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Hair Salon Software

Streamline your chair booking, track colour processing times, record skin test dates, and manage stylist columns with software built for UK hair salons.

Your salon diary is the core of your day. It's got to coordinate stylists, track colour stock, record skin tests, and handle busy Saturdays. You need a live map of chair space, staff availability, and colour processing times. Software must understand how a salon actually functions, from online balayage bookings to checkout.

Generic booking systems try to fit hair salons into templates built for dog groomers. When you use a general booking tool, you quickly find the cracks. These systems treat bookings as single blocks of time, so they can't handle development gaps where stylists cut other clients' hair. They don't track skin test histories or store colour formulas, leaving you to run your salon with paper notes to avoid double bookings.

What hair salons need that general booking tools miss

A single visit involves multiple services, processing times, and staff. To keep your columns full, you need a diary built for hair salons.

  • Multi-service bookings with development times. A highlights appointment needs forty-five minutes to apply, forty-five minutes to develop, and thirty minutes to blow-dry. If your software blocks the full two hours for one stylist, your chair sits empty when it should be earning. Multi-service bookings let you schedule a haircut during development, fitting two bookings into one slot.
  • Skin test compliance. Running a colour business safely requires tracking skin tests. Luminate tracks and flags skin test records on customer profiles, ensuring your front-of-house team knows who needs a test before they arrive, without relying on paper cards.
  • Colour formulas and overage. Every client's formula is highly specific. Luminate lets you record these colour formulas directly in customer profiles. You can also track overage billing for extra-thick hair, ensuring you bill for the exact amount of product you use.
  • Staff levels and commission automation. Luminate includes staff levels and commission automation to track earnings based on targets. While you set prices manually, the system automates calculations based on roster and sales data.

What Luminate costs

Luminate charges a flat rate of £69 per month, with every feature included. You get unlimited staff accounts, so you're not charged per user, and you can connect unlimited tills. The price includes 300 SMS credits each month, with email and WhatsApp messaging included. This monthly rolling billing has no contract, no minimum term, and no exit fee.

Compare this flat fee to software charging £30 per user each month:

The 30-day free trial includes every feature, requires no credit card, and comes with a free onboarding call.

  • A six-chair salon. At £30 per user, you pay £180 per month (£2,160 a year). Luminate costs £69 per month (£828 a year), saving you £1,332 every year.
  • An eight-chair salon. At £30 per user, you pay £240 per month (£2,880 a year). Luminate costs £69 per month (£828 a year), saving you £2,052 every year.

Deposits and no-shows

No-shows cost your salon thousands of pounds a year. When a client fails to turn up, your stylist stands idle and you can't recover that lost time. Taking card deposits when clients book online protects your columns.

Luminate lets you set deposits for each service as a fixed sum or percentage. If a client doesn't pay within thirty minutes, the booking cancels itself. This keeps your calendar clear.

There is no monthly gateway fee or setup cost. Each online payment costs 2% plus 20p for card processing:

Your clients pay securely online, and the funds go straight to your bank account, filtering out timewasters and respecting your team's time.

  • A £20 online payment. The card processing cost is 60p.
  • A £50 online payment. The card processing cost is £1.20.

Moving from your current system

You shouldn't have to spend your evenings manually typing client histories. The Luminate support team runs your migration to make the transition straightforward.

Contact hello@luminate.salon with your current system details. The team helps you prepare your data as a ZIP of JSON files. Before anything is written, a validation dry run checks every record. The import runs inside a single database transaction that either completes or rolls back, so you won't end up with partial files.

Plan this migration before entering any data, as imports require a fresh salon account. Here is what comes across:

Once complete, check two defaults. First, ensure your imported services are bookable online, as they arrive deposit-free. Second, check that staff are on the roster so they can accept bookings.

  • Customer records. Client preferences, tags, badges, and active account credit.
  • Staff profiles. Roster settings, staff levels, monthly targets, and commission bands.
  • Roster data. Shifts, roster data, and time blocks.
  • Services and products. Services with deposit rules, online booking settings, products, and your colour catalogue.
  • Appointments and vouchers. Upcoming bookings and active gift vouchers.
  • Transactions. Historic transactions with all items and payments.
  • Colour test records. Colour test histories and signed consent signatures.

Questions to ask any supplier

Before signing up with any provider, you need to know exactly what the agreement says. The sales pitch is polished, and the actual terms are in the contract details:

The software you choose runs your daily salon business. It should keep your diary full, protect your time with deposits, and make your commission calculations straightforward. If you want to see how Luminate works, you can start a 30-day free trial today without entering a credit card.

  • Is there a per-user charge? If you pay per user, your bill increases every time you hire. Ask if the price is a flat rate or scales with staff numbers.
  • What is the contract length? Annual contracts lock you in. Ask if there is a contract term, what the notice period is, and if there are exit fees.
  • Who owns my data? If you leave, you must be able to take your client list. Ask if you can export your data as a ZIP of CSV or JSON files.
  • Are there extra fees? Ask if every feature is included in the base price, or if you pay extra for features like online booking, reminders, or staff performance reports.
  • What are the card processing fees? Ask if there are monthly gateway fees, setup costs, or extra charges on top of the standard online payment rate.