Alternatives
Square alternatives for salons & barbershops
Salons & barbershops usually move off Square for one of three reasons: they want payments in an account in their own name, they need deposits, packages and memberships without paying per feature, or they need per-location and per-staff visibility. Enterprise Pay Gateway is software on top of Stripe that covers all three — a monthly subscription plus a platform fee of 0.20%–0.75%, with Stripe's processing fees billed separately by Stripe.
Last updated 9 September 2026
Why salons & barbershops look past Square
- Your payments sit inside Square's aggregated merchant account rather than an account in your own name.
- Recurring billing, invoicing extras and multi-location sit behind separate paid tiers.
- Reserves and holds are decided by Square, and higher-ticket service work is a common trigger.
Square terminals and card readers can carry on handling your in-person sales while online payments move across.
What salons & barbershops actually need from payments
No-shows and late cancellations
An empty chair at 2pm is gone. A deposit at booking, with a published cancellation window, changes behaviour within weeks.
Colour appointments carry real product cost
Long colour services consume expensive product and hours of stylist time. Deposits on these bookings specifically are worth more than a blanket policy.
Gift cards and packages tracked by hand
Paper gift cards and punch cards create liabilities nobody tracks. Selling them as products records the money and the redemption.
Retail sold inconsistently
Take-home product is high margin and routinely under-sold because there is no easy way to charge for it after the appointment.
How the switch works
- 1
Booking deposit
Take a deposit on longer or higher-value services, credited against the final price.
- 2
Prepaid package
Sell a block of services or a gift card as a single product through hosted checkout.
- 3
Membership
Bill a monthly cut, colour or blow-dry membership with automatic retries.
- 4
Retail
Sell take-home product from the same storefront page, including after the client has left.
What would you pay here?
Move the slider to your monthly card volume. Stripe keeps billing you its own processing rates directly — this is only what Enterprise Pay Gateway adds on top.
$15,000
Recommended plan
Starter
- Subscription
- $49 / mo
- Platform fee (0.75%)
- $113 / mo
- Total added by us
- $162 / mo
- Effective rate on volume
- 1.08%
Stripe's processing fees are separate and billed to you by Stripe under your own account.
Common questions
- Should a salon take deposits on every booking?
- No. Apply deposits to long colour services, new clients and peak slots. A blanket deposit on short appointments deters more bookings than it protects.
- Can we sell gift cards and prepaid packages?
- Yes. Sell them as products through hosted checkout so the money and the redemption are recorded in one place rather than on paper cards.
- Do memberships work for barbershops?
- Yes, particularly monthly cut memberships. They bill as recurring products with automatic retries and a self-serve portal for card updates.
- What does it cost?
- Stripe's processing fee plus a platform fee. Enterprise Pay Gateway charges from $49 a month plus 0.75%, falling to 0.40% at higher volume.
Stripe-powered payments
Card processing runs on Stripe under your own Stripe agreement.
PCI handled by Stripe
Checkout pages are hosted by Stripe, so card numbers never reach our servers.
We never hold your money
Stripe pays out straight to your bank on its standard schedule.
Per-merchant data isolation
Every record is scoped to your business and enforced at the database level.
Other options for salons & barbershops
Third-party features and pricing are typical published figures and change often — verify with each provider before deciding.