Tools for a beauty centre in 2026: diary, marketplace and AI receptionist
Three kinds of tool that get confused: the diary, the marketplace and the AI receptionist. What each one does, how it charges and which one you are actually missing.
If you run a small beauty centre (facials, lasers, nails, lashes, microblading, body treatments) and you are looking for tools, you run into a soup of names that seem to do the same thing and do not. Some run your diary. Others bring you new clients in exchange for a commission. Others answer the phone. Mixing them up is the most expensive way to go wrong: paying for one thing believing it covers another. This article is a map of three kinds of tool, with what we were able to check on their official pages on 21 October 2026, and with BeautySuite placed among them with its limits in plain sight.
Type 1: the diary with online booking
This is the base tool. It runs your calendar, lets the client book on her own through a link and, depending on the tool, sends notifications, takes payments and stores client records. Booksy, Fresha, Treatwell (in its software part) and Salonized belong to this family. The question to ask is how much it costs per month and what else they charge for each thing. For Spain, Booksy publishes a fee of €34.99 plus VAT per month with all features and €8 plus VAT for each additional employee. Fresha publishes in euros an Independent plan at €12.95 a month for one professional and a Team plan at €8.95 per member, before tax and with a seven-day trial. Salonized lists a Pro plan with a fourteen-day trial, and the page we consulted does not show the subscription amount. Treatwell says there is a monthly fee and does not show its amount on its pricing page.
Type 2: the marketplace that brings you clients
Treatwell, Fresha and Booksy (with its Boost feature) have a shop window where people search for centres. Here you do not pay for the software, you pay for results: a commission when a new client arrives. For Spain, Treatwell states on its page 25% for each new client, 0% on repeat bookings and 2% plus VAT processing on bookings paid online in advance, with a minimum contract of 12 months. For Boost, Booksy charges 30% of the cost of the first visit of the new client it brings in, capped at €50 plus VAT, with no fee for activating it. Fresha describes a single fee per new marketplace client; its pricing page does not make the amount clear, so we do not write it.
The marketplace is the only one of the three categories that brings people who did not know you. If your problem is filling the diary, it is the tool for you; if your problem is looking after people who have already found you, it is not.
Type 3: the AI receptionist
This is a more recent category, and it is where BeautySuite sits. It does not run your diary or bring you clients: it answers when someone with a question calls or writes and your hands are busy. It takes calls by voice from the button on your website, or from a voice page that you can put on a QR code at the counter. The link to that page is also the one you can put in your Instagram bio. It handles chat as well. It uses your treatment menu, which it can import from your public Booksy or Treatwell profile, to give prices and durations. When the person already knows what she wants, it sends your booking link. Every conversation is recorded, with audio, transcript and summary, in your panel. In its first sentence it says that it is an AI and that it records. It charges no commission per appointment.
Where BeautySuite falls short
- It does not book or touch your diary: the client presses your link and chooses a time where she always does. For anyone with no booking tool at all, this is a serious limit.
- It does not take payments, does not handle deposits and does not bring new clients: it is not a marketplace.
- Today the call is made from the browser, without dialling a number. Whoever dials the centre's landline will keep ringing you.
- It is one more fee. The Entry plan for aesthetics and nails costs €59 a month excluding VAT, paid annually, during the launch offer until 31 December 2026 (the standard rate is €99). It is justified if you are losing enquiries today because you cannot answer, and you have to measure that yourself.
- An AI speaks in your name. That is why it records everything, and why you should listen to the first calls.
How to choose for your case
- You have no booking tool at all: start with a diary. Any of the four covers that, and the choice depends on the fee, on whether you want a marketplace and on how many of you work there.
- You want new clients and accept paying a commission for them: a marketplace (Treatwell, Fresha or Booksy with Boost). Read the commission and the minimum contract carefully.
- You already have a diary and your problem is the phone ringing when you cannot pick it up, plus the same price questions: an AI receptionist like BeautySuite, which adds to what you have.
- You are torn between a generic chatbot and a receptionist built for your sector: we have a separate comparison.
These tools do not exclude each other, and that is the underlying idea: BeautySuite complements your diary, it does not replace it. Each comparison below puts the two options side by side, with what each one gains and loses. If you would rather start from the problem, the article on the phone ringing while your hands are busy tells it in full.