal trainers
Photographers
Pilates and yoga instructors

It is an excellent choice for startup companies and other small businesses.

Ease of Use

Next in this Vagaro vs Fresha vs Trafft comparison is a review of how easy each one is to use.

Vagaro

The Vagaro interface is easy to use. Yet, it does have an overload of features and options.

This tends to make its learning curve steeper than that of the others. It also causes the app to slow down at times when you are browsing around the platform.

Vagaro offers free training sessions. There is an extensive knowledge base that contains many useful articles and videos.

Fresha

Setting up a Fresha account takes just a few clicks. The app guides you through the whole process.

During setup, you can watch a demo that helps you become familiar with the platform’s interface.

If you get stuck you can visit the Fresha help center or you can go to the community forum. You can also watch Youtube videos that show how certain features work.

In addition, you can submit specific questions to customer support via email.

Trafft

When you enter the online Trafft platform you can set up your availability. You can customize the booking page, and enter the kinds of services you provide.

The whole process is simple and intuitive.

The practical dashboard shows a quick summary of all upcoming appointments. You can see how many new customers you have acquired, revenue, occupancy, and much more.

Once the initial setup is complete, you can go over all the other settings. This is also when you can refine your availability and services.

It’s possible to get help in different ways:

Email support
Help desk
Phone support
Knowledge base
Chat support

Key Features

Vagaro

Online directory. People that are looking for a salon near them can go to the online Vagaro directory. You need to use the point-of-sale system to appear there, but it can work wonders for your business
Appointments. You can set it up so that people can make online bookings via Facebook, Vagaro, Yelp, or your business website. You can make a personalized booking page or add a booking widget to an existing website.
SOAP notes. This useful feature keeps track of the details and booking history of individual clients. That is most useful for personal trainers and therapists.
Payroll. There are different employee management features, like clocks, hourly pay, and commission administration. You can review payment slips as well and it integrates with QuickBooks and Gusto.

Fresha

Free plan. You only pay for payment processing. If you do not use Fresha for accepting payments, then you do not pay anything. You can still use the online booking, inventory management, and reporting features.
Fresha Marketplace. All businesses can get listed on the marketplace. Customers can see businesses and book appointments. There is a customer-finding fee of 20%, but you will recover it in no time.
Package deals. You can create package deals with Fresha. Customers can book them as a complete deal or in different sessions.
Calendar view. There are calendar options for individual stylists and for different locations. You can review the calendars of different employees and add breaks and shifts for each one.

Trafft

Calendar. In the calendar, you will see all the upcoming appointments for your week. You can click on the appointment to get more information about it.
Appointments. You can also go to the Appointments section to view them. This feature presents appointments in a list. You can apply filters to the list.
Employees. In this section, you can manage your employees. You can edit information and add or delete employees.
Customers. The Customers feature is like the Employees feature. It has information like how many appointments a customer has had and the last and first appointments.
Services. Here you find a list of the services that you offer.
Finance. The Finance section helps you to keep payment information up to date. This includes coupons, invoices, and taxes.

Strengths of Vagaro vs Fresha vs Trafft

Vagaro

A great feature that will save time and money is the SOAP notes. Vagaro sends appointment reminders to clients by SMS, which will reduce no-shows.

Vagaro offers many great in-app features. Yet, they keep their product at a reasonable price.

You can choose to add further integrations such as management software like QuickBooks.

It has some unusual advanced features. You can stream live video, accept payments for memberships, and track client history.

You can also use it for eCommerce. Vagaro offers ready-made designs if you decide to start an online shop.

Fresha

Strong points include the easy-to-use interface, the fact that it is free, and the continuous improvements. As a result, it has become one of the most popular salon software solutions on the market.

However, a downside is the limited customization options it offers.

It is already great as it is, so this will not be a problem for most. But, for example, you cannot change the appearance of the booking page.

There is also no option to integrate the online booking feature into an existing website.

Trafft

Trafft does what it should do. It makes the entire booking process easier for you and for your customers.

It can accept payments, has reputation management features, and improves client interactions.

It has SEO-optimized pages for online bookings. You can integrate them into Google or Instagram, and share them on your business cards.

You can even add them to your existing websites.

What makes Trafft very unique is the detailed reports that it generates. It helps you to keep track of your goals and KPIs.

It will show you how much time you spend on your services and how much money they generate for you.

Understanding these parameters helps you to improve your business operations. You can improve the services that have little return and reinforce the ones that do.

Pricing of Vagaro vs Fresha vs Trafft

This final comparison of Vagaro vs Fresha vs Trafft details the costs of each option.

Vagaro

The basic price for one person is $25 per month. You pay an extra $10 per month per person if you want to add staff members.

There are extra premium features like recurring memberships and the website builder. This could increase your monthly payment to $100.

Fresha

The basic plan is free. However, there are two ways in which it will cost money.

Fresha’s online marketplace enables potential clients to find beauty centers in their neighborhoods. For this, Fresha charges you a 20% finders fee.

Yet, this only applies to a first-time booking through the marketplace.

If you process payments through Fresha you will pay 2.19% + $0.20. That charge applies whether the person pays on the marketplace, your social media, website, or at your place of business.

Trafft

Trafft offers the following plans:

Free. Of course, the free plan does not offer all the features but it is a great starting point for smaller businesses.

Small salons that want to start automating their business operations will love this plan. It will allow you to see how robust Trafft is.

There are three premium plans:
- Basic ($12 per month or $108 per year)
- Pro ($24 per month or $228 per year)
- Expert ($48 per month or $460 per year)

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Milos Timotic

Technical Lead