Questions salon owners ask

SalonForge is one connected system that runs a whole hair salon. It covers the appointment diary and till, colour weighed and costed to the gram, the drinks bar and its stock, the phone, staff performance and pay, and hiring. The difference from most salon software is that these are not separate products behind one login — they read and write the same record, so the diary, the colour bowl, the till and the pay run all agree.

Six products, one shared record. Daviana is the booking spine — the diary, till and client record. The other five (the AI Receptionist, ColorLab, Bar, Performance and People) all read and write that same record rather than keeping their own copy of your clients. You do not have to take all six.

No. Most salons start with the diary and add one thing that is actively hurting — usually the phone or colour cost. Because everything reads the same record, adding a product later does not mean a second set-up or a second copy of your client list.

Hair salons — particularly ones past the point where a single diary app is enough: more than a few chairs, colour work, a mix of employed and self-employed stylists, and a phone that rings more than someone can answer. It is built for salon owners, not for a single mobile stylist.

The same team that runs six working salons, from London to Saudi Arabia, with partner salons across five countries. Every product was written because something on our own floor was broken. It is used every day in our own chairs before it reaches anyone else’s.

Between £50 and £250 a month, depending on which of the six products you take and how big the salon is. The bottom of that range is the diary, till and client record on its own. The top is everything — diary, colour, bar, the phone answered, performance and pay, and hiring. Most salons sit somewhere in the middle because they start with the diary and add the one thing that is actively hurting.

It is a monthly subscription. There is no charge per booking and no commission on your clients. See pricing for what sits at each end of the range.

Because a three-chair salon taking just the diary and a twelve-chair salon running all six products are not the same job, and pretending they cost the same would mean overcharging one of them. The range is real and we publish both ends of it. We confirm your exact figure on the demo — it is not a haggle, it is arithmetic on your chairs and your product list.

No. You pay a monthly subscription and that is it. We do not take a cut of your takings, we do not charge per booking, and we do not market your clients to other salons. Your client list is yours.

Your data is yours and you can export it. We would rather you stayed because the system works than because leaving is painful. Exact terms are covered on the demo.

Ask this of any salon system you look at, including ours — pricing that scales per head can change the maths considerably as you grow. We will be straight about how ours works on the call.

The two places salons usually find money are colour and the phone. Colour, because weighing the bowl shows what a head actually costs and where the overmixing is. The phone, because calls that ring out do not show up anywhere as a loss — you simply never hear from that person. Whether those add up to more than the subscription depends on your salon, and we would rather work that out with you on the demo than promise a number here.

It comes with you. Client records, contact details and appointment history are the things a salon cannot afford to lose, and moving them across is the first thing we deal with — not an afterthought. We will look at exactly what you have on the demo, because what can be moved depends on what your current system will let you export.

This is the one to ask hardest, of anyone. Notes and colour history are usually the messiest data in a salon and the easiest to quietly drop in a migration. Bring an example of what your current records look like to the demo and we will tell you honestly what will carry across and what will not.

It depends on the size of the salon and how much history is coming across. What matters more than the number of days is the sequencing — you do not want the changeover landing on a Friday. We plan it around your quietest week.

The honest answer is that the first busy day on any new system is the one that hurts, so we plan for it rather than pretend it will not happen. That means the diary being right before you go live, someone reachable on the day, and not moving everything at once.

For some parts, yes — the phone and colour can run before you move the diary, because they add something rather than replace something. Running two diaries at once is the one thing we would talk you out of; that is how double-bookings happen.

Yes — the same diary your front desk is looking at, not a copy it has to reach into from outside. That is the whole point. When it takes a booking, the slot is gone for everyone immediately, so two people cannot be given the same 2pm.

It hands over to a person rather than guessing. It will not invent a price, and it will not promise something the salon does not do. Being straight about what it does not know is more important than sounding clever.

We do not set out to trick anyone. In practice most callers want the same three things — an appointment, a price, or your opening hours — and they care much more about getting them quickly than about who answered. The alternative being compared against is usually voicemail.

Yes. Evenings, Sundays and the middle of your Saturday rush are exactly when calls ring out, and they are the calls least likely to ring back — most people simply try the next salon.

The diary, till and reporting run on what you already have. Colour weighing needs a scale that talks to the system, so the weight lands on the client’s record without anyone typing it in — if a stylist has to stop and write a number down on a Saturday, it will not happen.

Yes. It runs across salons from London to Saudi Arabia, and the site itself is in English, Italian, Russian and Spanish. If you need a specific language on the phone or in the app, ask on the demo.

Yes — it was built for a group, not retrofitted to one. You can see each salon on its own and the whole group together, which is usually the thing that is hardest to get out of software designed for a single site.

You reach the people who build it. We run salons ourselves, so a Saturday going wrong is not an abstract support ticket to us — it is the same day of the week that hurts us.

Thirty minutes, on your numbers rather than ours. Bring your current colour spend, a normal week’s diary and your biggest annoyance. We will show you the parts that touch that problem and skip the rest. There are no slides.

It helps if you know roughly what you spend on colour a month and how many calls you think go unanswered — but if you do not know those numbers, that is a useful finding in itself and a fair place to start.

We will tell you if we do not think it fits. Salons talk to each other, and a salon that signs up for the wrong reasons leaves within a year and tells people why.