A salon website exists so that a client can see the work, check the price, pick a stylist and book without ringing. Every other page is decoration. That makes choosing a salon website builder simpler than most comparisons make it look: the builder either handles online booking with staff and service durations well, or it does not, and everything else on the site is a handful of pages a template covers. This page sets out what a salon site needs, which builder features carry the weight, and how to put a cost on the build so a quote from a designer can be compared with doing it on a builder.
The pages a salon site actually needs
A home page with the address, the hours and a booking button above the fold. A services and prices page, because a client who cannot find the price rings a competitor. A team page with each stylist, since regular clients book a person, not a salon. A gallery of real work, not stock hair. A contact page with a map. That is five pages, and a sixth for gift vouchers if you sell them. Most salon sites that fail do so by burying the price list or the booking link under a slideshow, not by having too few pages.
The builder feature that decides it: booking
Salon booking is harder than a restaurant reservation because it has a stylist, a service with a duration, a chair and sometimes a colour that needs a gap before the cut. A builder's generic appointment block often cannot hold that, which is why most salons end up with a dedicated salon booking system embedded in the site. When that is the case, the builder only needs to embed it cleanly, and the question shifts to which booking system the salon wants to run its day on. Choose the booking system first and the builder second.
Costing a salon site before you choose
On the website cost calculator, a salon site is about six pages at a couple of hours each if templated, content that is mostly your own photographs, a feature line for the booking system's setup, and a monthly line that is the builder's plan plus the booking software. With a designer doing it, the hours per page and the rate rise; with a builder, the hours are yours and the rate is zero. Run both against the same six pages and the difference is what you are paying the designer for, which is usually the photography direction and the polish rather than the pages.
Questions people ask about salon website builder
Do I need a salon-specific website builder?
No. You need a booking system that understands stylists and service durations, and a site that embeds it. Most general builders do the second; few do the first well on their own.
Should the price list be on the site?
Yes, in full. A client who has to ask is a client who compares elsewhere first. If prices vary by stylist, show the range and the from price.
Is a licence number required on a salon website?
Several states require the establishment licence to be displayed in the premises and some extend that to advertising; check your state board's rules, and when in doubt put the licence number in the footer, which costs nothing.