Ask a salon owner what the website is for and the answer is almost always "so people can find us". The client's answer is different: how much is a full set, how long will I be there, and can I get in on Saturday.
Those three questions are not a website. They are a table, a duration and an hours line. Everything a salon pays for the web is either buying those or buying something else it was told it needed.
Why the price list keeps ending up in an Instagram caption
Because captions are free and fast, and a website was expensive and slow. But a caption is a bad home for a price list in four specific ways, and each one costs a booking:
- It cannot be a table. Service, price and duration in three columns is what a client wants; a paragraph of emoji and line breaks is what a caption gives.
- It scrolls away. The newest post is the one on top, and the post with the prices is from March.
- It is not searchable by the client. Nobody types "gel full set price" into your profile grid. They read the first three squares and message you instead.
- It changes nothing else. Change a price in a caption and the old caption stays in the grid, quoting the old number, for as long as the account exists.
A page with the prices in text solves all four, and one page is enough. That is the whole claim here — not a multi-page site with a blog and a shop, but one screen a client can read on their way to the bus.
Services — Gel manicure 45 min · $45
Gel full set 75 min · $65 · Fill 60 min · $50
Classic pedicure 50 min · $55 · Gel pedicure 65 min · $65
Art per nail from $5 · Chrome +$10 · Removal $10
Hours — Tue–Sat 10:00–19:00 · closed Sun–Mon · last appointment 18:00
Book — the link to your booking tool, and a number that dials
Before you come — deposit, lateness and cancellation, in two lines
Where — the address with a Directions button, and parking
Eight blocks. If a first-time client can answer "how much, how long, when, where, what happens if I am late" without sending a message, the page has replaced about twenty direct messages a week.
The twelve lines: price, duration, and the thing that is not "from"
Twelve lines is the useful ceiling — not a limit of the tool, a limit of the person reading in a queue. Choose them like this:
- Price and duration on the same line. "Gel full set 75 min $65" answers both questions a booking turns on. A price without a duration gets you a client who books a 45-minute slot for a 75-minute set.
- Exact prices, not "from". "From $40" makes every client assume $40 and feel cheated at $65. If a price genuinely varies, print the range and the reason in one clause: "Nail art $5–$15 per nail, by design".
- Add-ons as their own lines. Chrome, cat eye, French tips, soak-off removal. These are where the average ticket is won, and they are exactly what is missing from an Instagram caption.
- Removal priced separately. If you charge for taking off another salon's work, say so on the page, not at the desk.
The same twelve lines should appear on the card at the desk and, if you have one, in the booking tool's service list. Three copies of one list is not bureaucracy — it is the only way a client stops hearing two different numbers.
Booking: keep the tool, link it from the page
A booking system is a real, separate purchase — it holds the calendar, the deposits and the reminder texts, and most salons rightly pay for one. Nothing about this page replaces it. The page's job is to be the place the booking link lives, so the link is not a story highlight that expires.
What the page must say before that link is tapped, because the booking tool will not say it:
- How long each service takes, so the slot the client picks matches the work.
- The deposit rule — amount, and whether it comes off the final bill.
- Lateness and cancellation in two plain lines. This is the paragraph that saves the Friday evening argument.
- Cash or card, and whether tips are added at the desk or in the app.
The photo grid, in its place: clients choose a design far more than a price, so pictures belong on the page — after the prices, not before. Six photographs of your own work beat thirty of other people's. A client who has to scroll past a gallery to find out what a set costs will message you instead, and that message is a booking you paid to answer.
What the alternatives cost in 2026
Read from each vendor's own pricing page on the dates in the last column; before tax, annual billing where stated.
| Route | Per month | Year 1 | 3 years | What the client gets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Squarespace Basic (annual) | $19 | $228 | $684 | A real site — the price table is one you build and keep up to date |
| Wix Light (yearly plan) | $17 | $204 | $612 | The same, in an editor you learn before the first client sees it |
| Linktree Pro (annual) | $14 | $168 | $504 | Buttons to your booking tool — no price table at all |
| MapToSite Card | $0 | $0 | $0 | One page: twelve lines with prices, hours, call, Directions, photos |
| MapToSite turnkey kit | — | $49 once | $49 | The page plus fifteen printed pieces, built for you in 24 hours |
Now put those numbers next to the ticket. At $65 a set, $504 over three years is about eight sets — for a Linktree that cannot show a price — and $684, at Squarespace Basic, is about ten. The monthly plans are not silly: they buy an editor, a blog and a shop. The question is whether a salon with a price list and a booking link needs to buy an editor every month for three years to publish twelve lines.
When the monthly plan is right: if you sell retail products online, write a blog, want a page per technician, take deposits inside the site itself, run gift cards or need a domain and a professional email, pay for the builder — $17–$29 a month is what that costs and it is a fair price. This article is about the floor: a price list, a duration, the hours and a phone number. Paying monthly for the floor and never having the evening to build the rest is the mistake.
To see the same arithmetic with your own numbers — your plan, your years, your table count — the three-year calculator does it in one screen.
Two minutes, no email: what your current plan costs over three years, next to a one-off.
The paper a salon actually needs
Salons are the one trade where the customer sits still for an hour with a phone, looking at her own hands. That is the best advertising position in local business, and most shops waste it.
- A price card at the desk, the same twelve lines as the page, in a stand — for the client who is paying and wondering about a fill next month.
- A small QR sticker on the mirror or the lamp, 30 mm, pointing at the page: the client already seated, deciding whether to add art today.
- A card that goes in the bag with the next appointment and the same QR — the cheapest reminder that does not depend on an app being installed.
- A door sign with the hours, matching the page exactly. Two different closing times is how a walk-in becomes a review.
Our kits are generated from one list, so the page, the price card, the sticker and the door sign cannot disagree after the next price change — which, in a salon, is the thing that always goes wrong first.
The twenty-minute version, if you are doing it yourself
- Write the twelve lines in a notes app: service, minutes, price. Pull the numbers from your booking tool so the two agree from the start.
- Write the hours exactly as you say them, including the last-appointment time and the closed days. Not "Mon–Sat" if Saturday is short.
- Write the deposit and lateness rule in two sentences. If you have never written it down, this is the moment — the page is where it gets enforced without an argument.
- Publish the page on a free builder — ours takes one form and gives you a link plus an edit key. It is here, no card, no account.
- Read it the way a client does: one hand, on the bus, in eight seconds. Anything you have to hunt for is a message you will be answering instead.
Then the maintenance that matters: when a price changes at the desk, open the edit key, change the line, and change the printed card in the same sitting. That is the entire ongoing job — about a minute, twice a season.
Questions we get asked
How do I put a price list online without paying monthly?
Write it as text — one service per line, price and duration at the end, twelve lines at most — and publish it on a free page that gives you an edit key. A price list is text, not a design; it needs no template, no editor and no hosting plan. Our Card page is $0 and stores nothing about you.
Can Instagram hold the price list instead?
No: a caption cannot be a table, a story expires, and the grid puts the newest post on top. Instagram is where clients find you; the page is where they read the price, the duration and the deposit rule.
Should the page take bookings?
Not if you already pay for Fresha, Booksy, Square Appointments or similar — those hold the calendar, deposits and reminders, and are priced for that job. Link to the tool from the page, and put the four things the tool will not say (duration, deposit, lateness, cash or card) on the page itself.
What if I only rent a chair and my hours change weekly?
Then the hours line is the block you edit most — which is an argument for the page you can change in a minute, not against having one. A chair renter's page also does something a shop page cannot: it names the person, so a client books you rather than a shop.
Is $49 once really enough?
Yes for the page and the paper: the live mobile page, the printed price card, the A4 QR poster, stickers, table cards, the door sign, review cards and the rest of fifteen pieces, delivered within 24 hours. The limit is scope, not a renewal — Starter covers ten tables and one revision round, and the page lives on our address rather than a domain of your own.
Related reading: what a barbershop or salon site should cost in 2026, the QR menu and Maps link chain, and the three-year cost calculator.
Twelve lines, a price card and a sticker on the mirror
Send a Maps link, your twelve lines and your number. Within 24 hours: the live mobile page, the printed price card, the A4 QR poster, mirror stickers, the door sign, review cards and the rest of the fifteen pieces — $49 once, no subscription, nothing auto-renewing.
Try the page before you decide — thirty seconds, free, and it stays free:
Create a page — free Salon pages See the samples
Sources, read on 13–14 November 2026: squarespace.com/pricing — Basic $19 a month billed annually ($25 monthly), Core $29 / $39, no free plan, 14-day trial; wix.com/plans — Light $17, Core $29, Business $39 a month on a yearly subscription paid in full, prices exclude tax, and the plans charge their own percentage on some sales; linktr.ee/s/pricing — Pro $14 annual / $17 monthly, Starter $7 / $9. MapToSite's Card, Board, Sign and turnkey prices are on this site and charged through Polar as merchant of record. Three-year figures are 36 months at the stated rate, before tax and excluding domains after year one and third-party apps. Vendor prices change; check the page before you subscribe.