No monthly fee
Salon software withno monthly fee —$410 once, then nothing
01
What a subscription actually costs over time
Salon platforms commonly sit between $29 and $79 a month for a single-site salon with a small team. At $29 a month a $410 one-off is passed in about fifteen months. At $79 it takes six. After that the subscription simply keeps going, and the total keeps climbing for the rest of the time you are in business.
Put a three-year frame around it and the shape is clear: $49 a month is $1,764 before a single percentage of commission. The same three years of Kairo is $410.
Your numbers, not ours
- Months until the subscription passes Kairo's $410
- 9 months
- New-client visits whose commission equals $410
- 25 visits
- Subscription cost over three years
- $1,764
And it keeps charging after that. Kairo stops at $410.
At $85 a visit, 20% is $17 handed over each time.
Before any commission. Kairo over the same three years: $410.
Your own numbers, worked out live. Card processing fees are charged by your payment provider either way and are not included here.
02
Break-even at five visits on an $85 ticket
Here is the version you can do in your head. On an average ticket of $85, five visits is $425 — so if a platform is costing you the equivalent of roughly one client a month, the entire $410 is covered by five appointments. Everything after that is money the business keeps.
The same maths applied to commission: 20% of an $85 first visit is $17. Twenty-five new clients and you have handed over more than Kairo costs in total, once, forever.
03
What the $410 includes
- Your services and prices
- Fixed, from and free price types, set up with you rather than left as a blank menu.
- Your team
- Every person, their working hours, their colour and what they are allowed to see.
- Your diary rules
- Appointment lengths that match the real work, so a colour is not squeezed into a half-hour slot.
- Your branded booking link
- A public booking page on your own link, showing only openings that genuinely exist.
- Client messaging
- Confirmations, reminders, cancellation notices and review requests, switched on and worded for you.
- Payments and the counter
- Point of sale, invoices and receipts, with card payments through Stripe at Stripe's rates.
- Your existing clients
- Imported from whatever you use now, so nobody's history starts from zero.
- Updates and support
- Included. There is no upgrade tier holding a feature back.
04
What you are used to, against Kairo
| Typical subscription platform | Kairo | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | $29–$79 per month, forever | $0 per month, forever |
| Setup | Usually your own weekend | $410 once, done with you |
| Per-booking fee | Common on marketplace plans | None |
| Commission on services or retail | Sometimes, on first visits | None |
| Client list | Held on the platform | Your own database, exportable |
| Booking page | Often a shared marketplace listing | Your own branded link only |
| Price rises | At the vendor's discretion | Nothing left to raise |
The subscription column describes the common shape of these plans, not any one provider's current price. Kairo does not publish other companies' pricing: it varies by plan and country and changes over time, so the only figure asserted here is Kairo's own.
The money questions
01Is $410 really the only payment?
Yes. It is a one-off setup fee of $410 AUD. There is no monthly subscription, no per-booking fee and no commission. Card processing is billed by your payment provider at their rate, as it would be with any system.
02What is the catch on a no-monthly-fee model?
Kairo is a newer name than the large subscription platforms, and there is money to pay up front rather than spread across the year. In exchange the running cost is zero and there is no percentage of your takings leaving the business.
03How quickly does $410 pay for itself?
Against a $49 per month subscription it is about nine months, and the subscription keeps charging afterwards. Against a 20% new-client commission on an $85 ticket, roughly 24 first visits. Use the calculator on this page with your own numbers.
04What if I want to leave?
Export your clients, services and history and go. Nothing is held hostage, and there is no contract to run out.
05Do I need to buy hardware?
No. Kairo runs on the phone, tablet or computer already on the counter — in the browser, or as the free Kairo app on iPhone.
Tell us about your business — we set your Kairo up
We build the diary, the services, the team and the booking link with you, then hand over a system that costs nothing to run.