Phorest is the established, salon-only system with the deepest multi-site tooling of the group. The honest comparison is maturity and support against colour costing, the phone, and a one-year contract.
You run several sites, want a large support team behind you, and are comfortable committing to a year.
Colour cost and the phone are your live problems, you want to start lower than £150 a month, and you would rather not sign a twelve-month contract to find out whether a system suits you.
Superscripts link to the source at the foot of the page.
| SalonForge | Phorest | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly subscription | £50 to £250 depending on how many of the six products you take | Not published — quote only. From our own experience with Phorest, a single London branch ran between £155 and £169 a month including VAT, with one month at £200. Prices will have moved since; get your own quote.1 |
| Minimum term | None | One year, auto-renewing, with two months' written notice to cancel2 |
| Marketplace | No | No — Phorest is explicit that bookings are between the client and the salon2 |
| Colour weighed and costed to the gram | Yes, built in | Not natively. Available through a third-party integration.3 |
| The phone answered by AI | Yes — answers calls and books into the same diary | Their FrontDesk AI is text and WhatsApp based rather than voice, and was in early access at the time of checking4 |
| Back-bar stock deducted as it is used | Yes, at the point of use | Retail deducts automatically. Professional stock needs a staff member to deduct it.5 |
| Commission and mixed pay models | Yes — employed, self-employed and chair rental in one place | Yes, including self-employed setup and a cost-of-service deduction before commission is calculated6 |
They do not publish a price — their own pricing page lists tiers with no figures, so you have to ask for a quote. From our own experience running Phorest, a single London branch came to between £155 and £169 a month including VAT, with one month reaching £200. That was one branch on our package, and it is a couple of years ago now, so treat it as a sense of scale rather than a price list. Get your own quote, and ask about the term length while you are there — their published terms run a year and renew automatically.
Their published UK terms describe a one-year term that renews automatically, with two months’ written notice required to cancel. Read the current terms yourself before signing — this is the most common thing salon owners say they wish they had checked.
Not on its own. Gram-accurate weighing is available through a third-party colour-management integration. It works, but it is another company, another subscription and another set of records to keep aligned.
Thirty minutes, your diary and your colour spend. We will tell you if it is not a fit — a salon that signs up for the wrong reasons leaves within a year.
Book a demoPhorest is a trademark of its owner. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or partnered with them. This page reflects publicly available information on the date shown; Phorest may since have changed what it offers, so check with them directly before deciding.
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