Best website builders for salons (2026): what 667 salon websites show
Every builder has a salon template. What matters is what the finished site does for a client on a phone, and for Google and AI assistants. We checked the websites of 1,500 independent US salons, recognized the builder behind each one, and scored the sites built on Wix, Squarespace, Square Online, WordPress, GoDaddy and the booking pages salons use instead. Prices and booking setup come from each builder's own pages.
Most used by salons: WordPress (104), Square Online (102), Wix (90), Squarespace (78) and GoDaddy Website Builder (38) of the 667 salon-owned websites we checked. Another 223 were hand-built or on builders the check does not name.
Best set up for Google and AI assistants: Wix. 61% of Wix salon sites carried complete structured business data, against 8.7% on WordPress, 0.0% on Square Online and 1.3% on Squarespace. Wix sites also had the highest median score (81 of 100).
The one to set up with care: Square Online. 92% of Square Online salon sites (94 of 102) showed almost no text until scripts ran, which leaves AI assistants that read a page as it arrives with close to nothing.
The basic most often missed: a tap-to-call phone number. Only 27% of Wix, 27% of Squarespace and 17% of Shopify salon sites had one. Every builder can make a number tappable; most salon sites never did.
A booking page instead of a website: 24% of salons send visitors straight to a GlossGenius, Vagaro, Booksy or Acuity page. It books in one tap, but it lives on the platform's address and shows only what the platform allows.
The scorecard
6 builders, 444 salon sites.
Share of salon-owned sites on each builder that pass each check, most used builder first. They describe the sites salons have built, which mixes each builder's defaults with what owners and their designers did, not the limit of what a builder can do.
Salon website checks by website builder, sites checked October 11, 2026
Builder
Text without scripts
Booking link
Tap to call
Address and hours
Services or prices
Reviews
Business data
Search snippet
Share preview
Median score
WordPress104 sites
98%
67%
56%
59%
74%
57%
8.7%
32%
35%
75
Square Online102 sites
7.8%
too few
too few
too few
too few
too few
0.0%
23%
22%
too few
Wix90 sites
99%
73%
27%
44%
79%
42%
61%
43%
54%
81
Squarespace78 sites
91%
79%
27%
62%
82%
23%
1.3%
22%
82%
78
GoDaddy Website Builder38 sites
95%
39%
67%
56%
53%
25%
24%
63%
95%
76
Shopify18 sites
100%
61%
17%
17%
61%
44%
5.6%
44%
61%
68
Hand-built or other223 sites
50%
41%
57%
49%
71%
42%
7.2%
39%
30%
67
All salon-owned sites667 sites
67%
61%
45%
51%
74%
40%
14%
35%
44%
75
Text without scripts: share of sites whose homepage text arrives before scripts run. Booking link: an online booking link near the top of the homepage. Tap to call: the phone number is a link a phone can dial. Address and hours: street address and opening hours on the homepage. Services or prices: prices, or a link to a services or menu page. Reviews: reviews or testimonials on the homepage. Business data: complete structured business data (address and phone) that Google and AI assistants read. Search snippet: a written meta description, so Google does not pick a sentence for you. Share preview: a share image and title for links sent in texts and social apps. Median score: the free website check's 0 to 100 score, without page speed. Content checks count only sites with readable text; “too few” means fewer than 15 such sites.
No website at all
24% of salons use a booking page as their website.
205 of the 872 salons we graded list a booking or link page where a website would be.
Booking pages salons list as their website
Booking page
Salons
Business data
Search snippet
GlossGenius
89
75%
85%
Vagaro
46
0.0%
67%
Booksy
21
0.0%
4.8%
Acuity Scheduling
20
0.0%
50%
A booking page books a client in one tap, and GlossGenius pages carried complete business data more often (75%) than the sites salons built themselves (14%). What it cannot do is belong to you: the address is the platform's, every link and search visit builds the platform's presence, and the page shows only the sections the platform allows. If you change booking software, the page and everything pointing at it goes with it.
One fix costs nothing: 19 of the 21 salons whose website link was Booksy listed a Booksy app link, which opens as a near-empty page in a browser and to search engines. List your Booksy web profile instead.
Builder by builder
What each one costs, how booking works, and what to set up.
Wix
Website builder
A salon that wants to design its own site and take bookings on it with Wix's own scheduling, or link out to its booking platform.
In our study: 90 of the 667 salon-owned websites in our study (14%) run on Wix. 61% carried complete structured business data. 73% had a booking link near the top and 27% a tap-to-call number. Booking systems they linked to most: Vagaro (12), Wix Bookings (10) and Square Appointments (7).
Price
Building a site is free, but connecting your own domain needs a paid plan. Paid plans run from $17 a month (Light) to $159, billed annually; Core, the first plan with scheduling, is $29 a month. Wix was showing a 50% first-year offer on select plans on the day we checked. source
Booking
Wix's own Scheduling and services (Wix Bookings) is included from the Core plan; the Light plan does not list it. source
Also
A Premium plan is what lets you connect your own domain and remove Wix branding; a free-plan site gets a Wix-branded address. source
Set up:Most Wix salon sites in our study already published business data, but most showed the phone number as plain text and many had no search snippet. Make the number tap-to-call, write the homepage snippet, and keep your business hours current in Wix.
A salon that wants a polished, image-led site and is happy to link to its booking platform or add Acuity.
In our study: 78 of the 667 salon-owned websites in our study (12%) run on Squarespace. 1.3% carried complete structured business data. 79% had a booking link near the top and 27% a tap-to-call number. Booking systems they linked to most: Vagaro (15), Square Appointments (7) and GlossGenius (5).
Price
No free plan, a 14-day free trial. Basic is $19 a month billed annually ($228 a year) or $25 month to month; Core, which adds custom CSS and JavaScript, is $29 a month billed annually. source
Booking
Squarespace's scheduling is Acuity, a separate subscription from $16 a month (Starter) that does not need a Squarespace website. Any plan can link to your existing booking page. source
Also
Acuity's own sign-up page lists Starter at $16, Standard at $27 and Premium at $55 a month. source
Set up:Most Squarespace salon sites in our study published business data without the phone number, and many without the address too, so almost none counted as complete. Fill in both wherever Squarespace keeps your business details, make the phone tap-to-call, and write a search snippet.
A salon already taking bookings and payments on Square that wants a free site in the same account.
In our study: 102 of the 667 salon-owned websites in our study (15%) run on Square Online. 92% of them showed almost no text until scripts ran. None carried complete structured business data. Booking systems they linked to most: Square Appointments (7).
Price
Square Free is $0 a month per location, with a free square.site address; Square Plus is $49 and Premium $149 a month per location. Square's US pages did not say which plan connecting your own domain needs, so ask before you buy. source
Booking
Square Appointments comes with its own free booking site, which a Square Online site can link to. source
Also
Without a domain of your own, the site uses a free address ending in square.site. source
Set up:Almost every Square Online salon site in our study arrived as a blank page until scripts ran, so AI assistants that read a page as it arrives find little on it. Keep your services, prices and hours complete on your Google Business Profile and booking site as well, and check what arrives with the free website check.
A salon with a web designer who builds on WordPress, or an owner who wants full control and any booking plugin.
In our study: 104 of the 667 salon-owned websites in our study (16%) run on WordPress. 8.7% carried complete structured business data. 67% had a booking link near the top and 56% a tap-to-call number. Booking systems they linked to most: Vagaro (7), GlossGenius (4) and Phorest (3).
Price
WordPress.com plans start at $4 a month billed annually ($2.75 billed every 3 years). Annual paid plans include your own domain free for the first year; the free plan has no custom domain. source
Booking
Booking comes from a plugin or your booking platform's widget. WordPress.com allows plugins from the Personal plan; the free plan does not. source
Set up:WordPress salon sites in our study were well built for phones but rarely carried salon business data, and most lacked a proper search snippet. An SEO plugin can add both; set your business type, address, phone and hours in it.
A salon that wants the cheapest published site with booking built in, drafted by AI from a description.
In our study: 38 of the 667 salon-owned websites in our study (5.7%) run on GoDaddy. 24% carried complete structured business data. 39% had a booking link near the top and 67% a tap-to-call number. Booking systems they linked to most: Vagaro (3) and Square Appointments (3).
Price
GoDaddy's current builder is Airo. Its free plan builds and previews only; publishing needs Starter, $9.99 a month on an annual plan. GoDaddy's pages did not give the Professional plan's price. source
Booking
GoDaddy's own salon guide says Starter covers a salon site with services, booking, payments and Google sync. source
Also
Starter's price as GoDaddy states it, with 150 AI credits a month. source
Set up:The GoDaddy-built salon sites in our study (which include sites made on its earlier Website Builder) led every builder on search snippets and share previews but had the fewest booking links. Put the booking button at the top of the homepage.
A solo artist or small team on GlossGenius that wants clients to book from one link.
In our study: 89 of the 205 salons in our study that use a booking page as their website use their GlossGenius page. 75% of those pages carried complete structured business data.
Price
The booking website comes with the subscription: Standard is $24 a month billed annually ($28 monthly), Gold $48 and Platinum $148. source
Booking
The booking site lives at a GlossGenius address such as jane.glossgenius.com, which you can change under Settings, Website. source
Set up:GlossGenius pages in our study carried complete business data more often than the sites salons built themselves, but none of the readable ones showed a tap-to-call number, and the address belongs to GlossGenius. Use the same link everywhere you are listed, and keep a site of your own if you want pages that rank for your services.
A salon on Vagaro that wants a real website tied to its Vagaro booking without another builder.
In our study: 46 of the 205 salons in our study that use a booking page as their website use their Vagaro page. None of those pages carried complete structured business data.
Price
MySite is an add-on: free to build and try, then $20 a month in the US once published, on top of the Vagaro subscription. source
Booking
Without a domain of your own, MySite lives at mysite.vagaro.com plus your business name; Vagaro also sells domains for it. source
Set up:The Vagaro booking pages salons listed as their website in our study carried no structured business data, and their address, hours and services arrived only after scripts ran. If Vagaro is your website, MySite on your own domain gives Google and AI assistants a page to read.
A barbershop or solo pro on Booksy whose clients book through its profile, Instagram or Google.
In our study: 21 of the 205 salons in our study that use a booking page as their website use their Booksy page. 19 of those links were app links that open as a near-empty page in a browser. None of those pages carried complete structured business data.
Price
$29.99 a month with every feature included, plus $20 a month for each additional team member. source
Booking
Your booking site is hosted on Booksy's domain. To take Booksy bookings on a site of your own, Booksy provides widget code for sites that allow custom scripts. source
Also
The widget works on JavaScript-enabled sites and site builders that allow custom scripts. source
Set up:If Booksy is your website, list your Booksy web profile address wherever your shop is listed, not an app link: app links open as a near-empty page in a browser.
Counts, not shares: each trade has at most 299 graded salons, so read them as the usual picks, not a ranking. Business types are the listings' own categories.
How to choose
Six questions before you pick a builder.
Start from your booking system, not the template. Find out how your booking platform connects to each builder: a button that links to your booking page works everywhere; an embedded booking widget or a built-in scheduler depends on the plan. Keep one calendar, one client list and one card processor.
Put it on your own domain. Your address is what Google, your Instagram bio and your business listings point to. It keeps its value when you change builders or booking software; a builder subdomain or a booking-page address does not.
Check the basics clients use first. A booking link at the top, a phone number a phone can tap, your address and hours, your services with prices, and real reviews. These are the checks most salon sites miss, on every builder.
Check what Google and AI assistants read. Complete business data (address, phone, hours) in the page, a written search snippet, and text that arrives without scripts. The free website check shows all of it for any address in a few seconds.
Price the whole year. Compare the plan you would actually need (your own domain, no builder branding, booking or payments if you take them on the site) on yearly billing, plus the domain itself after any first-year offer, against your booking platform's own page, which costs nothing extra.
Decide who keeps it current. Opening hours, prices, staff, holiday closures and new reviews go stale fast: 33% of the salon homepages in our study that show a copyright year still showed an old one. A builder gives you the tools; someone has to use them every month.
Where SalonAI fits
A builder gives you a template and the tools; the site still has to be set up for clients and search, then kept current every month. SalonAI builds your salon's website on your own domain, wired to the booking system you already use, with the basics this scorecard checks in place, then keeps hours, prices, reviews and listings up to date as one part of running the digital side of your salon. Read the full Salon Website Study.
The sites. The Salon Website Study took 1,500 independent US hair salons, barbershops, nail salons and skin, lash and brow studios at random from public business listings and checked each listed website once, on October 11, 2026. 872 loaded as a salon's web presence: 667 salon-owned websites and 205 booking or link pages.
The builder. Recognized from each site's own page code: the builder's generator tag or the hosts its pages load files from. Sites the check could not attribute, including hand-built ones, are grouped as custom or other.
The bases. Checks that read the page head (structured data, search snippet, share preview) count every site on a builder. Checks that read the page content (booking link, phone, address, services, reviews) count only sites whose text arrives without scripts, because a scripted page cannot be read that way. A share over fewer than 15 sites is shown as too few. With about 80 to 100 sites per large builder, a share is accurate to within roughly 10 percentage points.
What it measures. How salons have set up their sites on each builder, which mixes the builder's defaults with what owners and their designers did. It is not a test of every feature a builder offers, and a builder can do better than the average site built on it.
Vendor facts. Prices, free plans and booking setup were read on each builder's own pricing, product and help pages on October 20, 2026, with the page linked. Prices change and promotions come and go; confirm on the builder's page before you buy. SalonAI takes no money from any builder named here.
Questions
Salon website builders, answered.
What is the best website builder for a salon?
Judged by the sites salons have actually built, Wix came out ahead in our check of 667 salon-owned websites: the highest median score and the most complete business data for Google and AI assistants. Squarespace sites led on booking links and share previews but almost never carried structured business data. The right choice still starts from your booking system: pick a builder that links or embeds it cleanly, on your own domain, and set up the basics in the scorecard above.
Is Wix or Squarespace better for a salon website?
On the salon sites we checked, Wix sites more often carried complete structured business data (61% against 1.3%) and scored higher overall (median 81 against 78). Squarespace sites more often had a booking link near the top (79% against 73%) and a share preview (82% against 54%). Both left the phone number as plain text on most sites. Either works if you add what it is missing.
Do I need a website if I use GlossGenius, Vagaro or Booksy?
Not to take bookings: 24% of the salons we checked use a booking page as their whole website. A site of your own adds what a booking page cannot: your own address that keeps its value if you change booking software, pages for each service people search for, and your own reviews, photos and policies. If you list a Booksy link, use your Booksy web profile, not the app link: 19 of the 21 Booksy links salons listed as their website were app links that open as a near-empty page in a browser.
Is there a free website builder for salons?
Wix and WordPress.com have free plans, but a free site lives on a builder-branded address, and connecting your own domain needs a paid plan. Square Online's free plan uses a square.site address. GoDaddy's free plan only builds and previews; publishing needs a paid plan. A booking platform's own page comes with your subscription. Each builder's section above links the pricing page these come from.
Can ChatGPT and Google read my salon website?
Google runs page scripts, so it usually sees a scripted page eventually, but many AI assistants read a page as it arrives. 92% of Square Online salon sites showed almost no text that way. Run the free website check on your own address to see what arrives.
How did you score the builders?
We ran the same 17-point check any owner can run for free on a random sample of 1,500 independent US salons from public listings, on October 11, 2026, and recognized the builder behind each salon-owned site from its page code. The figures describe how salons have set up their sites on each builder, not every feature the builder offers. Prices and booking setup come from each builder's own pages, read on October 20, 2026.
Ready when you are
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