How to start taking online bookings as a solo beauty professional

Taking bookings online means giving your clients a page where they pick an open slot and book it themselves — no back-and-forth in your DMs, no more "when do you have time?". Here is how to set that up from scratch, even if you work alone and have never done anything like it.

I am Jevgeni Blinov, a hairdresser with more than 15 years behind the chair. I have run my schedule out of a paper notebook, out of phone notes, and out of three messaging apps at once — so this is written by a colleague who has been through it, not by a marketer.

What does "taking bookings online" actually mean?

It means one link to your own booking page. Your client opens it on their phone, sees your services and your open slots, picks a time and books it. You get a notification, the appointment lands in your calendar. That is the whole thing.

You do not need a website, a salon or a team for this. A booking system for a solo professional differs from a salon one in exactly that way: it is built around one person, not around a front desk with a receptionist.

Why bother, if DMs work fine for me?

Because messaging eats your time and quietly loses you clients. While you are with a client, a message sits unanswered; the person who wanted to book at 10:40 in the evening has changed their mind by morning, or gone to someone who replied faster.

Picture a Saturday evening. You are out with friends, you open your DMs and there is a message from a client. You have three options. First: open it and book them right away — except you have just been pulled out of your evening, and you already work more than enough without working on your night off. Second: leave it unread and deal with it on Monday, because you are off — but now the client waits several days. Third, and worst: you open it, tell yourself you will reply tomorrow, and forget. Curtain.

Your own booking page works around the clock and closes the gap between "I want to come to you" and "I am booked" without a single message from you.

There is a second, less obvious benefit: your client's whole history — which services, which formulas, when they last came in — lives in one place instead of being buried in a chat thread.

Where to start: five steps

The whole thing takes one evening.

1. Set up your booking page. Create an Eigin account and get your personal link, in the format your-name/eigin.io.
2. Add your services and prices. Type them in, or upload up to five photos of your price list and let the system read the services and prices off them. Categories can be nested, for example "Haircuts → women's haircuts → long hair".
3. Set your working hours. You choose the days and hours you take clients. The page works out the open slots itself, based on how long each service takes.
4. Bring your clients across, if you already have them somewhere. A list from a notebook or a spreadsheet imports via CSV — up to 1,000 contacts at a time.
5. Share the link. Put it in your Instagram bio, in your stories, hand it over at the end of an appointment. From that point on, clients book themselves.

Do I need to be technical?

No. If you can set up an Instagram profile, you can set up a booking page. There is no code, no server configuration and no mandatory website — you are filling in your services and your hours, like a form.

The one part worth doing carefully is writing out your services and their durations properly, once. How accurately the page calculates your open slots depends on it.

What if my clients are used to writing to me directly?

Do not cut off DMs overnight — move people across gently. When a client asks about booking, reply with the link: "Here you go, it is easier to pick a time in here." Your clients will manage; and you stop carrying half-agreed appointments around in your head.

For anyone who still prefers to write personally, nothing is lost — the page simply takes the routine "when are you free?" messages off your plate. That said, you are the one who sets the rules: all of my clients book online now, even though a few of them pushed back at first.

What if my appointments live in a notebook or a spreadsheet?

Here is the interesting part: you do not have to move your clients across by hand. Once you give someone your link, they enter their own details the next time they book. And if you already keep a spreadsheet, you export the contacts to CSV — any spreadsheet does this — and upload the file, up to 1,000 clients in one go. From there, the history builds up inside the system: services, formulas, photos from the appointment (up to three per visit).

What does it cost?

You can start for free with a 14-day trial; after that, Pro is €9.99 a month. The system takes no commission on your bookings — you pay a fixed price for the tool, not a percentage of your work.

The point is to set up a page and see whether it fits the way you actually work, without risking anything.

In short

Online booking for a solo professional is not a complicated salon system — it is one link you can set up in an evening and hand to your clients. You can start for free, you do not need technical skills, and you do not have to abandon your old way of working overnight.