Simple Salon alternatives for Australian hair salons: honest review and comparison in 2026

Simple Salon has been quietly running Australian appointment books for years. It is Australian-built, it keeps its data on servers in Australia, it signs no contracts and it runs no marketplace between you and your clients. If you are a hair salon owner shopping for booking software, it deserves a place on your shortlist, and most of this article will tell you why. But "deserves a place on the shortlist" is not the same as "right for your salon": the per-operator pricing has a shape that suits some teams much better than others, there is no free plan, and the SMS meter on the entry plan is easy to underestimate.

This review is published on the blog of ViteUneCoupe, free, commission-free online booking for hair salons. We are a competitor, so judge our fairness by our method: every figure below was checked on the vendor's own pages in October 2026, we state which currency each page actually showed us, and we open our own section with the honest limits of ViteUneCoupe for an Australian salon. For the whole local market in one place, our comparison of hair salon booking software for Australia sits alongside this article.

Fair warning about most pages ranking for "Simple Salon alternatives": they are software directories assembled for a global audience. They will cheerfully recommend tools with no Australian presence, quote prices without naming the currency, and say nothing about GST or per-operator caps. We wrote this for a hair salon in Australia, nowhere else.

What Simple Salon costs in 2026

Checked in October 2026 on Simple Salon's official pricing page, there are three plans, each priced per operator per month:

• Starter: the essentials, with no SMS credits included;
• Pro: the plan Simple Salon flags as most popular, with 200 SMS credits per operator per month;
• Max: 300 SMS credits per operator per month, plus the extras (WhatsApp access is a $5 add-on on Starter and Pro and included on Max).

Now the currency caveat that almost no comparison page makes. The pricing page has a region selector (Australia and New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, the UK, the US and Canada, Europe), and from where we browsed it displayed US dollars: $20, $34 and $41 USD per operator per month. Those are not Australian prices. The page's own FAQ, however, gives the game away with a worked example in Australian dollars: it prices a five-operator salon on Pro at "5 x $45 AUD = $225 per month". So the Australian Pro rate is $45 AUD per operator; for the Starter and Max figures in Australian dollars, open the page from your salon, set the region to Australia and New Zealand, and read your own screen. As with any Australian business software, expect the advertised price to exclude GST, so add 10 % to know what leaves your account.

Three structural points, all stated on the same page:

• the price is capped at the 7-operator rate: a salon with ten or fifteen operators pays for seven, which quietly makes Simple Salon cheaper per head the bigger the team gets;
• no contracts, no fixed term, no sign-up fees, with a 14-day free trial;
• no marketplace and no commission: bookings come through your own online booking link, and nobody takes a cut of your column.

The per-operator maths, worked through

Per-operator pricing is honest, but it compounds. Take a suburban hair salon with three stylists on the calendar, on the Pro plan at the AUD rate from Simple Salon's own FAQ example. The assumptions: three operators, $45 AUD per operator per month, GST at 10 % on top, and nothing else added.

• Monthly: 3 x $45 = $135 AUD ex GST, so $148.50 including GST.
• Yearly: $1,620 AUD ex GST, about $1,782 including GST.

That is the gross software cost, not a judgement: for that money you get 600 pooled SMS credits a month and a full toolkit. But notice the slope. A solo stylist pays one operator; every hire adds another $45 ex GST a month until the seventh. The cap is designed for big teams, and a two-to-four chair salon sits exactly in the zone where it never applies. Our guide to the real cost of salon software in Australia runs this kind of arithmetic across every vendor, including the lines that do not appear on pricing pages.

The SMS meter, especially on Starter

SMS is where the entry plan needs a careful read. Checked in October 2026 on the same pricing page: Starter includes zero SMS credits, with each message billed at 14 cents; Pro includes 200 credits per operator at 10 cents beyond; Max includes 300 per operator at 9 cents beyond. The credits are pooled across the business rather than locked to each operator, which is genuinely client-friendly design.

The trap is budgeting Starter as its sticker price. A solo stylist doing 250 appointments a month who sends one reminder text per appointment adds 250 x 14c = $35 a month to the bill, which can be more than the subscription itself. At that point Pro, with its included credits, is usually the cheaper plan for anyone who texts reminders, which is presumably why Simple Salon calls it the most popular. Reminders are worth paying for, but it pays to know what each channel costs: our comparison of appointment reminders for Australian hair salons prices the options, including where a free email reminder does most of the same work.

What Simple Salon genuinely does well

An honest review names the strengths plainly, and Simple Salon has real ones.

• It is Australian, properly. Australian company, Australian dollar billing available, and its pricing page cites servers located in Australia among its security assurances. If "where does my client data live and who do I ring at 8 am Brisbane time" matters to you, that is a real answer, not marketing.
• The pricing model is transparent and fair at the edges. Published prices, no contracts, no sign-up fees, a cap that rewards big teams, and no marketplace taking a percentage of your work. In a market where several big names are quote-only, that transparency deserves credit.
• Pooled SMS credits. Credits land in the business account and are spent wherever needed, so a part-time operator's unused allowance covers a busy one's overflow.
• A broad toolkit. Online bookings through your own link, loyalty points, gift vouchers, memberships, packages, stock management, marketing tools, digital forms and reporting, with iOS and Android apps. For the price of a booking tool you get most of a front desk.

Why salons still look for alternatives

None of the following is a scandal; each is a fit question.

• No free plan. The 14-day trial is a countdown, not a plan. A chair renter or a brand-new salon that wants online booking at zero fixed cost has to look elsewhere.
• The per-operator slope before the cap. The 7-operator cap is great news for a ten-chair salon and irrelevant to the vast majority of Australian hair salons, which never reach it. For a growing two-to-five chair team, every hire raises the software bill.
• It is not hair-specific. Simple Salon serves hair, beauty, fitness and tattoo businesses. That breadth is fine for most salons, but if you want software whose roadmap revolves around colour processing times, stylist targets and rebooking rates, the hair-and-beauty specialists go deeper.
• The currency on the public page. An Australian company whose pricing page can show a visitor US dollars is a small thing, but it is exactly how owners end up budgeting the wrong number. Read the AUD column yourself before you sign.

If those points are minor for you, Simple Salon is a solid choice and you can stop reading here with our blessing. If any of them stings, here is the field.

Simple Salon alternatives compared

Every figure checked in October 2026 on each vendor's own site. Where a page geo-localises its prices or does not label the currency, the table says so rather than guessing.

ViteUneCoupe: the free plan, with its Australian limits stated first

Since we are the ones writing, the limits come first. For an Australian hair salon, ViteUneCoupe's paid plan is billed in euros, not Australian dollars, so the exact amount on your statement moves with the exchange rate and your bank may add a foreign transaction fee; reminders go by email, not SMS, and Australian clients are used to appointment texts; and there are no payments: no EFTPOS integration, no point of sale, no online deposits. If any of those is a dealbreaker, the Australian options above fit better.

What you get in exchange is the thing Simple Salon does not offer: a real free plan. Unlimited online bookings with 0 % commission, permanently, a personalised booking page for your salon, your service catalogue with photos, staff schedules, your client database and your calendar. No card at sign-up, no trial countdown, no marketplace. Australian mobile numbers in +61 format work normally, and the interface is available in English. The Standard plan, from 29 € excluding tax per month with no commitment, adds automatic emails (confirmation, reminder, thank-you) and ICS calendar sync with Apple, Google or Outlook. Bank-card anti no-show protection is coming soon in a Standard + Anti No-Show plan at 49 € excluding tax per month; until it ships, reminders and a clear written policy are what work, and our playbook for reducing no-shows in an Australian hair salon covers both.

Pick it over Simple Salon if: you are a solo stylist, chair renter or new salon that wants 24/7 online booking at exactly zero dollars, keeps its existing EFTPOS terminal, and is happy with email reminders. The full trade-off between a $0 tool and a paid suite is the subject of our guide to free versus paid salon booking software in Australia.

Square Appointments: the other free plan, with SMS and a published AUD grid

Square is the most direct answer to "Simple Salon with a free tier". Checked in October 2026 on Square's Australian pricing page: a Free plan at $0 for a single location with text and email reminders included, then Plus at $40 and Premium at $90 AUD per month per location, with no long-term commitment. Square earns its money on processing, at published Australian rates of 1.6 % in person and 2.2 % online. Unlike Simple Salon's per-operator model, Square prices per location, so a growing team does not raise the software line, only the processing volume. The limits: it is a generalist tool inside a payments ecosystem, and features like cancellation fees sit on the paid tiers. Our guide to Square Appointments alternatives for Australian hair salons looks at it from the other side.

Timely: the hair-and-beauty specialist across the Tasman

If your reason for leaving Simple Salon is wanting software built around salon workflows, Timely is the natural step. Built in New Zealand and widespread in Australian salons, it prices per bookable staff member across its Build, Elevate and Innovate plans, with 100, 200 and 350 SMS credits included respectively and excess messages at 5c, monthly billing and a 14-day trial (checked in October 2026 on gettimely.com; the page localises its currency, so read the AUD grid from Australia). Note that the per-staff maths is the same shape as Simple Salon's, without the 7-operator cap, so a large team should run both totals. Our guide to Timely alternatives for Australian hair salons covers the reverse move.

Kitomba and Shortcuts: the quote-only heavyweights

Moving up-market from Simple Salon means a sales call. Kitomba, the ANZ hair veteran, publishes no prices at all: four packages (Lite PLUS to Enterprise), a quote after a demo, a 20 % monthly software discount tied to adopting Kitomba Pay, its integrated payments, and a note that complimentary SMS is a limited-time promotion (checked in October 2026 on kitomba.com). Shortcuts, headquartered in Brisbane, is equally demo-led with no published pricing. Both offer depth Simple Salon does not, in reporting, benchmarking and local support, at the cost of budget transparency: coming from Simple Salon's published grid, insist on the full quote in Australian dollars, in writing, including SMS rates and exit terms. Our guides to Kitomba alternatives and Shortcuts alternatives for Australian hair salons go deeper on each.

Ovatu and Hairware: the other Australians

Ovatu is the closest like-for-like alternative: Australian-built, self-serve, no marketplace, no lock-in, with a generous 30-day trial. Checked in October 2026 on ovatu.com: a Neat plan at $25 per month plus $7 per additional staff member and a Loaded plan at $38 plus $10, SMS at about 4 cents per message, all shown to us in US dollars despite the company being Australian, the same geo-localisation trap as Simple Salon's page. Its per-business-plus-per-extra-staff pricing undercuts a pure per-operator model as the team grows, but there is no equivalent of the 7-operator cap. Hairware (Hairware Beautyware) is the legacy Australian hair specialist with the only full AUD grid in this group, from $129.57 to $237.90 per month excluding GST with SMS at 10c, and the group's only lock-in, a 12-month minimum term. It suits an established salon that wants a long-standing Australian hair-only vendor and accepts the price of that pedigree.

Fresha: the marketplace route, a different animal

Fresha belongs in a Simple Salon comparison mainly to mark the fork in the road. Simple Salon sells you software and leaves client acquisition to you; Fresha couples its booking tools to a consumer marketplace that can bring new clients, with a fee on a new marketplace client's first booking. Checked in October 2026, fresha.com/pricing showed us euro pricing (an Independent plan at 14.95 € per month, Team at 9.95 € per bookable member), 20 free messages per member per month and then per-message billing; there is no free plan any more and no public AUD grid we could confirm from abroad. Whether a marketplace should sit between you and your clients is a strategic choice before it is a price comparison: our articles on direct bookings versus marketplaces and Fresha alternatives for Australian hair salons take the question apart.

How to actually decide

Three questions settle most cases.

How many operators, now and in two years? Under the 7-operator cap, Simple Salon and Timely bills climb with every hire; Square charges per location; ViteUneCoupe's free plan does not charge at all. Run your own headcount through each model rather than comparing sticker prices.

How much will you text? Multiply your monthly appointments by your reminders per appointment, then price that on each vendor's meter. On that one line, Square's included SMS and ViteUneCoupe's free email reminders are the outliers against everyone's per-message rates.

What do you need beyond the calendar? If the answer is "nothing, my EFTPOS terminal and my accountant handle the rest", a free booking tool covers you. If you want stock, vouchers, memberships and marketing in one place, Simple Salon, Timely, Kitomba and Shortcuts earn their subscriptions.

And whichever way you move, protect the client list first: export it, test the export early, and keep the old diary alive through one full colour cycle. Our step-by-step guide to switching salon booking software in Australia covers the whole move, including future appointments already in the old book.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Simple Salon cost in Australia?

Simple Salon prices per operator per month across three plans (Starter, Pro, Max), capped at the 7-operator rate for larger teams, with no contracts and a 14-day trial. Checked in October 2026, the public page showed us US dollar figures of $20, $34 and $41, while its own FAQ example prices the Pro plan at $45 AUD per operator. Open simplesalon.com from Australia and read the AUD column, then add 10 % GST to budget the real monthly outflow.

Does Simple Salon have a free plan?

No. Simple Salon offers a 14-day free trial, then a paid per-operator subscription. If a genuinely free plan is the requirement, the two serious options for an Australian hair salon are ViteUneCoupe (free online bookings with 0 % commission, email reminders, no payments handling) and Square Appointments' free tier (SMS reminders included, with Square earning on card processing at published AUD rates).

Is Simple Salon an Australian company?

Yes. Simple Salon is Australian-built and cites servers located in Australia among its security assurances (checked in October 2026 on its own site). Note that Australian-built does not guarantee Australian dollars on the public pricing page: like fellow Australian vendor Ovatu, Simple Salon geo-localises its displayed prices, so confirm the AUD figures from your own screen before budgeting.

Does Simple Salon charge commission on bookings?

No. Simple Salon runs no consumer marketplace and takes no percentage of your bookings: clients book through your salon's own online booking link and the subscription is the whole software cost, plus metered SMS beyond your plan's credits. That structure is shared by most alternatives here; the main exception is Fresha, which pairs its software with a marketplace and a fee on new marketplace clients' first bookings.

What is the best Simple Salon alternative for a solo hairdresser?

It depends on the one feature you refuse to give up. For zero cost and no commission, ViteUneCoupe's free plan covers unlimited bookings, a booking page and a client database, with email reminders. For free software with SMS included and integrated payments, Square Appointments' $0 plan is the strongest offer. For a hair-and-beauty specialist with SMS credits built in, Timely's entry plan prices a single bookable staff member. All three publish their terms, so a solo stylist can compare real numbers in an afternoon.