A Timely alternative without per-staff pricing

Where the two models actually diverge

Timely has no flat tier at all. Every one of its three plans, Build, Elevate and Innovate, is priced per bookable staff member per month, so the subscription is multiplied by your headcount no matter which tier you pick. Our plans include a team: Solo is one person, Growth includes 3, Pro includes 10, and only the seats beyond that carry a per-seat charge.

Using Timely's own published Build rate of A$42/mo per staff member and our published ladder: at five bookable staff, Timely's cheapest plan is A$210 a month and our Growth plan is A$83, because Growth includes 3 people and 2 extra seats are A$12 each. Build is not a like-for-like comparison at ten staff, though: Timely does not sell it past 7 people, so a ten-person business is pushed onto Elevate instead, whose real per-staff rate falls as headcount grows rather than staying flat, landing at A$436 a month for ten staff. Our Pro plan is A$149 at the same headcount, with 10 people included. Their own "Recommended" tier, Innovate, follows the same volume-discounted shape rather than a flat A$79/staff: A$339 a month at five staff and A$534 at ten. All figures exclude tax on both sides, neither includes card processing, and the Elevate/Innovate totals are read directly off Timely's own staff-count selector rather than multiplied out, since their per-staff rate is not constant.

Timely's own per-staff rate falls as a team grows, from A$79 to roughly A$53 a head on Innovate between one person and ten, but it never reaches ours: at ten staff Innovate is still over A$50 a head against our Pro plan's flat A$10 for every seat past the 10 already included, and nothing at all once the bill reaches A$199, up to 25 people. Build looks cheapest at A$42/staff, but stops being sold at all past 7 people.

The SMS allowance is real, and it is also how the tiers are sold

Timely bundles a monthly SMS allowance into each plan, 100 on Build, 200 on Elevate, 350 on Innovate, then charges 12c for anything over it. That is a genuinely generous allowance next to most of this category, and it is worth crediting.

It is also part of why the tiers exist: more SMS and more features both live behind the same upgrade, so a salon that wants the higher allowance is also paying the higher per-staff rate for everything else. We price texts per text instead: A$0.09 per text on Growth and Pro, with no allowance to buy up to, because the mobile carrier charges us for each one. Email confirmations and reminders are unmetered on every plan, including Solo.

What Timely does well, stated plainly

Timely is built specifically for hair and beauty, and it shows in the detail: a native staff app, a Consult app for digital consultation forms, retail stock tracking with direct supplier ordering, and next-business-day payouts on card takings. Its transaction fees are published too, 1.59% + 5c in person and 1.85% + 30c online, which is more than most vendors in this category are willing to print.

None of that changes the per-staff arithmetic above. It is the reason Innovate can be the right answer for a salon that wants that specific feature set and is happy paying per head for it.

What you get here that you do not get there

• A price that does not multiply by headcount. Hiring past 3 staff on Growth costs A$12 a head, not a flat A$42. Hire your eleventh and Timely does not just charge more per head, it takes away the plan you were on: Build stops selling entirely past 7 staff.
• Unmetered email confirmations and reminders on every plan, including the entry one.
• No booking cap on any appointment plan, and no limit on client records.
• The same platform runs table reservations, if you also run a venue alongside the salon.