Square Appointments vs Vagaro for Nail Salons (2026)

Contents · 9 sections

1. Comparison table
2. What you pay
3. Staff calendars
4. Reminders and Google
5. Deposits and no-shows
6. Card payments
7. The phone
8. Which book fits
9. FAQ

The Square figures come from the US appointments pricing page and the reminders page, both read November 4, 2026. The Vagaro figures come from Vagaro Plans, Pricing, and Premium Features, updated October 27, 2026, and from features included in the base subscription, updated July 1, 2026. The note on resending reminders comes from Send Notifications and Reminders. All of those Vagaro pages were read November 4, 2026. The Bukkii figures come from bukkii.ai/pricing, read the same day. If you're weighing Booksy against Vagaro, see Booksy vs Vagaro. For other options, see Vagaro alternatives. This page is written for a US nail salon.

Comparison table

As of Nov 2026. Square cells come from squareup.com, read November 4, 2026. Vagaro cells come from support.vagaro.com, read the same day. Bukkii cells come from bukkii.ai/pricing, also read the same day. US prices only.

What you pay

Square sells three appointment plans, and you pay per location. On the pricing page, read November 4, 2026, Square Free is $0 a month per location, Square Plus is $49 a month per location, and Square Premium is $149 a month per location. Free doesn't mean you pay nothing, though. You still pay processing fees every time a card runs. The same page says a business that processes over $250,000 a year can ask about custom pricing and processing fees. The FAQ says Plus and Premium each come with a free 30-day trial, and that you can cancel or switch plans anytime. That offer is Square's. AIVA has no free trial.

Vagaro prices the book by calendar, not as a flat salon plan. The pricing article, updated October 27, 2026 and read November 4, 2026, lists the United States base at $23.99 a month and labels it only for a limited time. One calendar license is included. Each additional employee calendar is $10 a month, for up to seven licenses. Once you've paid for seven licenses, you can add new employees at no additional charge. Canada, the UK, and Australia have different base prices on that page. This article uses the US row only.

Bukkii Calendar is a separate product from the phone. Calendar is free for up to 3 staff and includes the booking website. The $20-a-month plan adds unlimited staff and customers, plus Reserve with Google. Email reminders come with the $20 plan. Reserve with Google is not on the free plan, and neither are email reminders. Calendar does not answer the phone. All of that comes from bukkii.ai/pricing, checked November 4, 2026. Get started.

Staff calendars

On a nail floor, the calendar belongs to the tech, not the front door. Square's pricing page says you can add and view as many staff calendars as your business needs, with no employee limit. That row is marked on Free, Plus, and Premium. The monthly subscription, if you have one, is per location. A second location on Plus costs another $49, not an extra fee for each tech.

Two Square rows are easy to mix up. Unlimited calendars means every person can have their own calendar. Multi-staff appointment booking means one appointment with services assigned to different staff. That second row is on Plus and Premium, not Free. Processing time, the gap while color or a treatment sits, is also left off Free and included on Plus and Premium. Resource management, which assigns rooms, chairs, and stations, is on Premium only. Those marks come from the pricing-page feature table, read November 4, 2026.

Vagaro's base article, updated July 1, 2026, says you can display up to 25 employees' calendars at once for the current day. That's a screen limit, not a pricing limit. The price is still one included license, then $10 a month for each added employee calendar, up to seven licenses. The same base article also includes a waitlist, gap processing time, personal tasks, and a service menu.

Bukkii Calendar caps out at 3 staff on the free plan. The $20 plan removes that cap, along with the cap on customers. It doesn't answer the phone, and it doesn't charge a per-tech license on top of the $20. If your shop has one or two techs, Free covers the book and the booking website. Once a fourth tech is on the floor, you need the $20 plan.

Reminders and Google

Square's pricing page, read November 4, 2026, describes appointment reminders as automatic text and email reminders. The feature table doesn't mark that row as excluded on Free, Plus, or Premium. Text and email confirmations are a separate row: Plus and Premium, not Free. The reminders page, read the same day, says you can turn on automated SMS and email reminders for bookings made with Square Appointments. Custom notifications are custom emails on Free, and custom emails and texts on Plus and Premium. Text-message marketing, the campaign product, isn't on Free. Plus includes 500 texts, then 3¢ per text. Premium includes 2,500 texts, then 1.5¢ per text. Those allowances are listed in the pricing page's fee table.

The same Square pricing page lists a Book Now button for your Instagram account, your Facebook page, or your Google Business Profile. Google Calendar sync, which blocks off personal events on the Square calendar, is on Plus and Premium, not Free.

Vagaro's base-subscription article includes notifications and reminders by text and email, and it doesn't put an asterisk on that line the way it does on Email Marketing and credit-card processing. The notifications article says Vagaro can send the appointment message once by email, text, and push, and that resending requires an Email Marketing plan, a Text Marketing plan, or Connect by Vagaro. Text marketing itself is a separate credit plan. The US small plan in the pricing article is 1,000 credits for $20 a month, then $0.030 per extra credit. That's a marketing plan, not the single automatic reminder.

Vagaro's pricing article marks the US marketplace listing as free and says you can list your business on the Vagaro Marketplace, Google.com, Google Maps, and Apple Maps. That's a listing. It isn't the Reserve with Google product you get on Bukkii. A custom Vagaro MySite is $20 a month in the United States, on top of the base subscription. The one-time custom website design in that article is $299 in the US, and the monthly MySite price kicks in after the site is published.

On Bukkii Calendar, email reminders come only with the $20 plan, and so does Reserve with Google. The free plan gives you the booking website and up to 3 staff, but not those two features. For what to track on each client once your book is set up, see salon client CRM. For getting the next fill on the book before she pays, see nail salon client retention.

Deposits and no-shows

Square's pricing page lists appointment deposits on Free, Plus, and Premium: you collect a partial deposit when the appointment is scheduled. Cancellation policies and no-show fees aren't in that Free row. They're on Plus and Premium, where you set a time frame and can charge a card on file for a late cancel or a no-show. The reminders page says you can require a card on file and set disclosed no-show or late-cancel policies where available. The plan marks for that fee are in the pricing-page feature table.

Vagaro doesn't include online deposits in the $23.99 base. The pricing article says the Online Shopping Cart add-on is where you set up deposits and cancellation fees for online appointments, and where you sell packages, memberships, services, products, classes, and gift cards from your listing page. In the United States, that add-on is $10 a month. Forms, if you want digital consent on file, are a separate $10 a month in the US. The check-in app is $10 a month in the US. Those are add-ons, not part of the base subscription.

bukkii.ai/pricing, checked November 4, 2026, doesn't list appointment deposits or a no-show fee, and this page won't invent one. Email reminders on the $20 plan are the reminder tool Calendar publishes. They aren't a deposit.

Card payments

Square's fee table, read November 4, 2026, lists in-person tap, dip, or swipe at 2.6% + 15¢ on Free, 2.5% + 15¢ on Plus, and 2.4% + 15¢ on Premium. Online card payments are 3.3% + 30¢ on Free and 2.9% + 30¢ on Plus and Premium. Manual entry or a card on file is 3.5% + 15¢ on all three plans. Cash and checks are free. Phone support on that table runs 6am–6pm PT, Monday to Friday, for the first 90 days on Free, the same weekday window on Plus, and 24/7 on Premium.

Vagaro's US card rates depend on your monthly processing volume. Small merchants, under $4,000 a month, are listed at 2.6% + $0.10 for swipe, dip, or tap, 3.5% + $0.19 keyed-in, and 2.6% + $0.16 for tap to phone. The article says additional monthly FANF and Mastercard location fees apply. It doesn't give a dollar amount for FANF, so this page won't guess. Large merchants, over $4,000 a month, are listed at 2.29% + $0.19 for swipe, dip, or tap, 3.5% + $0.19 keyed-in, and 2.29% + $0.25 for tap to phone, plus a $10 monthly subscription. The article says the large-merchant feature is billed in advance: if you turn it off before the billing date, you're still charged for that cycle.

Bukkii Calendar is the book. The pricing page doesn't publish card-processing rates for Calendar, so this page doesn't compare a Bukkii swipe rate with Square or Vagaro. If your shop already runs cards through one of those, that rate stays on that vendor's page.

The phone

The book and the phone are two different jobs. A tech with wet gel on a brush can't pick up. Square's pricing page lists a dedicated business phone number on Plus and Premium, not Free. Clients can text it, or call and leave a voicemail. The page says the feature doesn't support outbound calling. That's not an AI that books the chair from the conversation.

Vagaro's pricing article lists Vera Receptionist at $10 in the United States. The description says Vera handles customer messages and common questions through Connect by Vagaro, around the clock, and hands off to a person when needed. The article describes messages. It doesn't say Vera answers phone calls. Connect by Vagaro itself is marked free to start, with a text plan recommended.

AIVA answers callers in English only. AIVA does not answer callers in Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, or Korean. You can read this page in Spanish or Vietnamese, but the phone voice stays in English. If a caller needs the conversation in another language, AIVA isn't the right tool for that call.

AIVA is $200 one-time. No free trial, no monthly fee, no contract. That one payment covers a dedicated number, training on your menu and policies, calendar setup, and call forwarding, plus 100 voice minutes and 1,500 SMS. After that, voice is $0.35 a minute and SMS is $0.035. Packs never expire. She texts the appointment once it's booked. She doesn't auto-text someone who already hung up. Setup is done through call forwarding. This page doesn't describe number porting. The number on your door stays with your carrier. Those figures come from bukkii.ai/pricing, checked November 4, 2026. Hear the English voice at (215) 791-6766. Get started.

AIVA books on Bukkii Calendar. This page doesn't claim that AIVA or Bukkii Calendar writes appointments into Square Appointments or Vagaro. If your book has to stay in one of those, keep it there. Calendar does not answer the phone.

Which book fits

Square Appointments fits a US nail salon that already takes payments through Square and wants the book, the reminders, and checkout all in that same account. Free is $0 a month per location, with unlimited staff calendars, an online booking site, and appointment reminders, and you pay the Free processing rates whenever a card runs. Move up to Plus at $49 a month per location when you need no-show fees, multi-staff booking, a waitlist, or processing time for a gel or color gap. Premium at $149 a month per location is the plan that adds resource management, the future-bookings report, service-cost tracking, and 24/7 phone support. The 30-day offer on Plus and Premium is Square's.

Vagaro fits a shop that wants a salon calendar priced per bookable employee, a listing page the US pricing article marks free, and a menu of add-ons. The base is $23.99 a month for a limited time, with one calendar. A fourth bookable tech means three extra calendars at $10 each on top of the base, until you've paid for seven licenses. Deposits on online appointments come with the $10-a-month Online Shopping Cart, not the base price. Text campaigns come with a text-credit plan. The base book already includes the calendar, the service menu, reminders, a waitlist, and client tags.

Bukkii Calendar fits a shop that's going to keep its book on Bukkii. Free covers up to 3 staff and the booking website. $20 a month covers unlimited staff and customers, email reminders, and Reserve with Google. It doesn't answer the phone, and the pricing page doesn't list taking a deposit. If you want the phone covered, that's AIVA at $200 one-time, in English only. Get started. Both options are on the pricing page.

If you're choosing between Booksy and Vagaro, that head-to-head is Booksy vs Vagaro. If Vagaro is the book you're thinking of leaving, the wider list is Vagaro alternatives. What belongs on each client's card is covered in salon client CRM. Rebooking at the table is covered in nail salon client retention.

FAQ