Built for salons. Not for everyone.
Acuity Scheduling (now Squarespace Scheduling) was designed for anyone who sells time — accountants, coaches, photographers, personal trainers, and yes, salons too. That versatility sounds appealing, but it means the platform was never optimised for how salons actually work. There are no colour formulas, no salon-specific treatment menus, no walk-in POS, and no product inventory for retail upsells. You get a generic booking tool and adapt it as best you can.
Acuity gives you a hosted booking page at a Squarespace subdomain — not a real salon website. If you want your salon to appear on Google with your own domain and professional design, you need to pay for a separate Squarespace website plan on top of your Acuity subscription. That is two bills, two platforms, and two sets of settings to manage — just to have what other salon software includes out of the box.
Acuity prices by "calendars" — the number of bookable team members. The Emerging plan covers one person at $20/mo. The moment you bring on a second stylist, you jump to Growing at $34/mo. At six stylists you hit Powerhouse at $61/mo. A growing salon pays more automatically, even if you use fewer features than before. DoTheBeauty charges a flat monthly fee — up to 8 staff on Growth, and unlimited on Pro.
Salon revenue does not only come from booked appointments. Retail product sales, walk-in clients, and on-the-spot billing are everyday reality in a busy salon. Acuity has none of this: no point-of-sale for walk-ins, no product catalogue for retail, and no inventory tracking for back-bar stock.
Mixed bookings — where one client books a colour service with one stylist and a cut with another, all in one visit — are a core workflow for many salons. Acuity is a single-slot scheduling tool. It can manage individual calendars, but it cannot intelligently coordinate a single appointment across multiple stylists and service durations the way a dedicated salon platform can.
$20–$61/mo (monthly billing) or $16–$49/mo (annual billing)
Monthly subscription priced by number of bookable calendars
Your client wants a cut with Bonnie and a keratin treatment with Lisa. Traditional booking systems make them book twice. DoTheBeauty handles it in one seamless flow.
Same 2.5 hours. Traditional booking: one client, one stylist blocked. DoTheBeauty: Emma's full multi-stylist appointment AND a second client in Bonnie's freed time.
Acuity Scheduling is a solid general-purpose booking tool. It handles appointments, intake forms, reminders, and payments well — for coaches, consultants, and solo practitioners. But a salon is not a generic appointment business. You have multiple stylists with different schedules, walk-in clients who need immediate billing, retail products to sell, and mixed-service appointments that span two chairs. DoTheBeauty was built specifically for this. Mixed bookings let a client book colour with one stylist and a trim with another in a single visit. The reception dashboard handles walk-ins and barcode-scanned product sales without a second platform. And the AI website builder gets your salon on Google — with your own domain — in about 10 minutes, no Squarespace account needed. Pricing is flat: €19.95/mo for Starter (up to 2 staff), €49/mo for Growth (up to 8 staff), €79/mo for Pro (unlimited). No per-stylist uplift as your team grows. If you want the full picture on what Acuity charges at each tier, see our <a href="/blog/acuity-scheduling-pricing-salon-cost-breakdown">Acuity Scheduling pricing breakdown for salons</a>. For a broader look at salon booking software, our <a href="/blog/best-salon-booking-system">guide to the best salon booking systems</a> covers all the major platforms side by side. Ready to try a platform built specifically for salons? <a href="/signup">Start your 7-day free trial</a> or <a href="/pricing">see our pricing plans</a>. --- **See also:** - [Fresha vs DoTheBeauty](/compare/fresha-alternative) — escape the 20% new client commission - [Booksy vs DoTheBeauty](/compare/booksy-alternative) — ditch the Boost marketplace fee - [Treatwell vs DoTheBeauty](/compare/treatwell-alternative) — cut the 35% commission and own your clients