Vagaro is enormous — a booking platform for salons, spas, gyms, and everything adjacent, with a marketplace their support pages say spans more than 80,000 businesses. If you want your practice listed where strangers are already browsing, that scale is the product, and nothing in this comparison takes it away. The honest catch is what the sticker price doesn't include, and whose client your client becomes. The base plan is $30 a month, but intake forms, a website, and text marketing are all separate line items — and their own support docs are plain that every client needs a Vagaro account to book. Stillbook is $39 flat with everything included, and your clients book from your link without creating an account with anyone.
At a glance
| Stillbook | Vagaro |
|---|---|
| Price for a working solo | |
| $39/mo flat (free during early access) | $30/mo base, one bookable calendar ($23.99 promo at last check) |
| Intake & consent forms | |
| Included | Forms add-on, $10/mo |
| Your own website | |
| Booking page included | MySite website builder, $20/mo |
| Text marketing | |
| Not offered | Add-on, from $20/mo |
| Appointment reminders | |
| Included | Included |
| Charting / SOAP notes | |
| Included, built for massage | Included |
| Client accounts required? | |
| Never — clients book from your link | Yes — a Vagaro account, every time (their support docs) |
| Marketplace | |
| None — your clients stay yours | Free listing; no fee on marketplace bookings |
| Gift certificates & memberships | |
| Not yet | Included in base |
Competitor pricing checked 2026-08-25; see their site for current rates.
The honest part
Where Vagaro genuinely wins
Vagaro's base plan is genuinely broad, and it's honest to say a solo gets a lot for $30: appointment reminders, SOAP notes, gift certificates, memberships, packages, inventory, loyalty programs, a free marketplace listing — features Stillbook either doesn't have or deliberately doesn't build. If gift certificates or memberships are part of how you get paid, Vagaro does them today and we don't.
The marketplace is the bigger argument. Vagaro promotes listed businesses to people searching for services nearby, and they charge no fee when someone books you through it. A busy marketplace can send a newer practice real clients, and Stillbook has nothing like it — we're a tool, not a destination. Vagaro also scales in ways we don't try to: more staff calendars as you grow, POS hardware, payroll, a branded app of your own if you want one at $100 a month. And at the entry point, $30 is simply less than $39 — if the base plan covers everything you need, they're cheaper, full stop.
Where Stillbook wins
The base plan is where the price starts, not where it lands. The way Vagaro reaches a working solo's actual setup is through the add-on menu on their own pricing page: Forms at $10 a month, MySite at $20, text marketing from $20, the shopping cart at $10, the branded app at $100 — a dozen separately priced add-ons in all. Just adding intake forms brings Vagaro to $40 a month, a dollar past Stillbook, before the website or the marketing. Each item is small; the menu is the mechanism. Stillbook's answer is structural: one price, and the intake forms, consent forms, booking page, reminders, deposits, and charting are simply in it. A price you can't configure upward is the only price you never have to audit.
Then there's the account wall, and this one is about your clients, not your budget. Vagaro's support docs say it directly: every time someone books with a Vagaro business, they need a Vagaro account — and if they don't have one, one gets created for them. That account isn't loyalty to you; it's a marketplace identity, complete with deals and 80,000 other businesses to browse. Your Tuesday regular becomes Vagaro's user on the way to your table. Stillbook's booking page asks for a name and contact info, no account, no password, nothing to join — because the relationship being scheduled is yours.
There's also the quieter matter of fit. Vagaro is built for every business under the beauty-and-wellness umbrella, and it feels that way: the vocabulary is salons and classes, and massage is one tenant among many. Stillbook does one job — a solo massage practice — so the charting, intake, and booking flow never make you translate.
What switching actually involves
Most of the fear around switching is bigger than the reality — and the honest catch is worth planning for. Export your SOAP notes and client history from Vagaro before you cancel anything, because charts rarely move between systems as living records. Your client list and upcoming appointments move over in minutes, and your clients notice exactly one change: the next booking link you send them doesn't ask them to log in to anything. The fuller checklist is in what actually moves with you.
Who shouldn't switch
Vagaro is the right call in a few specific situations, worth naming plainly:
Stay with Vagaro if…
The marketplace sends you clients.
If a meaningful slice of your bookings comes from people finding you on Vagaro, that’s revenue Stillbook can’t replace — we have no marketplace, by design.
Gift certificates, memberships, packages, or retail are load-bearing.
Vagaro includes all of them in the base plan; Stillbook doesn’t do any of them yet.
The $30 base plan already covers you.
If you don’t need intake forms, a website, or text marketing — and the account wall doesn’t bother you — Vagaro is cheaper than Stillbook, and it’s fair to say so.
Switch to Stillbook if…
The add-on menu keeps growing.
One price, and the intake forms, consent forms, booking page, reminders, deposits, and charting are simply in it.
Your clients shouldn’t need an account.
Stillbook’s booking page asks for a name and contact info — no account, no password, nothing to join.
You want a tool built for massage only.
Stillbook does one job — a solo massage practice — so the charting, intake, and booking flow never make you translate.
If the add-on math and the account wall read like your last few months, the move itself is mechanical: export your charts, bring your client list, send your regulars a booking link that just works. What they'll notice is what's missing — no login, no app to download, no deals from the spa across town. What you'll notice is a bill that reads one line long, every month, no matter what you turn on.
A calmer way to run your practice.
Free during early access. No credit card, cancel anytime, export your data whenever you like.