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AI receptionist for salons and spas

Your phone rings hardest on the day nobody can answer it, because everyone is on the floor with a client in the chair. This page prices the services that pick up instead, from $79 a month, and shows why the billing model matters more here than the brand: salon calls are short, frequent and mostly from people you already know.

Prices read from vendor pricing pages in July 2026. The full table lives on the pricing index.

What calls does a salon actually miss?

Almost all of them are booking calls in disguise, which is what makes a missed one expensive. Nobody rings a salon for a chat.

• The mid-colour call. Gloves on, foils in, timer running. The phone rings out and the caller books at the salon down the street, because they wanted an appointment this week and someone else answered.
• Saturday, all day. Your busiest trading day is also the day with the least front desk capacity. Every call that drops on a Saturday is a Tuesday appointment you never took.
• The quick question. Opening hours, parking, whether you do keratin, how much a balayage costs. Short calls, dozens a week, and they block the line for the person who wants to book.
• Cancellations and reschedules. These arrive by phone, not by app, and when nobody answers the client simply does not turn up. An unfilled chair at short notice is a full day's revenue gone by Friday.
• The 9pm browse. People plan their week in the evening. If the only option is a voicemail beep, they book wherever the booking happens instantly.

What one missed call costs you here

One visit is typically worth $50 to $80 at a hair salon, more for colour, extensions or spa treatments. The number that matters is not the visit though, it is the year: a regular client coming back every six to eight weeks is worth roughly eight visits, so $400 to $640 a year before any retail sales. Those are typical ranges to start from. Put your own average ticket and your own rebooking rate in their place.

That is why the salon maths is different from a trades business. A plumber loses one job. You lose a year. If you take 70 calls a week, miss 20 percent of them and one in ten of those missed callers was a new client who would have booked, that is roughly six new clients a month lost, and at $400 to $640 of annual value each you are giving away serious money to answer a phone you cannot reach.

Enter annual client value, not the price of one visit, in the third field. Full workings on the missed call calculator.

Which service fits a salon or spa

Goodcall, because your callers repeat and your calls run long

Goodcall bills per unique caller rather than per minute: $79 a month for 100 unique customers on Starter, $129 for 250 unique customers on Growth, $249 for 500 unique customers on Scale, all with unlimited minutes. A client who calls to book, calls again to move it and calls a third time to ask about parking counts once. Over the limit you pay $0.50 per extra unique customer, which is a mild penalty rather than a shock. The tier detail worth checking: it also sets how many logic flows you get, 1 on Starter and 3 on Growth, so if you want different handling for bookings, prices and cancellations, price the Growth plan. Check current Goodcall pricing.

Nextiva XBert, because half your calls are under 30 seconds

Nextiva charges $99 a month for 100 interactions, then $0.99 per interaction. The definition is the reason it belongs on this page: a conversation only counts when a call lasts 30 seconds or more, or a chat gets three or more AI replies. Every "are you open till 7" call is free. Do the arithmetic before you commit though, because volume adds up: 300 conversations in a month is $99 plus 200 at $0.99, which is $297. There is no free trial, only a 30-day money-back guarantee, and onboarding is assisted at no charge. Check current Nextiva pricing.

Rosie, if booking into the calendar is the whole point

Rosie is the straightforward pick when you want the call to end with an appointment. Scale is $149 a month for 1,000 minutes and adds calendar booking plus warm transfers to whoever is free at the desk. The $49 Professional plan takes messages and filters spam but does not book, so do not buy that one expecting a calendar. Texting clients back is a separate product at $50 a month for 25 conversations, which is worth pricing in if your clients prefer messages to calls. Check current Rosie pricing.

My AI Front Desk, if clients reach you on four different channels

Salon enquiries do not arrive only by phone. My AI Front Desk handles voice, SMS, chat and email in one product: the Business-in-a-Box plan is $99 a month for 200 voice minutes, along with 20 outbound calls a day, 400 SMS and 100 chats. It covers 20 or more languages and sets up in minutes with a 7-day trial. The trap is the tier below it: the $20 Basic plan answers no phone calls at all, it is email, SMS and chat only. Voice starts at $99. Billing runs on a credit pool where voice draws 25 credits a minute and a $10 reload buys 1,000 credits, so voice works out near $0.25 a minute. Check current My AI Front Desk pricing.

Prices side by side

Verified July 2026. Compare every published plan on the pricing index.

What to ask before you sign

1. Does it write into my booking system, and can it also cancel and move appointments? Creating a booking is the easy half. Freeing a slot when someone cancels is where the money is. Make them demonstrate both in your own account.
2. How is a 25-second call billed? Nextiva does not count it at all. Per-minute vendors count it as a full minute, and Ruby states plainly that minutes round up to the next 60-second mark. Across a salon's call mix that difference is larger than the plan price gap.
3. What does it say when someone asks for a price? Get the script. A service that quotes a colour price wrongly costs you more than one that says a stylist will confirm.
4. Can it take a deposit or hold a card for no-shows? Do not assume. Ask directly, and if the answer is yes, ask who processes the card and where it is stored before you agree to anything.
5. What does it do at 9pm on a Sunday? Book, take a message, or send a text back. Evening enquiries are the cheapest bookings you will ever win, because your competitors are also closed.

Where to go next

Dental practices have the same chairside problem with a very different price per patient, and the recommended plans change accordingly: see AI receptionists for dental practices. Restaurants share your call pattern almost exactly, short calls at the busiest hour, and the vendors that suit them are worth comparing against this list. Every published plan is on the pricing index.