Phorest is salon software out of Dublin, and on two of the points this cluster usually turns on there is nothing between us: no cut of the individual appointment, unlimited staff on every plan. We will not pretend otherwise. What differs is how you find out what it costs. Every Phorest plan is quoted on request, and the plans are described as suited to salons with three or more staff. Salon Wizard publishes its price and lets you build the whole thing before anyone speaks to you.
from €7.00 per month – published, not quoted on request
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Providers who quote on request Unlimited staff and devices on every plan, according to Phorest – with us that holds from the Team plan, while Solo is written for one person
Only additional locations carry a fixed, transparent surcharge.
| Criterion | Salon Wizard | Phorest |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Fair flat price – monthly or yearly | Four salon plans plus a separate med-spa line, each quoted on request – no figure is published on the pricing page; Phorest describes its software as suited to salons with three or more staff |
| Staff | Unlimited – no extra charge | Unlimited staff and devices on every plan, according to Phorest – with us that holds from the Team plan, while Solo is written for one person |
| Your own booking website | Yes, under your brand | Booking on the salon's own website, social channels and a branded client app – not a marketplace profile |
| Data ownership | German servers, GDPR, your data | An Irish provider under the same European data protection law – nothing to choose between us on this row |
| Third-party ads & competition | None – only your business | None – Phorest runs no consumer marketplace, so no competitor is listed beside you |
Neither Phorest nor we take a share of the individual appointment – that is not a difference, and a comparison page that invents one is not worth reading. What you can weigh is the plan itself: ours stands on the pricing page, theirs comes back from a quote.
Your guests book on your own page under your own name – and Phorest works the same way, on the salon's site, social channels and a branded client app rather than in a marketplace. The difference is not the principle. It is that you can put your page live here today, on your own, and see the price first.
Your client records sit on servers in Germany. Phorest is an Irish company under the same European data protection law, so this is not the argument against them and we will not dress it up as one. It counts when you are weighing a provider from outside the EU – not here.
Staff are included in the Team plan, however many you have, and only a further location carries a fixed surcharge. Phorest goes one step further on paper: unlimited staff and unlimited devices sit on every plan including its entry tier, while with us the Solo plan is written for a business one person runs. What you can check here is what the step up costs, because it is printed.
Sign up, name your salon, add your opening hours – no payment details.
Set up treatments with duration and price, then add your staff. Included in the Team plan at no extra cost.
Your page goes live and guests book under your brand – every appointment is yours.
Switching from Phorest changes fewer things than most moves in this cluster – which is the honest way to put it. Three of them are real.
Instead of a quote per salon you pay a published plan. That makes the next decision – a second location, a bigger team – something you can calculate for yourself rather than something you have to ask about.
Phorest bundles a marketing suite, stock management and a point of sale around the calendar. We do not. If you use those daily that is a loss; if you open them twice a year it was weight you were carrying.
After the switch the appointment hangs on no particular till. Your clients pay in the salon exactly the way you handle it today, and the calendar has no opinion about which device is on the counter.
The calendar, staff scheduling, services with duration and price, client records with history and recurring appointments, online booking around the clock and your own booking page. The whole team is included in the Team plan at no extra cost, exactly as you are used to.
The point of sale, stock management, integrated payments, the marketing suite and – on the plans that carry it – the branded client app Phorest builds for salons. We have no certified till at all, not a light version, none, so if you settle cash through the same software today, you will keep needing a till of your own. You also give up the account manager: what you get instead is a product you can drive yourself.
No, and neither do we. Phorest runs a subscription with no share of the individual appointment. Anyone comparing the two should therefore ignore commission entirely and look at what the plan covers, what it costs, and when you are allowed to see that.
That is their decision and we will not guess at the reason. What we can describe is what the pricing page does: it names its plans and asks you to request a quote for each of them. Our price stands on our own pricing page, and it is the same price whether you are a first salon or a fifth.
Phorest describes its plans as suited to salons with three or more staff, so a solo business is not the case it writes for. That is a choice of audience, not a fault. Salon Wizard starts at the solo plan and stays the same software as you take people on.
Phorest advertises unlimited staff on every one of its plans, so on that line there is nothing between us – if anything it goes further, because ours holds from the Team plan while Solo is written for a business one person runs. What a bigger team does to a quoted price is something only the quote shows.
In shape, less than you might expect: both are subscriptions and both include the team. What differs is visibility. Ours is published and you can sign up against it; theirs is assembled for you in a conversation. We deliberately quote no figure of theirs – we have none to quote, and an invented one would be worse than silence.
Ask for the export while your access is still running. Which fields you get, and in which format, is your current provider's decision and not a promise we can make on its behalf. In Salon Wizard you then set up client records, services and opening hours.
That depends on the country you invoice in, and the answer varies a great deal. The question to ask is whether your law requires a certified security device for electronic tills and from what point it applies – in Germany, for example, exactly that holds for cash trade with an electronic till. Phorest includes a point of sale in its plans. Salon Wizard deliberately is not a till: we plan appointments, keep the client record and write invoices, and the till stays whatever you use today.
The tailoring, mostly. A quote can be shaped around your case, and an onboarding conversation surfaces things a signup form never asks. If you want that hand-holding, Phorest offers it and we do not. If you would rather see the price, build the thing and decide on a Sunday evening, that is what we are built for.
A comparison answers the price question. It does not answer the question of fit. What each plan contains is on the pricing page – how Salon Wizard works in the day-to-day of your trade is what the vertical pages beside it show, each with the services, routines and examples that are usual there.