Why color and chemical services need a deposit, not just a reminder
A men’s clipper cut is a fifteen-minute slot you can usually backfill. A balayage, a full highlight, or a corrective color is two to four hours of your column, plus the product you mix before the client ever sits down. When that appointment ghosts, you cannot resell the block, you have already opened the toner, and your whole day shifts. That is the slot that needs real protection.
Keptbookings lets you set different rules for different services. Quick cuts can stay card-on-file with reminders, while long color appointments require a deposit that the client pays when they book. The deposit applies to the service total, so honest clients lose nothing, and the people who would have flaked on a four-hour slot think twice before they hold it.
- Card-on-file for cuts, blow-dries, and trusted regulars.
- A deposit on balayage, full color, extensions, and corrective work.
- Bigger blocks carry bigger protection because they cost you more to lose.
Protect your column without a front desk
Most independent stylists do not have a receptionist taking deposits over the phone. Bookings come in at 11pm through Instagram, a link in your bio, or a text. Keptbookings turns that into a branded booking page you can embed on your own site or drop into your link-in-bio, so a client books, picks the service, and puts a card down in one flow while you are with someone else.
Because Keptbookings supports true guest checkout, your client does not have to create an account or remember a password to book. That single point of friction is where a lot of late-night bookings die. Remove it and the booking completes itself.
The two loopholes that wreck most salon no-show policies
A written cancellation policy is just words until there is a verified card behind it. Two gaps quietly defeat most salon software. First, some apps store a card but never validate it, so a client can enter a dead number, book the slot, and you only discover it is fake when you try to charge the no-show. Second, on several platforms a client can simply delete their saved card after booking, leaving you protected on paper and exposed in reality.
Keptbookings closes both. The card is validated with Stripe at the moment of booking, so an invalid or expired card is rejected before the slot is confirmed. And if a client removes their card before the appointment, you get an alert, so you can ask for a new one or release the time before the day arrives.
- Cards are validated at booking, not just stored.
- You are alerted if a client deletes their card before the appointment.
- Your no-show fee actually collects through Stripe with next-day payout.
Your clients belong to you, not to a marketplace
When you build a column over years, that client list is the most valuable thing you own. Marketplace apps treat it as theirs. They surface your regulars to other salons, charge you a new-client fee on people who were already yours, and make your roster hard to take with you if you ever switch chairs or open your own place.
Keptbookings is booking software, not a marketplace. There is no discovery feed showing your clients to the salon down the street, and there is no commission on bookings from people you already know. When you want your data, one click exports your full client list and appointment history, and importing your existing roster is free.
One flat price, fast payouts, no fund holds
Commission models punish you for being busy. A booking app that takes twenty to thirty percent earns more every time you raise your prices or fill your week. Keptbookings charges one flat monthly fee per salon: around $19 for a solo stylist and a flat $49 for a Team plan covering up to six providers, with a free tier of 20 appointments a month so you can test it first.
Payments run through Stripe with next-day payouts and no fund holds, so the deposit a client pays on Tuesday is in your account, not parked in someone else’s wallet. The arithmetic is simple: at thirty percent commission, a salon doing $8,000 a month in online bookings hands over $2,400. A flat plan keeps almost all of that with you.