GlossGenius website or your own site

The GlossGenius website is a good booking page, and it comes with every plan. What it is not is a website you own. It lives at an address that ends in GlossGenius's name, it cannot use a website name of your own, and it is part of a monthly subscription

So for most people the best answer is both. Keep GlossGenius for booking and payments, where it is very good, and own a site that does the selling, with a Book button that opens your GlossGenius page. Below is what each one costs, what you own with each, and when the booking page alone is enough

What the GlossGenius website is

GlossGenius is a booking and payments app for beauty pros, and every plan includes what it calls a Custom Booking Website. It is a page made from your GlossGenius account that shows your services and lets a client pick a time and book. For a lot of people it is the first link they share, and it does that job well

The address is the catch

GlossGenius's help pages say you can only change the part of the address that comes before their own name, and that "Custom domains are not supported at this time". You can forward a website name you own to it, but that only sends people on to the GlossGenius address

That matters more than it sounds. If that page is your website, every link in your bio, every business card and every Google listing points at an address GlossGenius controls. If you ever move to Vagaro or Square, every one of those links leads back to an account you have closed, and you start again

What it costs

GlossGenius has three plans for beauty pros. The website is not a separate charge. It comes with whichever plan you pick

On top of the plan, card payments cost a flat 2.6%, and instant payouts are another 1.8%. So if you already book through GlossGenius, you are already paying for the website, and it costs you nothing more to use it

The other side of that is that the website belongs to the subscription. GlossGenius says that if you cancel, clients can book until the end of your last billing cycle, and then the account locks

What you get and what you own

Keep GlossGenius for booking, own the website

If you like GlossGenius, keep it. The calendar and the payments are what it is for, and nothing I build replaces them. What a site of your own adds is everything that happens before the booking: the photos that make someone choose you, services explained to a stranger, and an address that stays yours whichever app you use

1. Your site lives at your own website name, with your work, your services and what you charge
2. Every Book button on it opens your GlossGenius page, so clients book and pay exactly as they do now
3. Your calendar and payments stay where they are, and nothing about your day changes
4. If you ever switch apps, the Book button points somewhere new and every link you have shared still works

That is how I set up websites for hair stylists and makeup artists, and the button costs nothing extra. It is a link

Vagaro and Booksy work much the same way

Vagaro is $30 a month for one person. There is a $23.99 rate for the first six months, which is a promotion. Its website, called MySite, is an add-on at $20 a month on top of the subscription in the US. That is $240 a year for the website alone, or $1,200 over five years

Booksy is $29.99 a month, plus $20 a month for each extra team member. It does not list a website builder at all. What you share is a link to your Booksy profile

The answer is the same for both, and for Square too. Keep the app for booking, and point your own site's Book button at it

When the GlossGenius page is enough

A site of your own is not always worth it. The booking page on its own is probably enough when one of these is true

• You are booked solid from regulars and referrals, and you are not looking for new clients
• Nearly everyone finds you on Instagram and books straight from your bio
• You are just starting out, and the money is better spent on your kit or your training
• You would rather not have one more thing to look after

You can always add a site later, and the booking side does not have to change when you do

What a site of your own costs with me

I build three kinds of site, and all three prices are public: a one-page site for $500, a multi-page site for $1,000, and a full build for $1,800. You pay once. The only cost after that is your website name, about $11 a year, registered to you

I write every word, test every page on a real phone, and it takes one to two weeks. If GlossGenius already handles your booking, the multi-page site is usually the right fit. The full build adds a dashboard for inquiries and contracts signed online, which earns its price on bridal work more than on a chair booked by the hour

Questions people ask next