Timely vs Kitomba: the head-to-head for New Zealand hair salons in 2026

Search "Timely vs Kitomba" and you get a wall of auto-generated comparison grids: review-score widgets from software directories, a "switch from Kitomba" page written by Timely itself, and listicles from vendors selling something else entirely. What you do not get, as far as we could find when we looked in October 2026, is a single independent article that actually puts New Zealand's two home-grown salon platforms side by side on the things that decide the choice: price, SMS, payments, contracts, data and support.

So here it is. Full disclosure first: this head-to-head is published on the blog of ViteUneCoupe, a free online booking system for hair salons with 0% commission, so we compete with both of these companies at the edges. We handle that the only honest way we know: every claim below was checked on Timely's and Kitomba's own websites in October 2026, with the URL, we quote the currency each page actually showed us, and we say plainly when a figure is not published rather than guessing. ViteUneCoupe gets one clearly labelled section near the end, limits included, and the rest of the page is about the two tools you came to compare. For the wider market beyond these two, our guide to hair salon booking software in New Zealand covers the whole field.

Unless stated otherwise, prices are in New Zealand dollars. Business software in New Zealand is normally priced excluding GST (15%, ird.govt.nz), with one notable exception below where Kitomba says its payment rates include it.

Two Kiwi companies, two different shapes

The trans-Tasman salon market is unusual: its two biggest specialist vendors were both born in New Zealand, a decade apart, and grew into different animals.

Kitomba is the elder. It began as a Wellington startup in 2002, founded by engineer Tom Murphy, and its head office is still in the capital, with teams across New Zealand and Australia serving "thousands of salons, spas and clinics" (checked in October 2026 on Kitomba's about page). It grew up as full salon management: appointments, but also point-of-sale, stock, staff targets, timesheets and reporting. Think of it as the till, the back office and the diary in one.

Timely is the challenger that went global. Founded in 2011 by three Kiwi entrepreneurs, Dunedin-born, it now serves around 55,000 hair and beauty professionals worldwide and has been part of the US group EverCommerce since a 2021 acquisition reported at around US$95 million (Timely's about page and RNZ's coverage of the sale, both checked in October 2026). It is cloud-first, appointment-first, with payments and marketing layered on top. Think of it as the diary that learned to do most other things.

That difference in shape explains almost every difference that follows, starting with how each one tells you the price.

Pricing: published per staff member vs quote only

This is the sharpest contrast between the two, so let us be precise.

Timely publishes its prices. Checked in October 2026 on gettimely.com/pricing, the page shows Build, Elevate and Innovate plans (a Base plan appears in its payments FAQ), priced per bookable staff member per month, with a calculator asking "How many bookable staff?". The page geo-localises, so from Europe it showed us US dollars, but its own structured data lists a New Zealand starting price of NZ$42 per month for New Zealand visitors. Open the page from your salon for the full NZD grid. Three terms worth knowing from the same page: there are no contracts ("you simply pay month by month"), there is a 14-day free trial with no credit card, and part-time staff cost the same as full-time staff, in the FAQ's own words: "Part-time staff members are currently charged at the same rate as full-time staff members."

Kitomba publishes no software prices at all, even in its home market. Checked in October 2026 on kitomba.com/pricing, the page lists Lite, Grow, Pro and Enterprise packages (plus PLUS versions of the first three) with features but not one dollar figure; the FAQ says the price "depends on what package you choose" and a Kitomba Business Consultant quotes you individually. The fine print notes "price per user is based on 3 staff", so the quote scales with your team too. One published lever does exist: switch to a PLUS package, which requires using Kitomba Pay, and Kitomba advertises 20% off your software fees every month. The same fine print flags paid extras: REACH.ai marketing is "in addition to Kitomba software fees" and "Xero fees apply".

What this means in practice: with Timely you can price a three-chair salon in Tauranga from your couch; with Kitomba you cannot compare anything until you have been through a sales conversation, and you cannot easily check whether the quote you signed three years ago matches what a new salon pays today. A clearly hypothetical yardstick for the Timely side: if the NZ$42 entry rate applies to each bookable staff member, four stylists means around NZ$168 a month, roughly NZ$2,016 a year excluding GST, before SMS overage. Our breakdown of the real cost of salon software in New Zealand shows how to total either bill honestly.

The head-to-head at a glance

Everything in this table was checked in October 2026 on the vendors' own sites; "not published" means exactly that.

Now the lines that deserve more than a table cell.

SMS reminders: allowance vs promotion

Both platforms send SMS reminders, which matters in a country where a text is still the surest way to reach a client before a colour appointment. The commercial terms differ.

Timely bundles a monthly SMS allowance into each plan, per staff member: the comparison table on its pricing page showed 100 messages on Build, 200 on Elevate and 350 on Innovate, renewing on your billing date, with anything above charged at your SMS rate (the excess rate displayed to us was 20 cents per message in our location's currency, so confirm the NZD figure from New Zealand). The allowance model is predictable but needs watching on a busy book.

Kitomba's "complimentary SMS" is, by its own fine print, "a promotion for a limited time", based on the number of users (checked in October 2026 on its pricing page). Its published terms add that the Unlimited Plus plan's "unlimited" SMS is subject to a fair-use policy of 10,000 messages per calendar month, unused messages do not roll over, and exceeding the limits can mean extra charges or suspension (Kitomba's terms and conditions, clause on SMS fair use, checked in October 2026). Ten thousand texts is plenty for almost any salon; the point is to ask what SMS costs after the promotion ends, in writing, before you sign the quote.

Payments: TimelyPay vs Kitomba Pay in New Zealand

Here Kitomba is the more transparent of the two, a neat reversal of the software pricing situation.

Kitomba Pay publishes a full New Zealand rate card (checked in October 2026 on kitomba.com/kitomba-pay): in-person payments at 1.7% per transaction, online at 2.7% + 30 cents, Afterpay at 6%, international cards at 3.8%, with the page stating "all rates include GST", next-business-day settlement, and a Verifone terminal "from $0/month" in New Zealand (the terminal rental fees flagged in the fine print apply to Australia only). A free terminal with GST-inclusive published rates is a genuinely strong home-market offer, and remember it unlocks that 20% software discount on PLUS packages.

TimelyPay's New Zealand rate, per Timely's own help centre, is 2.9% + NZ$0.30 per transaction, the same for domestic and international cards, listed as initial online processing fees with no extra software cost on the plans that include it (checked in October 2026 in Timely's TimelyPay fees article). We found no NZ terminal pricing documented on that page, so ask about in-person hardware costs directly. TimelyPay is also what powers Timely's deposits and cancellation fees, the feature most owners actually want it for: if no-shows are the reason you are shopping, our playbook for reducing no-shows in a New Zealand hair salon covers what card-on-file does and does not fix.

On raw percentages, Kitomba Pay's published in-person rate undercuts TimelyPay's published rate, but the two numbers are not perfectly comparable (one states GST-inclusive, the other is listed as online fees), so compare final GST-inclusive costs on your own card mix.

Reporting: good dashboards vs Benchmark

Timely's reporting is solid for an appointment-first tool: dashboards, business performance reports, future-value and appointment reports, staff tracking from the Build plan up (checked in October 2026 on Timely's reports page).

Kitomba's reporting is deeper, as you would expect from a POS-and-stock suite, and it has one feature nothing else in this market offers: Benchmark, which Kitomba describes as "unique to Kitomba", showing how your salon compares to others in your industry on metrics like rebooking and retail (checked in October 2026 on Kitomba's reporting page). In a market as small as New Zealand, seeing your numbers against other Kiwi salons is a real reason owners stay. If reporting depth is your deciding factor, Kitomba wins this round outright.

Contracts and leaving: the clause to read before you sign

This is where the two companies differ most, and where the directory comparisons say nothing at all.

Timely: no contract, by design. Month-by-month billing, switch plans anytime, leave anytime, stated plainly on its pricing page. Trialling Timely alongside your current system costs one month and nothing else.

Kitomba: read your agreement. Kitomba's published terms and conditions state that a client who cancels "shall be liable for any loss incurred by the Seller including, but not limited to, all fees due for the remainder of the period of the contract" (checked in October 2026 on kitomba.com/terms-and-conditions). No standard minimum term is stated in the terms, which means the term is whatever your individual quote says, and the PLUS discounts are conditional on using Kitomba Pay and meeting a minimum monthly transaction amount. There is an irony Kitomba itself supplies: the Kitomba Pay page advertises "No long-term contract. Stay because you love it. Not because you're stuck for 36 months." Hold the software quote to the same standard: get the contract length and the exit cost in writing before signing. For New Zealand clients the terms are at least governed by New Zealand law, so any dispute happens on home ground.

Your data: getting the client book out

A thread on the SalonGeek forum, where an owner was choosing between exactly these two, shows the fear in the wild: a rumour that the vendor "owns your database" (both companies' reps replied there that data can be exported, salongeek.com). Here is what each one documents.

Kitomba documents a self-serve client list export: download a full or filtered client list as a spreadsheet from the product (Kitomba's support article on client lists, checked in October 2026). A full-database export covering appointment history is not documented publicly, and the terms place the duty to "retain a copy of all information provided to the Seller" on you, the client. Test the export from your own account before you ever give notice.

Timely documents a full data export by request to support: clients with reward points, appointments, services, client notes, products and purchases, delivered through a secure site, with requests taking up to 48 hours (Timely's data export article, checked in October 2026). Broader in scope than Kitomba's documented export, but not self-serve.

Either way, the rule from our guide to switching salon booking software in New Zealand applies: data out first, notice last.

Support: hours that favour Kitomba

Both are New Zealand companies, so both support you in your own time zone, a luxury owners on overseas platforms do not get. The published hours differ though. Kitomba advertises unlimited phone, email and chat support included in all plans, Monday to Saturday 8am to 9pm New Zealand time, with after-hours and Sunday cover for emergencies (checked in October 2026 on kitomba.com/contact-us). Timely offers help guides, a support form and live messaging "during most business hours", 9am to 5pm for New Zealand, with direct phone support only on selected plans (checked in October 2026 in Timely's help centre). For a salon that does half its week after 5pm and all day Saturday, Kitomba's window fits the trade better, and forum owners praise its help desk specifically.

So which one? A decision framework by salon situation

• You run retail, stock and staff targets through your software, or you run multiple sites: Kitomba. It is built for exactly that, Benchmark is a genuine edge, and the Kitomba Pay package sweetens it. Just get the quote, the contract term and the post-promotion SMS price in writing.
• Your software is mostly a diary with reminders and card capture: Timely. Published prices, no contract, and a 14-day trial make it the lower-risk choice, and you can leave the month it stops earning its keep. Watch the per-staff maths as the team grows, especially with part-timers billed at full rate.
• You take lots of in-person card payments and want the cheapest published rate from a local vendor: price the Kitomba Pay route seriously, including the 20% software discount, against TimelyPay plus your current terminal.
• You cannot get a straight written answer on Kitomba's total cost: that is itself an answer. Quote-based pricing favours the party that sees every quote.
• You are leaving either one: export first, overlap both calendars for a couple of weeks, repoint your Google and Instagram booking links, then cancel.

If you end up choosing Timely but want to pressure-test it first, our guide to Timely alternatives for New Zealand hair salons does that; same for the Kitomba alternatives guide on the other side.

The third option: when all you need is commission-free online booking

A fair number of salons reading a Timely vs Kitomba comparison eventually realise their real need is smaller than either: an online diary clients can book into, with zero commission, while payments carry on through the EFTPOS terminal they already rent. That is the one case where ViteUneCoupe, the tool whose blog you are reading, belongs in the conversation.

The free plan is a real plan, not a trial: unlimited online bookings with 0% commission permanently, a booking page in your salon's name, your service menu, individual staff schedules, a client database (+64 mobiles work fine) and your calendar, with no per-staff fee ever. The Standard plan, from 29 € excluding tax per month with no commitment, adds automatic confirmation, reminder and thank-you emails and ICS calendar sync. Card-on-file no-show protection is coming soon in a Standard + Anti No-Show plan at 49 € excluding tax per month.

The limits, stated as plainly as everything else on this page: paid plans are billed in euros, not New Zealand dollars, so the statement amount moves with the exchange rate and your bank may add a foreign-transaction fee; reminders are email only, no SMS, where Timely and Kitomba both hold a genuine advantage; and there are no payments, no EFTPOS integration, no POS, no stock and no deposits. It replaces the appointment book, not the till. If that is the job, the price is zero; if you need more than the appointment book, you are back to the head-to-head above.

Frequently asked questions

Is Timely or Kitomba cheaper for a New Zealand hair salon?

Only Timely lets you answer from its website: its pricing page's structured data lists a New Zealand starting price of NZ$42 per bookable staff member per month (checked in October 2026). Kitomba publishes no software prices and quotes each salon individually, with a 20% monthly software discount advertised for PLUS packages using Kitomba Pay. The honest answer is that nobody can call Kitomba cheaper or dearer without a written quote, which is exactly the problem this comparison keeps pointing at.

Are Timely and Kitomba both New Zealand companies?

Yes. Kitomba was founded in Wellington in 2002 and its head office is still there. Timely was founded in 2011 by three New Zealand entrepreneurs and grew out of Dunedin; it has been part of the US group EverCommerce since 2021, with the product still serving the NZ and Australian salon market as its heartland.

Which has better no-show protection?

Both support it through their payment products: Timely via TimelyPay deposits and cancellation fees, Kitomba via Kitomba Pay. Timely publishes its NZ online rate (2.9% + NZ$0.30); Kitomba Pay publishes GST-inclusive NZ rates (1.7% in person, 2.7% + 30c online) with a terminal from $0/month. Compare the final cost on your own card mix rather than the headline percentages, which are not measured on the same basis.

Does Kitomba lock you into a contract?

Its published terms make a cancelling client liable for "all fees due for the remainder of the period of the contract", while stating no standard minimum term, so the real answer lives in your individual agreement. Get the contract length and exit terms in writing before signing a quote. Timely, by contrast, states on its pricing page that there are no contracts and billing is month by month (both checked in October 2026).

Can I export my client data from Timely or Kitomba?

Both, with different mechanics. Kitomba documents a self-serve client list download to a spreadsheet; a full-database export is not documented publicly. Timely documents a fuller export (clients, appointments, services, notes, products) but only by request to support, taking up to 48 hours. In both cases, run the export and check what actually comes out before giving notice.

Is there a free alternative to both for a Kiwi salon?

ViteUneCoupe offers a genuinely free plan: unlimited online bookings, 0% commission permanently, unlimited staff, a branded booking page and a client database. The trade-offs are real: email reminders only (no SMS), no payments or EFTPOS integration, and paid plans billed in euros rather than New Zealand dollars. It suits a salon whose only gap is online booking, not one that needs a POS or texting.