Phorest vs Vagaro

Phorest and Vagaro are both all-in-one platforms, but they win different arguments. Phorest is built around client retention: rebooking prompts, lapsed-client reactivation, a branded client app, and marketing that targets the right people automatically. Vagaro is built around breadth and price: booking, POS, payroll, forms, and marketing across salons, spas, barbershops, and even fitness, plus a consumer marketplace that puts you in front of new clients. For an independent owner the choice usually comes down to whether your bottleneck is keeping the clients you have or finding new ones, because retention is where the money quietly lives: a 5% retention gain lifts profit 25% to 95%, and one extra visit per client per year can raise revenue by up to 30%.

Pricing tells the rest of the story. Vagaro starts near $24 a month for one bookable calendar and scales per staff member, which keeps it genuinely accessible for solos and small teams. Phorest is custom, typically in the $99 to $139 a month range, and asks you to invest in a heavier retention and marketing engine. Given that acquiring a new client costs five to 25 times more than keeping one, Phorest's premium is really a bet on lifetime value, while Vagaro's marketplace is a bet on discovery. This page compares them on the axes that decide it.