Vagaro Reviews

Easy to use for both Staff and Online Booking for Clients.
Staff loves the App to keep an eye on booking.
Marketing tools are a good business driver.
Business reports are getting better with every update.
Online tutorials are great for new staff learning system.
Online chat option is AWESOME!
Customer Service is A+

-Cancelation/ Waiting List needs to be better- it's currently not useable for the large number of requests we have for a cancelation list.
-We've had some retail snafu's but those are getting better as well.
-Marketing promos could use a "retail" option.
-Checkout could have some updated options like a "hold in cart" so if you have to interrupt a sale you don't lose everything you put in checkout screen.

Vagaro is bette price than competitors and has a pretty up to date UI. It makes online reservation reasonably which is a must when trying to attract millennials. It tries to bring everything in house which could create opportunities for tighter integration. There is some hope that the software will improve as there is a lot of low hanging fruit and their CEO/Head of product has a clear strategy on how to take on the market. Support can be pleasant and responsive if you encounter the right staff. They have a lot of advanced features (though they are missing a lot of polish an finesse-- see below)

Some of the ui is non intuitive but with creative searching of the support site you can find the answer. It's better if you can get someone to handhold you through the process--- and that's a big if. Software is missing some pretty basic features:
1/ Unable to link directly to a service provider, class, workshop, package, etc. It makes it very difficult to promote these things via ads or social media
2/ E-mails lack calendar reminder attachment for people to add to their calendar
3/ Lack of a list for classes/workshops. Older populations have difficulty finding or seeing the search bar for the classes.
4/ Lacking HIPAA support despite having SOAP note support
5/ Inability to customize new client email, appointment reminders etc.
6/ Inability to run new client discounts.
7/ Inability to actually see how the customers will actually interact with the platform as documentation / demo is woefully inadequate.
8/ Workshops feature is pretty haphazardly put together. It's just a class that runs over a series of dates. No options for early bird pricing. No options for custom dates. You're better off handling workshops through eventbrite or eventbee.
9/ Inability to provide detailed feed back such as this. I'm a customer who's paying _despite_ their shortcomings. I may have even conducted more user testing on Vagaro than the employees. They seem content in having their dirty laundry aired in a public medium.

I have used MINDBody software for a number of different companies that I have worked with for client scheduling. Vagaro has simplified and streamlined the process of client management and appointment scheduling. I was able to transfer my whole business database to Vagaro in days.

The importing of clients of the software was not easy for me to use, but that could be because of the software I was previous using and sharing with another business owner.

The Customer service has quick response and my customers find it user friendly

Well first of all I know over 1000 stylist use this yet our industry is not listed in the pick an industry choice. So in case you don't know it is called the beauty industry, not cosmetics and not consumer services.
Any how I do wish the reports were more streamlined some how I do feel like I always need to go to a different screen to find out different reports.

The POS system seems to work okay, for the most part. Appt setting also seems to work okay.

Integration with QuickBooks is a joke!! It has not worked for the entire 1.5 years we have been with Vagaro, regardless of the number of emails, texts, chats, phone calls I have had with support and the amount of data and information I have provided to them in order to address the issue and prove that the integration is not functioning properly. We cannot trust any of the data coming from Vagaro as it simply does not match their own information!! We have paid the $30/mo integration fees for months and months, yet Vagaro has never provided us with data that appears to be even close to accurate in any stretch of the imagination! My suggestion? Look for another platform if you intend to use QuickBooks for your accounting integration platform. If you are using another platform, I would strongly suggest that you investigate the capabilities and do your homework and seek out user reviews before selecting Vagaro for anything other than a straight POS and appointment management system.

Very easy to use on both desktop and mobile; great price for what you get, especially for a small or individual practice--calendar, email/sms confirmations, online booking (if you choose to use that); reports (though either I haven't found some yet or they could be improved, i.e. I accept checks and it gives me a total for check deposit, but not the # of checks); integrated payment system takes clear and fair CC fees out as they occur, COVID clean checkout can send signature/gratuity page to clients mobile; a la carte pricing, i.e. I needed "forms" for sending COVID forms, but can cancel that portion anytime and save $10/mo if not needed; Inventory management--could be improved, but for around $30/mo, can't be beat from what I've found.

Deposit reports: how many checks are in the total that I need to deposit for a period of time? Would save me from adding all checks manually to see if amounts match; Inventory: To adjust current inventory items, it seems I need to do it item by item... they have a "mass edit", but I have never figured out how to get it to work for me and I HAVE contacted support about this issue, the back and forth chat is exhausting and sometimes you need to step away from the computer for a reason and the chat ends. Pricing on Service items: There should be a button to allow the pricing to show in the Appt and/or confirmation emails, if I want the price to show, I have to make it part of the Service title, thus when my prices change, I have to change each of those titles manually. I have clients who like to prewrite checks and they need to easily know the price ahead of time.

We went with Vagaro because it had many of the features our customers were accustomed to, such as loyalty rewards and memberships.

The customer memberships don’t roll over if the customer doesn’t use the service that month. The way the system tracks multi service prepaid packages, is confusing and nonsensical. I spend countless hours a month combing the system for these errors and it makes our company look incompetent to our customers.

The interface is easy to navigate and is much more client-user friendly than other booking software. And Daily Deals are great!

Vagaro still doesn't have a lot of little features/extensions that would make doing business even easier, but they keep adding new things, which is helpful.

Best feature offerings which can be customized fairly easily. Excellent price for the value. Live customer support is essential, while this could be better in how it is set up Vagaro staff care about doing good, thorough work to be helpful. That is like gold as a business owner when trying to trouble shoot so this is their strongest asset in my mind.

The platforms, and even features, are inconsistent on how things are seen & done. For instance, creating a gift certificate through "reports" with a discount shows up on your quarterly reports differently than if you create a gift certificate through the "check out" screen and do the same discount there. Also, the application is different than the desktop in so many little ways that make a big collective difference. --I would love it if they cleaned up their current features to be streamlined. Having beta testers who are business people that actually use their software would reveal SO many little things that make a big difference to my daily "clean ups" for all the goofiness that they don't seem to realize exists in their software. I have suggested this idea at least 10 times to reps.

This software is pretty easy to use and it allows us to check our schedules anytime

There are always pros and cons, for me sometimes it's the reliability that bothers me. Sometimes appointments will not show and clients get a confirmation which is frustrating. I also don't like the way the company handles its credit card processing especially during covid, it would be nice not to have to pay an extra free when it comes to storing cards in the system. I also didn’t like how little resources there are for reports or how little the software offers you a boost when you pay for a service to "get noticed" otherewise everything is pretty standard.

The calendar is easy and self explanatory. It seems easy to use Even for people with no computer experience . If you're still using pencil and paper , this is way better than that . Probably a great product for both renters. Clients like notification system.

If you've used any other salon softwares that are in a high performance category as far as reporting and/or user experience this will not suit your needs . It is very rudimentary in its performance . It does not allow for any customization in reports or in applications .
Many features are archaic and need updating. The feature to logout users after a certain amount of time can't recognize the difference between idle and not idle so it will log you out and lose your work in the middle of a session . The "marketing" section is mediocre at best . IF you've already been running a computerized operation for 5 yrs or more, you will find the software completely inefficient . It does not save your work if you're in the middle of procedures when it logs out . It cannot tell the difference between tasks in progress and idleness . If you leave the program wide-open and it doesn't log anybody out automatically, then your separate users have no recognition within the system, Unless they individually and manually log themselves in-and-out every time . SO MANY SILLY TIME WASTING things that MUST be done manually every session. Yuck.

Pos system works well. Fees are not to bad.

I would say the whole setup is not good for a nail salon business or even set up in a convenient manner. Theres so many steps you have to do in situations just to resolve one simple problem. Ive had more bad experiences than good. Ive experienced not being able to do price adjustments at checkout even as the owner I have no access to make changes. This is problematic in nail salons since it's common for clients to make changes in their services or didn't know how to book properly online to begin with. By taking deposits, it locks the prices where you can not make changes without doing inconvenient steps beforehand. Cant simply edit or delete things without the deposit getting lost or again completely steps beforehand. Clients tend to no call/no show and block credit cards so deposits are necessary but that causes restrictions. Deposits don't show on the receipts at final checkout. Not all clients want to get emails so I have to do all these steps to find the DATE the client booked THAT appointment just to to track down the deposit. Theres no way to SIMPLY make adjustments or changes on Vagaro without having to do unnecessary steps where now we have a line of clients waiting. Ive bought their printer and the printer will disconnect or shut off at random times of the day. Every solution given to fix or make better of a problem just created different problems or restrictions. Clients constantly gets booted off when making appointments online. The list goes on.....

The online booking feature is a MUST with our clients, they absolutely love it. Also, the fact that you can have your website attached, a beautiful website at that. The ease of entering in all of our services into the service menu, our prices, and individual time intervals per service and per provider. But, the BEST thing about vagaro, is the ease of paper work. We do our daily tally and weekly tally sheets, and vagaro makes that absolutely a breeze. I am part owner, salon manager, and reception and I do all of the employees paperwork and money handling, and vagaro is absolutely amazing and makes the process so much easier than other software I've used over the years. The transaction list, to be able to go through all checkouts for the day, to be able to refund, charges, cash, and checks all separated into categories. It's just amazing. The checkout through vagaro is nice as well, you can put in the tip amount, check, cash, or charge, without using their merchant services, which is a benefit because you have an actual layout of each customer, each transaction, whereas on the credit card machine, which is completely separate, you can only see customer, and how much paid, including tip. Since, we opened this salon, we have only had vagaro, and we will continue to only have vagaro. It's the best salon and spa software that is available. No matter the size of salon, or services offered. This system works for everyone. Also, the text message updates they send out when theyre down.

There are really only a few things that I like the least about Vagaro. One would be, the system issues, especially with the credit card processing. When we first opened we were using vagaro as our merchant as well for our credit cards, and we had nothing but issues. Even now, I get the texts whenever there is a software malfunction, and it seems most of the malfunction is with credit card processing. So, we ended up having to buy an actual credit card machine and go with a different merchant provider, and now all of that is resolved. The next thing I like the least is, you can't separate your business at all. We have both tanning and a hair/nail salon. So, our tanning hours are slightly different from our hair/nail hours, and there is no way on vagaro, or our website, to separate and add additional hours. The last thing I like the least, is that Vagaro really only allows you to add services, there's no where for us to list our prices for tanning on our website, unless we take a picture of the menu and post it in our pictures, which would be out of place.

The ease of use, and the fact that clients get repeat reminders. It has increased client retention. It also shows new clients that I am serious about the business. The website was so easy to set up.

It does not work with Square. I was using Square before I started with Vagaro. I love Square too. I think the ability to text blast would be great. I know it takes me days to read my own email. A text is read that day. I do wish I had more space on the website. I do offer more services than the average cosmetologist. I also wish there was an easier way to get products that I sell into Vagaro. I think this should be something that Booking systems and beauty companies work on together. it would be great if you could just dropa Dermalogica App into Vagaro. When prices change all products are updated. and so on . Any product line that a salon or spa could use should have something to just ad in easy peasy.