Squire vs Booksy 2026: Which Is Better for Your Barbershop? (Full Comparison)

Squire and Booksy are two of the biggest names in barbershop software, and they are genuinely different products built for different kinds of shops. If you are trying to pick between them in 2026, this is the no-spin comparison, plus one thing most reviews miss: the messaging layer that neither one owns, and how you can build it yourself.

The Short Version

Squire is the premium, barber-first platform. Clean UI, integrated POS and tips, strong on client experience, built for shops that want a high-end feel. Pricing starts around $30/month and scales up.
Booksy is the marketplace-driven platform. Strong consumer app that pushes new clients toward your shop, full lifecycle tooling, popular with working barbers across all sizes. Pricing starts around $30/month with marketplace fees depending on bookings.

Both are real options. The right pick depends on whether you value marketplace discovery (Booksy) or premium brand feel and a tighter operator experience (Squire).

Squire in One Minute

Strengths:

Barber-first design. It feels like the product was built for the chair, not adapted from a generic salon tool.
Integrated POS and tips that barbers actually like.
Polished client-facing app for repeat bookings.
Strong on memberships and upsells.
Good fit for shops that want to position themselves as premium.

Trade-offs:

Pricing and total cost can be higher than it looks once you add features.
Less of a consumer-discovery engine than Booksy.
Feature depth on inventory and reporting is lighter than Vagaro-class platforms.

Best for: barbershops that care about their brand experience and want a premium feel end-to-end.

Booksy in One Minute

Strengths:

Real consumer marketplace. New clients genuinely discover shops in the Booksy app.
Full appointment lifecycle: deposits, reminders, reviews, cancellations.
Popular among working barbers, so staff often already know the app.
Multi-staff scheduling that scales from solo to larger shops.

Trade-offs:

Marketplace fees add up on bookings that come through the app.
Interface can feel busy compared to Squire.
Less of a premium-brand feel out of the box.

Best for: shops that want marketplace-driven discovery and a solid all-rounder.

How to Pick

Want the premium, branded, barber-first feel? Squire.
Want marketplace discovery doing your top-of-funnel work? Booksy.
Running a higher-end shop targeting a specific vibe? Squire.
Running a working-class shop that lives off walk-ins and marketplace bookings? Booksy.
Want an easier time hiring barbers who already know the tool? Booksy.
Want a cleaner daily driver that feels premium? Squire.

Both are legitimate choices. Neither is wrong.

What Neither One Touches: Your DMs

Squire and Booksy both run the calendar side of your shop well. Between the two, you are covered for bookings, payments, reminders, and staff schedules.

Neither of them sees your DMs. In 2026, a lot of barbershop leads show up first on Instagram or WhatsApp: "yo you open Saturday?", "how much for a fade and a beard?", "you got anything at 2?". Booksy's marketplace helps with new-client discovery, but direct DMs to your own Instagram or WhatsApp still bypass the marketplace entirely. Squire does not touch that channel at all.

Those leads are often your best ones. They found you specifically. They followed you. They already trust the brand. And they are exactly the leads that cool off fastest if you take an hour to reply.

The good news: closing that gap is no longer a "buy another SaaS subscription" problem. It is a "build it yourself in an afternoon" problem.

Build the Messaging Layer Yourself on Wabery

Wabery is the messaging API you build on top of WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. It is not another packaged barbershop tool that competes with Squire or Booksy. It gives you the primitives, so you wire up exactly the experience your shop needs and keep whatever scheduler you already run.

The primitives you get:

A unified channels API so one integration covers WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, and Messenger.
Signed event webhooks that fire the instant a message arrives, so your code can react in real time.
Native WhatsApp Flows (in-chat forms) to collect "what cut, which barber, what day" without a single back-and-forth.
Automations, a CLI, and an MCP server so you can ship and iterate fast.

Say you want every inbound DM to capture the basics and ping you only when it is a real booking intent. With Wabery you can build that yourself. A WhatsApp Flow collects cut type, preferred barber, and timing in chat, and a webhook delivers the structured result straight to wherever you work:

// Webhook handler: a Flow submission lands here as a signed event
app.post("/wabery/webhook", verifySignature, (req, res) => {
  const { contact, flow } = req.body;
  // flow.fields = { cutType, barber, timing }
  notifyShop(`New booking intent from ${contact.name}: ${flow.fields.cutType} with ${flow.fields.barber}, ${flow.fields.timing}`);
  res.sendStatus(200);
});

From there it is your call: auto-reply with your price list, drop your Squire or Booksy link, or push the lead into your own tool. Wabery does not run your calendar, take payments, send appointment reminders, or manage staff. Squire and Booksy already handle all of that. Wabery just hands you the messaging building blocks the schedulers never expose.

The Bottom Line

Squire vs Booksy is a real choice and both are legit. Pick based on whether you want marketplace discovery (Booksy) or a premium branded experience (Squire).

Either way, if your DMs are full of leads you cannot keep up with, build the layer that catches them on Wabery. The scheduler handles the calendar. You build the messaging flow that stops the DMs from leaking, exactly how you want it.

Get Started Free

Keep your booking tool. Build the messaging layer that catches the leads before they ghost.

The Short Version

Squire is the premium, barber-first platform. Clean UI, integrated POS and tips, strong on client experience, built for shops that want a high-end feel. Pricing starts around $30/month and scales up.
Booksy is the marketplace-driven platform. Strong consumer app that pushes new clients toward your shop, full lifecycle tooling, popular with working barbers across all sizes. Pricing starts around $30/month with marketplace fees depending on bookings.

Both are real options. The right pick depends on whether you value marketplace discovery (Booksy) or premium brand feel and a tighter operator experience (Squire).

Squire in One Minute

Strengths:

Barber-first design. It feels like the product was built for the chair, not adapted from a generic salon tool.
Integrated POS and tips that barbers actually like.
Polished client-facing app for repeat bookings.
Strong on memberships and upsells.
Good fit for shops that want to position themselves as premium.

Trade-offs:

Pricing and total cost can be higher than it looks once you add features.
Less of a consumer-discovery engine than Booksy.
Feature depth on inventory and reporting is lighter than Vagaro-class platforms.

Best for: barbershops that care about their brand experience and want a premium feel end-to-end.

Booksy in One Minute

Strengths:

Real consumer marketplace. New clients genuinely discover shops in the Booksy app.
Full appointment lifecycle: deposits, reminders, reviews, cancellations.
Popular among working barbers, so staff often already know the app.
Multi-staff scheduling that scales from solo to larger shops.

Trade-offs:

Marketplace fees add up on bookings that come through the app.
Interface can feel busy compared to Squire.
Less of a premium-brand feel out of the box.

Best for: shops that want marketplace-driven discovery and a solid all-rounder.

How to Pick

Want the premium, branded, barber-first feel? Squire.
Want marketplace discovery doing your top-of-funnel work? Booksy.
Running a higher-end shop targeting a specific vibe? Squire.
Running a working-class shop that lives off walk-ins and marketplace bookings? Booksy.
Want an easier time hiring barbers who already know the tool? Booksy.
Want a cleaner daily driver that feels premium? Squire.

Both are legitimate choices. Neither is wrong.

What Neither One Touches: Your DMs

Squire and Booksy both run the calendar side of your shop well. Between the two, you are covered for bookings, payments, reminders, and staff schedules.

Those leads are often your best ones. They found you specifically. They followed you. They already trust the brand. And they are exactly the leads that cool off fastest if you take an hour to reply.

The good news: closing that gap is no longer a "buy another SaaS subscription" problem. It is a "build it yourself in an afternoon" problem.

Build the Messaging Layer Yourself on Wabery

The primitives you get:

A unified channels API so one integration covers WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, and Messenger.
Signed event webhooks that fire the instant a message arrives, so your code can react in real time.
Native WhatsApp Flows (in-chat forms) to collect "what cut, which barber, what day" without a single back-and-forth.
Automations, a CLI, and an MCP server so you can ship and iterate fast.

// Webhook handler: a Flow submission lands here as a signed event
app.post("/wabery/webhook", verifySignature, (req, res) => {
  const { contact, flow } = req.body;
  // flow.fields = { cutType, barber, timing }
  notifyShop(`New booking intent from ${contact.name}: ${flow.fields.cutType} with ${flow.fields.barber}, ${flow.fields.timing}`);
  res.sendStatus(200);
});

The Bottom Line

Squire vs Booksy is a real choice and both are legit. Pick based on whether you want marketplace discovery (Booksy) or a premium branded experience (Squire).

Get Started Free

Keep your booking tool. Build the messaging layer that catches the leads before they ghost.