How Much Does Booth Renter Software Cost Per Month in 2026?

How much does booth renter software cost per month?

Plan on two numbers: a subscription of $20 to $30 a month, and card processing of 2.3% to 2.9% on everything you run. Fresha's solo plan is $19.95, Lilo Booth is $20 flat, GlossGenius starts at $24, Booksy at $29.99, Vagaro near $30 per calendar, and Square Appointments has a genuine $0 tier.

The subscription is the small number. A renter running $6,000 of card volume a month pays roughly $156 in processing at 2.6%. No subscription on this page comes close, and most renters comparing stickers never run that math. The twist: processing is priced within a narrow band on every platform, so it inflates every total without picking a winner.

What does pick a winner is the subscription itself, because the plans differ sharply on whether the tools that fill a chair (marketing, loyalty, texting, intake forms) are included or sold back as add-ons. The sections below price each piece so you can total the real number instead of the sticker. If you run a team or a salon floor, the staffed version of this math lives in what salon software costs per month.

What do the solo plans charge in 2026?

Here are the plans a booth renter would shop, priced at their solo tier. Card rates shown are each platform's standard in-person rate, since most booth-renter payments happen at the chair.

Verified June 2026Lilo is listed by its own publisher; confirm competitor figures at each provider's site, since plans change often.

Software	Solo plan / mo	In-person card rate	New-client commission	What's metered extra
Lilo Booth	$20 flat	2.50% + $0.30	None	SMS number $10/mo; email included
Fresha	$19.95 (Independent)	2.29% + $0.20	20% new client ($6 min)	Team members $14.95 each
GlossGenius	$24 (annual; $28 monthly)	Flat 2.6%	None	AI and team tools on Gold $48 / Platinum $148
Booksy	$29.99 (first user)	2.49% + $0.10 (reader)	Boost: 30% first visit ($10-$100)	$20 per added staff
Vagaro	$30 per calendar (promo $23.99)	~2.75%	None (has marketplace)	Forms $10, website $20, SMS from $20
Square Appointments	$0 (Free)	2.6% + $0.15	None	Marketing ~$15, SMS $10, Loyalty ~$45

A few honest reads on the table. Fresha has the lowest subscription and the lowest listed card rate, but its marketplace takes 20% of a new client's first visit. GlossGenius's $24 is the annual rate; month-to-month is $28. Booksy and Vagaro both climb once you add staff or switch on add-ons, which matters less to a solo but tells you how the platform thinks. Square's $0 is real and pairs naturally with a reader you may already own. Lilo Booth is the flat one: the full suite included at $20 with no commission, and a single $10/month up-charge if you want texting on a dedicated number.

No solo plan on this table is expensive; the bill is decided by what gets stacked on top of it.

Does card processing decide which platform is cheapest?

Barely, and that surprises most shoppers. Processing is the largest line on the bill (2.3% to 2.9% of card volume, plus per-transaction cents), but the platforms price it inside a narrow band, so it raises every total by a similar amount and separates almost nothing.

Run the numbers once and the shape is clear. At $4,000 of monthly card volume, 2.6% is $104; at $8,000, it's $208. The gap between platforms at the same volume is a fraction of that. Two nuances worth knowing: Fresha lists the lowest in-person rate (2.29% + 20¢), and GlossGenius charges a flat 2.6% with no per-transaction cents, which favors small tickets. The free plan gets no discount here either: Square's $0 tier runs its highest rates (2.6% + 15¢ in person), so the month you get busy, "free" processes at full price.

Budget processing seriously, then set it aside. It tells you what taking cards costs; it doesn't tell you which platform to buy.

What does the full toolkit cost on each platform?

This is where the plans separate. A working booth business needs marketing, loyalty, reminders, and intake forms on top of the calendar, and the platforms split on whether those are included in the subscription or sold back as add-ons. Priced as a complete toolkit, the order changes:

• Lilo Booth: $20, or $30 with texting. Loyalty, referrals, memberships, email marketing, intake forms, backbar tracking, reporting, a branded website, and the Lilo AI assistant are all in the $20. The $10/month dedicated number for texting is the only add-on that exists.
• Square Appointments: roughly $70 on the "free" tier. The $0 plan books appointments; Email Marketing (about $15), SMS ($10), and Loyalty (about $45) are separate subscriptions, and there's no built-in AI assistant on any tier.
• Vagaro: about $80. The $30 calendar plus Forms ($10), a website ($20), and SMS marketing (from $20), each sold à la carte.
• GlossGenius: $24 to $56. The closest competitor on what's included, but intake forms, waivers, and automated rebooking prompts sit on Gold ($48 annual, $56 month-to-month), and unlimited AI queries sit on Platinum ($148), as of August 2026.
• Fresha and Booksy: low subscriptions, commission on top. $19.95 and $29.99 include real toolkits; the marketplace takes 20% or 30% of a new client's first visit instead.

Compare complete toolkits, not entry stickers: included-versus-add-on moves the order more than any processing rate does.

Do marketplace commissions count as software cost?

Count them as advertising, and be honest with yourself about whether the ads work. Booksy Boost charges a one-time 30% of a new marketplace client's first visit ($10 minimum, $100 cap). Fresha charges 20% with a $6 minimum. Both apply only to genuinely new clients from the directory, never to your existing book or your own link.

If you're new in town with an empty chair, paying 30% once for a client who rebooks all year can be a fair trade. If your book fills from referrals and regulars, the marketplace is a bill for clients you'd have found anyway, sitting next to a directory listing of your competitors. Platforms without a marketplace, Lilo included, charge no booking commission at all.

Which costs never show up on the pricing page?

Three of them, and they explain most of the "why is my bill so high" stories renters swap. None appears as a line item; all of them are real money.

• Paying salon-grade prices for a one-chair business. Platforms built for staffed salons price for staffed salons. Mangomint is genuinely polished software, and it runs $165 to $375 a month per location (Mangomint). One booth renter now moving to Lilo has been paying about $300 a month there, fifteen times Lilo Booth's $20, to run a single chair.
• The tier jump hiding behind one feature. The plan you priced isn't the plan you'll need if a feature you'll want sits one tier up. GlossGenius's Standard tier is well-bundled at $24 to $28, but intake forms, waivers, and automated rebooking prompts live on Gold ($48 annual, $56 month-to-month), and unlimited AI queries live on Platinum ($148), as of August 2026 (GlossGenius). The moment you want a consent form signed, your $28 plan is a $56 plan.
• A booking page that lists your competitors. On marketplace platforms like Vagaro and Booksy, the same directory that brings you new clients shows your regulars every other chair in town, one tap from your own booking page. Run the arithmetic: a regular who spends $75 every six weeks is about $650 a year. If the directory costs you one of them, the loss is bigger than a year of any solo plan on this page. That's not a reason to avoid marketplaces; it's a cost to weigh against the clients they send.

What does Lilo Booth cost, all-in?

$20 a month flat, plus standard Stripe processing, and one optional up-charge. The plan includes the pieces competitors meter: loyalty, referrals, memberships, email marketing with 1,500 emails a month, digital intake forms, backbar inventory tracking, advanced reporting, the Lilo AI assistant, and a branded website on a Lilo subdomain. Processing is 2.50% + $0.30 in person (+10¢ per Tap to Pay authorization) and 2.90% + $0.30 online, with no per-booking commission and no exit fees.

The up-charge: a dedicated phone number at $10/month, which turns on text reminders and SMS marketing. Email reminders and campaigns work without it, so budget $20 if email covers you and $30 if you want texting.

Two honest concessions. There's no free tier, so Square starts cheaper on sticker; Lilo's answer is a 30-day full trial with no card required. And GlossGenius's flat 2.6% beats Lilo's 30¢ per transaction on small tickets, so a renter doing mostly $30 services should run that comparison. The plan details live on the pricing page and the product tour on Lilo Booth, our salon software for booth renters.

How do you total your real monthly cost?

Add four lines, once a quarter:

• Subscription, at the tier you'd genuinely run, not the entry sticker.
• Processing: your monthly card volume times the platform's rate, plus per-transaction cents times your appointment count.
• Add-ons you'd switch on: texting, marketing, forms, a website.
• Commissions, if the platform runs a marketplace and sends you new clients.

Then sanity-check the two costs with no line item: whether a feature you'll want next year forces a tier jump, and whether your booking page doubles as a directory of your competitors.

A worked example at $6,000 of in-person volume and 80 appointments: Lilo Booth is $20 + $10 for the number + about $174 in Stripe fees, roughly $204 all-in with the entire suite running. The same month on the "free" plan is about $168 in processing plus roughly $70 in add-ons to approximate the marketing, texting, and loyalty: about $238, still without an AI assistant. The sticker said $0. The month said otherwise. Which is why the deciding question isn't the subscription; it's which features your chair runs on, and whether you keep your client list when you leave.