What booking software costs in Australia, 2026

How these figures were worked out

Every price was read on the vendor's own pricing page, never a review site or a comparison blog, and each one is dated in the sources below the tables. Where a page shows a price per person, it is multiplied out for the team. Where it shows monthly and yearly prices, the table uses the monthly one, so every row is paid the same way.

The salon table picks the cheapest plan each vendor publishes that lets 3 people take online bookings. That is the floor, not what a busy salon ends up paying: it leaves out card processing, text messages, add-ons and any marketplace fee, and those are where bills usually grow. The notes say which of them applies.

Prices stay in the currency the vendor publishes. Several salon platforms price only in US dollars, so an Australian business also carries the exchange rate and its bank's foreign transaction fee. Those rows are grouped separately rather than converted, because a conversion would be our number, not theirs.

Salons: the free plans are real

Square Appointments and Setmore let a small team take bookings for nothing, and for a salon that only needs a calendar and email reminders, that is hard to beat. What moves a salon onto a paid plan is usually texts, deposits, a booking page in its own colours, or more people. Check which of those you need before comparing totals.

Per-person pricing is the other thing to look at. On a plan priced per person, every hire raises the bill; on a flat plan it does not, up to a set number of people. For a salon planning to grow, the price at five or ten people matters more than the price today.

Compare the plan you would need in a year, not the one on the front of the pricing page.

Restaurants: most prices are not published

OpenTable, Now Book It, SevenRooms and ResDiary do not publish a price. Each asks for a demo or a quote first, and OpenTable adds a fee for every diner it seats from its own network. That does not make them expensive, but it does mean a restaurant cannot compare them without sitting through several sales calls.

The two that do publish count different things. Gaplessly sizes venue plans by bookings a month and Tableo by covers, so a venue that takes many large groups uses up a cover limit faster than a booking limit, and a venue full of couples the other way round. Work out which number your venue actually has before comparing.

Where Gaplessly sits

It is not the cheapest option for a small salon: the free plans above cost less, and so do some US-priced ones. What Growth gives a team of 3 for A$59 a month is no booking cap, no commission on any client, email reminders included, and a published price in Australian dollars. For venues, every plan is on the pricing page, and none charges per cover.