For salons and spas
Salon websites where the client books the stylist, not a generic slot.
Chair time is the product. Clients pick a stylist, a service with a real duration, and a time that is actually free. Cancellations do not sit empty because nobody could text the waitlist.
A salon booking is not a restaurant cover. The client is choosing a person, a service that has a length, and often a deposit, at 11pm from an Instagram photo. If the only reply path is a DM that waits until morning, the appointment goes to whoever answered first.
Nookado puts the service menu and the real calendar on a site you own. Each stylist has hours. Each service has a duration and a price. The assistant can book from that list after the floor is dark. It cannot invent a colour service you do not offer.
The problem
Where a salon loses chair time.
The appointment book is an Instagram inbox
A client messages at 11pm, gets a reply at 10am, and three messages later there is still no time attached. The urgency that made them write has gone. Someone else already took them.
A cancellation is a dead hour
Two hours of colour drops at short notice. Nobody can work a waitlist between clients. The chair sits empty and the day does not recover.
The wrong service lands in the wrong gap
A client books a trim and arrives for balayage. The rest of the day is now the wrong shape, and a later client was turned away for a slot that no longer exists.
No-shows with nothing attached
A long service with no deposit and no reminder that gets read is a full slot at risk. Twice a week is a real share of the month, and it never shows up as a cancelled booking because it never was one.
The approach
The site is the price list. The calendar is chair time.
We take the services you already sell: cut, colour, treatment, extensions, spa time, each with a length and a price, and the stylists or therapists who perform them. That becomes the public menu and the only things the calendar will accept.
Clients book a person, not a generic opening. Time off and booth-renter days block that person without you rebuilding the week. Deposits attach to the services where a no-show hurts, and stay off the ones where they would just annoy a regular.
The assistant answers from that same list after close: price, duration, who does what, the cancellation window. A booking it takes is a real slot, not a request in a shared inbox.
What's included
What sits around the chair.
A salon website with the service menu written out
Prices, durations, and add-ons as text. Most enquiry messages are price questions. This answers them before anyone types, and it is what local search can actually quote.
Appointment booking by stylist and service
A two-hour colour cannot land in a forty-minute gap. A stylist who works Thursday to Sunday is only ever offered those days.
An AI appointment assistant
It books from live availability, knows the cancellation window, and can offer a released slot when someone drops. It does not diagnose hair and it does not promise a result.
Deposits and reminders on the long work
Stripe deposits on colour and extensions if you want them. Reminders before the appointment, not a text after it was missed.
Salon marketing that uses the work you already do
Local SEO for the services people search with a town name. Weekly posts from real chairs, not stock hair. Ads only when a specific service or a quiet day needs filling.
What changes
What the week looks like after.
The inbox stops being the book
Overnight bookings arrive as appointments, not as threads to finish in the morning before the first client.
The day keeps the shape you sold
Durations are attached to services, so a colour cannot silently become a cut-and-go in the calendar.
A dropped colour has somewhere to go
Regulars who wanted that stylist can be offered the slot. You do not have to work the list between foils.
How it works
How a salon is set up.
You send the service list and who does what
Durations, prices, stylist or therapist hours, and which services take a deposit. If booking lives in a paper book or in Instagram, say so; we do not need a clean export.
We build the site around chair time
Service pages, stylist availability, and a booking path a client can finish on a phone. The gallery is compressed so it loads on mobile data.
Existing appointments are entered before you switch
You keep taking bookings the old way until go-live. Forward work is copied in so nobody is lost, then new bookings come through the site and the assistant.
Reminders and cancellation offers start on the long services
You choose which services get a deposit. We do not put one on a blow-dry unless you ask.
Pricing
What a salon pays.
Core is $199 to build and $49 a month: the website, per-stylist booking, the app, the assistant, and the dashboard. Stripe processes deposits; those fees are Stripe’s, not ours.
Weekly social and ads are on the higher plans. Before-and-after posts are usually the social work that matters here. You can stay on Core if you only want the book online.
Services
Services that matter for a salon.
Website design
Website design
A fast, mobile-first site with your menu or service list structured so search engines can read it, on your own domain.
See detailsAI booking assistant
AI booking assistant
Answers questions about hours, pricing, and availability, and takes bookings at 2am without anyone on shift.
See detailsMobile app
Branded mobile app
Your own app on the App Store and Google Play, with the same ordering and booking as the site, under your name.
See detailsLocal SEO
Local SEO
Google Business Profile, local schema, and the on-page structure that decides whether you show up in the map pack.
See detailsSocial media management
Social media management
Weekly posts planned, designed, and published by a real team, timed to when your customers are actually online.
See detailsLocal advertising
Local ad campaigns
Geofenced campaigns aimed at people close enough to walk in, weighted toward the hours you need to fill.
See detailsWorth reading
Written for this kind of business.
Article
The bookings you never see: what happens after you close
Customers decide to book at the point they think of it, which is rarely during your opening hours. If the only way to book is a phone call, that decision expires overnight.
5 min readGuide
Local SEO starter guide for appointment businesses
A working order of operations for local SEO when your business runs on appointments, written for owners rather than marketers.
11 min readGuide
How to cut no-shows without annoying your customers
No-shows are a scheduling problem before they are a discipline problem. The tools that work are the ones that make it easy to cancel early.
9 min readQuestions
Salons and spas questions.
Can each stylist keep their own hours and days off?+
Yes. Availability is per person. Time off blocks that calendar without you rebuilding the week, and a booth renter who is only in three days is only offered those days.
Can we take a deposit on colour but not on a cut?+
Yes. Deposits are per service. Most rooms attach one to colour and extensions and leave cuts and blow-dries alone.
Do clients have to download the app?+
No. Booking works in the browser. The app is for regulars who rebook, and it is where a released cancellation can land as a notification.
What happens to the appointments already in the book?+
You keep taking them as you do now while we build. At launch we enter the forward work so nothing is dropped, then new bookings come through the site.
We are a spa with treatments, not only hair. Does that fit?+
Yes. A treatment is still a person, a duration, and a room. We set services and practitioners the same way. Say what the rooms are on the call.
Other trades
Not quite your business?
The booking unit is different in each of these. A cover is not a chair hour, and a chair hour is not a class place.
Restaurants
The menu, the table, and the order should live on a site you own, not on a marketplace that charges per cover. Guests read the dishes, reserve a time, or scan a QR at the table.
See restaurantsNail salons
Set, gel, acrylic, length, shape, art, fill, removal: the total should be obvious before a technician is interrupted. Walk-ins and appointments share a live view of who is free.
See nail salonsClinics
A first consult, a review, and a procedure are different lengths and different paperwork. Reception should not spend the morning on hold answering where to park.
See clinicsGyms and studios
Members book a class against a real cap. A first-timer books a trial that is treated as a lead, not a free drop-in that disappears. Membership questions get answered at 10pm.
See gyms and studiosLocal businesses
Pet groomers, tattoo studios, driving instructors, tutors, detailers, repair shops. If the week runs on appointments or quotes, the public site should collect a usable enquiry without pulling you off the job.
See local businesses