How Much Does It Cost To Develop an App Like Booksy?

Booksy is revolutionizing the way businesses and clients manage appointments. The app’s user-friendly interface, coupled with its ability to streamline scheduling, has led to a surge in demand for similar platforms.

This presents a significant opportunity for businesses across different industries to adopt appointment booking software and enhance their customer experience. By implementing a Booksy-like app, businesses can increase efficiency, boost customer satisfaction, and ultimately drive growth.

With this mindset, those who want to develop an app like Booksy have questioned “How much Does It Cost to Develop an App like Booksy?”

The booksy-like app development cost can range somewhere from $20,000 to $35,000. This price can increase or decrease as per the growing demand of your projects.

Let’s get to know about it all in this blog.

What is Booksy?

Let’s get to know about the popular online appointment booking app “Booksy” first.

Booksy is a popular online appointment platform generally used in the beauty and wellness industry.

The app is a go-to option for businesses to manage their appointments, customer information, and marketing efforts, while customers can easily book services, discover new providers, and manage their bookings.

Essentially, it’s a tool that simplifies the process for both service providers and clients.

The app is available on both Android and iOS.

Salon Booking App Market Overview

• Online booking and contactless payments surged by 40% due to safety concerns.
• The salon industry is primarily composed of small businesses, demonstrating a strong entrepreneurial spirit.
• Beauty and personal care services are a significant market with annual spending of around $67.2 billion.
• A rising number of salons (64%) are using technology for operations and customer interaction.

The surge in popularity of salon booking apps like Fresha, Booksy, and Glamsquad indicates a growing demand for convenient appointment scheduling.

With more competitors entering the market, this trend is likely to continue. As a result, the opportunity is giving reasons to develop a successful salon app and become competitive.

Features to Integrate Into Your Salon Booking App like Booksy

If you want to create an app like Booksy, then it’s important to incorporate the best features. The competition in the market is high, and to ensure that you stand out in the market, these are some of the best features to incorporate.

1. Online Booking

One important salon app feature is Online Booking.

An online booking feature allows customers to schedule appointments at their convenience, without the need for phone calls.

This 24/7 accessibility helps to improve customer satisfaction and saves time for both clients and salon staff. The booking system should provide clear options for selecting desired services, stylists, and available time slots. This way you can develop an app like Booksy.

2. Real-Time Availability

To avoid scheduling conflicts and overbooking, a salon booking app must display accurate and up-to-date availability for services and staff.

These features ensure efficient appointment management and prevent customer satisfaction.

3. Service and Staff Selection

To get a competitive edge, this feature will help you a lot.

A comprehensive list of services with detailed descriptions, pricing, and photos helps customers to make better decisions. They can simply look at what they will be getting.

Additionally, you can also provide information about stylists, including their expertise, experience, and availability; empowering customers to choose the perfect match for their needs.

4. Customer Profiles

Creating a customer profile means that you should allow your user to store essential information that includes contact details, booking history, preferences, and appointment reminders.

This data can be of use as it can help to tailor the experience of the user, target marketing, and improve customer engagement.

5. Push Notification

Push Notification Services is helpful for businesses to maintain an amazing customer relationship.

You can leverage push notifications to send timely reminders about upcoming appointments, special offers, promotions, and service updates.

This feature helps reduce no-shows and keeps customers informed about salon activities, making you one of the best salon booking apps people look forward to.

6. Payment Gateway Integration

Payment gateway integration has become a necessity due to the rise of cashless transactions.

You can offer users several options such as credit cards, debit cards, eWallet, and more.

This way, they can easily book their appointment, and confirm their booking. This convenience enhances the customer experience and streamlines the payment process for the salon.

7. Review and Ratings

Allow customers to share their experiences through reviews and ratings.

This will help others to make better decisions through reviews and ratings. Plus, this feedback helps build trust, attract new clients, and identify areas for improvement in the salon’s services.

8. Loyalty Programs

A loyalty program is a powerful tool for improving customer retention. This is why it has become a booming development trend for salon apps.

This way, you can reward loyal customers with points, discounts, or exclusive offers, motivating and appreciating them for their support.

This strategy not only boosts customer loyalty but also encourages more spending and positive word-of-mouth referrals.

9. Staff Management

Provide Staff with the ability to manage their schedules, view bookings, and communicate with customers.

This way, you can have a look at their occupied and free time and manage staff schedule accordingly. Such features can improve efficiency and empower staff to deliver exceptional service.

10. Inventory Control

Effectively manage salon inventory, including products and supplies, to avoid stockouts and overstocking.

As a salon owner, a salon app like Booksy might give you a better idea about your business streamlining inventory management and purchasing processes.

These are some of the standout features that can significantly enhance your app. With that, let’s get to know about the development process.

Booksy App Development: Step-by-Step Process

So, “How to develop an app like Booksy?” Well, there is a step-by-step development process that takes place to turn your idea into a solution.

Let’s delve into the process of building a successful salon app:

Step 1: Market Research

First, start with mobile app market research.

Studying the target market is important for adjusting the app’s features and design accordingly. You should Analyze competitors to understand what they are providing to their users and plan to overcome every development challenge for salon app to be the best in the market.

Research will help you to create a strong unique selling point that sets the app apart and attracts customers. Setting priorities ensures a focused development process.

Step 2: Business Model

Developing a sustainable business model is key to the app’s success. You should Identify possible revenue sources and create a strategy for making money to ensure profitability.

Focusing on user needs is essential for a successful salon app. This way, you get detailed user profiles that help customize the app for specific user requirements and implement better app monetization strategies.

Step 3: Salon App Design

Time to focus on UI/UX Design.

Create detailed user personas tailored to meet specific demographic & psycho-graphic needs. After all, clear information architecture allows the users to navigate through it quickly.

With wireframing and prototyping, you can test and iterate design before developing an aesthetically pleasing, user-friendly front end that can lead to a better user experience.

Step 4: Select the Right Tech Stack

Choosing a proper technology stack is crucial to create an app like Booksy that not only performs well but also scales.

By picking the right appropriate tool, development frameworks, backend infrastructure, and database systems, you can reduce the time of development and optimize performance.

Step 5: Development

This is where you truly create your salon app.

A high-quality app development starts with a talented team who will write clean and scalable code means maintainability with high performance.

Developers leverage robust APIs to effortlessly integrate third-party services, expanding capabilities, enhancing user experience, and driving overall system efficiency.

Step 6: Testing

To ensure that your app is as per the market standards, it’s important to test the app.

It helps to systematically check for errors, bugs, and performance issues and fix them. User acceptance testing guarantees the app meets user expectations.

This multi-faceted approach helps deliver a high-quality and reliable product.

Step 7: Maintenance & Support

With the launch, a new chapter of maintenance and support begins.

You must regularly check the performance of your app post-launch as well as have a space for users to give feedback in order to make improvements.

Updating the app regularly will keep it relevant and make it scalable, which is the key to a long-term successful business.

This is how you develop an app like Booksy. Now, with that out of the way, let’s talk about the cost.

Cost to Build an App like Booksy

Wondering about, “How Much Does it Cost to Develop an App like Booksy?”

The Booksy-like app development costs $20,000 to $35,000. Different factors can impact the cost which we will discuss later.

Till then, let’s take a look at the cost to develop a salon booking app:

Factors Affecting the Cost to Create an App like Booksy

As we said, developing an app like Booksy involves a significant investment. Several factors contribute to the overall cost, making it crucial to understand these elements before embarking on the development journey.

By carefully considering these factors, you can make informed decisions about budgeting and resource allocation.

♦ App Features

The complexity of features has a huge influence on the costs of booksy-like app development.

Appointment booking and business information are the most basic features that can be implemented at a lower cost.

Deploying advanced functionalities like online payments, push notifications, loyalty programs and social media connections on their digitalization journey will definitely add more to the development time as well as costs.

♦ Platform Selection

When you’re only developing for one platform that could be iOS or Android-specific, then it’s generally costlier to build on a single platform.

Cross-platform development is cost-effective but may lack in performance or user experience.

There is significant overlap, of course, but you need to factor in the target audience, penetration into that market, and if this follows your brand guidelines.

♦ Design Complexity

Yes, the design and user experience of an app can affect the cost to develop an app like Booksy.

Typically, a minimalist design is much cheaper than more complex designs that have many images and graphics with animations or interactive elements.

Simply saying, the number of customizations and branding are also requirements and they will both impact the overall cost.

♦ Development Team Selection

Booksy-like app development costs can differ as per team size, location, and expertise. As a rule, in-house developers cost more and require you to maintain overhead.

While it can be more cost-effective to outsource development work to a third-party development company, outsourcing may also necessitate tight management and oversight to ensure quality.

Make sure to clear your project timelines and budget with the company you are choosing.

♦ Third-Party Integrations

If any third-party services such as payment gateways, mapping APIs, or social media platforms need to be used will surely increase the cost to develop an app like Booksy.

Most of the integrations will need some additional coding or testing, and might also require licensing fees. This means the number of integrations and their complexity will contribute directly to changes in the budget.

As we understand the several factors affecting the cost to develop an app like Booksy, it’s time to get to know about different models to make money from your app.

Monetization Model for Booksy-like app

If you invest in app development, you might think of ways to integrate different monetization strategies and enjoy good revenue.

To help you figure that out, here a some top strategies for online marketplaces:

► Subscription-Based App

Service providers can charge service fees every month or year. Subscription-based apps ensure a steady stream of income for the owner of the app.

By providing various types of membership and different levels of function, you can satisfy the needs of users according to their size at additional revenues.

► Commission-Based Fees

Under a commission-based model, you get a percentage of the bill after a successful appointment.

This business model links the app directly to the success of salons and beauty parlors that use it, motivating them to stick with the app for their appointments.

The commission rate can be adjusted according to variables such as service category, location, and business size.

► Premium Features

Businesses can earn extra money from premium features that are beyond subscription and commission fees. That includes advanced analytics, prioritized customer support, more powerful marketing tools, and the right to serve certain permitted customer segments.

By charging slightly more for these added functionalities, the app can still satisfy salons looking for innovation and at the same time earn some money on the side.

► Advertising

The introduction of advertising in the app provides another income source.

By selling ad space through the platform to companies that offer complementary businesses (e.g. makeup makers or related services), the app can generate cash while offering users added value.

Advertising can be tailored according to user demographics and preferences, or else geographical area: the most exact possible targeting possible when distributing ads will give ad revenue of the highest value.

How Nimble AppGenie Can Help You to Develop an App Like Booksy?

If you are inspired by the success of Booksy and want to develop a similar app then Nimble AppGenie is a top salon app development company and can be a valuable partner in developing a robust and successful salon app like Booksy.

A company with experience in the beauty and wellness industry will possess a deep understanding of the specific needs and challenges faced by salons and customers.

This knowledge is important for developing an app that truly meets the industry’s requirements.

Conclusion

Developing an app like Booksy presents a lucrative opportunity to tap into the growing demand for convenient and efficient appointment scheduling.

By incorporating essential features such as online booking, real-time availability, and customer profiles, you can create a user-friendly platform that benefits both salons and customers.

However, building a successful app requires careful planning, a solid understanding of the target market, and a substantial investment.

By considering factors such as app features, platform selection, design complexity, development team, and third-party integrations, you can make informed decisions about budgeting and resource allocation.

Ultimately, a well-executed salon booking app can drive business growth, enhance customer satisfaction, and establish a strong market presence.

FAQs

Niketan Sharma

Niketan Sharma is the CTO of Nimble AppGenie, a prominent website and mobile app development company in the USA that is delivering excellence with a commitment to boosting business growth & maximizing customer satisfaction. He is a highly motivated individual who helps SMEs and startups grow in this dynamic market with the latest technology and innovation.