Leaving Vagaro? Bring your clients — they’re yours.
$79/mo flat, everything included · no contract · switch in a day. Vagaro isn’t a bad product — but if you’re a multi-chair shop watching per-calendar fees stack, or you’ve had enough of a marketplace marketing to your book, your situation has outgrown their model.
Three things that don’t get better on their own
Your clients, not theirs
On Parlor, clients book through your link without creating an account for anyone — and no marketplace shows the shop next door’s deals to your book. Their model needs your client list to feed its marketplace; ours doesn’t. That’s not a setting they can turn off for you — it’s how they make money.
The bill that stops creeping
A real 4-chair shop on Vagaro: $30 base (public list prices, verified August 2026; $23.99 introductory) + $10 × 3 added calendars + forms $10 + texting $20 + website $20 ≈ $110/mo — the add-on lines from Vagaro support docs, June 2026. Parlor is $79 flat with all of it included. Hire your fourth barber — the bill doesn’t move.
No fine print on your money
No 12-month processing contract. No paying back a “free” card reader if you leave. No payout holds you find out about from a forum. 3.25% + 35¢ on every payment, processing included — both numbers, nothing hidden.
Switched in a day.
The hard part of leaving is the feeling that your book is trapped. It isn’t — here’s the whole move.
Export your client list from Vagaro
Reports → Clients → export to Excel. Takes about thirty seconds — the file is yours, no permission needed.
Drop the file into Parlor
Clients → Import. Parlor recognizes the Vagaro export automatically and shows you a preview first: how many are new, how many are already in your book, how many we’ll skip — nothing is saved until you say so. Most lists take about ten minutes.
Share your new booking link
Drop it in your Instagram bio and text it to your regulars. They book without creating an account; deposits and reminders are on from the first appointment.
What you give up, what you get back
We’d rather you read this here than discover it in week two. Here’s both sides.
What you give up
- The consumer marketplace — by design. Marketplace exposure is the wound this page exists to close; we will never show other studios to your clients.
- A native phone app — Parlor is a fast web app that’s built phone-first. One less thing for your clients to download; nothing to update.
What you get back
- Clients book without an account — no passwords, no duplicate records, no marketing list they didn’t ask to join.
- $79/mo flat, unlimited team members — no per-calendar fees as you hire.
- Forms & waivers with e-signature included — not a $10/mo add-on.
- Digital gift cards — sell online, redeem at checkout, with comp cards and a liability report. Digital only; if you sell plastic cards at the desk today, that part stays manual.
- Prepaid packages — sell a bundle of visits up front; Parlor tracks what’s left and redeems at checkout.
- Monthly memberships — recurring credits that refresh each month, or a standing percentage off; the card charges monthly and the benefit applies itself at checkout.
- Standing appointments — book a regular once, weekly, biweekly, or monthly, and the slot holds.
- Deposits, card-on-file, and automatic no-show fees with your policy shown before booking.
- Email reminders 24 hours out, automatic — text reminders are activating as carrier registration completes.
- The same door out that you came in — export your clients, your appointment history, and your payment records yourself, any time. The thing Vagaro makes you ask support for, you just download.
- Monthly billing, cancel from Settings — no contract, no one calling to talk you out of it.
The comparison that matters
| What | Parlor | Vagaro |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | $79/mo flat — unlimited calendars, everything included | ~$30/mo first calendar + $10/mo per added calendar, plus add-ons: forms $10, texting $20, website $20 … |
| Your client list | Yours alone — no marketplace, no cross-promotion | Feeds a 52M-consumer marketplace that shows nearby businesses’ deals to your clients |
| Client booking accounts | None — clients book from your link, no sign-up | Clients must create a Vagaro account to book |
| Deposits | Percent or flat, per-service overrides, included | Supported |
| No-show & late-cancel fees | Automatic, charged to the saved card, policy shown before booking | Supported |
| Forms & waivers + e-sign | Included in the flat price | Add-on, $10/mo |
| Automated reminders | Email included; texts activating as carrier registration completes | Included |
| Contract & hardware terms | Monthly, cancel anytime; no processing contract, no paying back a free reader | Free-reader promo binds 12 months of processing — leave early and you owe ~$100–150 for the reader |
| Card processing | 3.25% + 35¢ on every payment — processing included, no monthly fee | 2.6% + 10¢ (lower with $10/mo membership over $4k/mo volume) — Vagaro support docs, June 2026 |
The Vagaro subscription price is public list prices, verified August 2026 from vagaro.com/pro/pricing, which as of that date advertises $23.99/mo introductory next to the $30 standard entry. Add-on, processing, and hardware-term figures are Vagaro support docs, June 2026 — their pricing page no longer itemizes those, so we date them separately rather than imply they're on the page today. Promotions vary and prices change — check their current pricing for your exact configuration. “Supported” means the feature exists on their platform; this table isn’t a feature list — it’s the differences that change how you run the shop.
Asked before every switch.
Do my clients need accounts on Parlor?
No — for anyone. They tap your link, pick a time, pay the deposit. No sign-up, no password, no app. Their record is created in your studio, visible to you alone.
Is there a contract?
Monthly, cancel anytime from Settings. No phone call, no one trying to talk you out of it. No processing contract, and you don’t owe money on a “free” card reader if you leave.
What happens to my appointment history?
Vagaro doesn’t let you export it yourself — you have to request it from their support. Ask them for the file, and we’ll work through importing it with you on a call, free. Your client list, though, you can export and import yourself in minutes. And once it’s here, all of it — clients, appointment history, payments — exports back out on your own whenever you want, no request needed. We’d rather stay because you want us to.
Do I lose my Google reviews?
No. Your reviews live on your Google Business Profile, not inside any booking platform — you keep every one of them, and your new booking link goes right on the same profile.
How do the card rates actually compare?
Honestly: Vagaro’s card-present rate (2.6% + 10¢) is lower than our 3.25% + 35¢ on a per-swipe basis. Parlor’s rate is all-inclusive — card processing is inside it, with no monthly processing membership, no per-calendar fees, no add-on stack around it, and the same rate online and in person. Run your real monthly volume against the whole bill, not one line of it.
How will new clients find me without a marketplace?
The same way they find you now: your chair, your Instagram, your Google Business Profile, and your regulars’ referrals. The marketplace’s discovery cuts both ways — it also shows your clients everyone else. We’d rather make your own booking link the easiest one in town to use.
Still deciding? Tell us about your shop — a human reads it.
Your clients, your money, your shop.
Import your book this afternoon — the booking link is live before tomorrow’s first appointment.