How to Set Up Deelo for Your Salon: Quick Start Guide

Most salon software takes a week to set up. There is the trial signup, the discovery call, the implementation specialist who emails you a 40-tab spreadsheet template, the migration team that needs read-only access to your old database, the training session that gets rescheduled twice, and the go-live date that slips because someone forgot to import the gift card balances. Two weeks later you are still half on the old system and the front desk is running both at once.

Deelo is built differently. The salon configuration is meant to be done in one sitting, by an owner or manager, in under sixty minutes. No discovery call, no implementation specialist, no spreadsheet templates. You sign up, you add your services, you add your stylists, you turn on online booking, you connect Stripe, you import your client list, you turn on SMS reminders, and you are live.

This guide is the literal step-by-step. We are going to walk through it as if you are sitting down with a coffee at 10 AM on a Tuesday and the goal is to be taking online bookings by lunch. If you are evaluating salon software more broadly first, the Salon Software Complete Guide covers the category. If you have already decided on Deelo and want the procedural walkthrough, this is it.

Before we start, here is what your salon will have running by the end of this guide:

Online booking live. A public booking page at a Deelo URL (and an embed code for your existing website) where new and existing clients can pick a service, a stylist, and a time. The schedule respects each stylist's hours and the services they actually perform.

Service catalog configured. Cuts, color, highlights, balayage, blowouts, treatments, and any add-ons your salon offers, each with a duration, a price, and the stylists qualified to do them.

Stylists set up. Each stylist with their working hours by day of week, their service list, and their commission or rental arrangement if you want to track that.

Payments turned on. Stripe connected through Deelo Invoicing so clients can pay on the booking page, at checkout, or via a payment link sent by SMS. Card-on-file for no-show protection.

Client list imported. Your existing clients pulled in from your old tool via CSV — names, emails, phones, last visit, preferred stylist where you have it.

SMS and email reminders running. A 24-hour reminder and a 2-hour reminder going out automatically before each appointment, plus a confirmation when the appointment is booked and a thank-you after it ends.

Soft-launch plan. A first-week safety net so you can shake out the configuration on existing clients before the rest of the world starts booking through the new system.

The whole thing is roughly 60 minutes of setup time and another 30-60 minutes of soft-launch monitoring on day one. Let's go.

Go to Deelo and create an account. You will be asked for an email, a salon name, a salon timezone, and a payment method (the trial does not require a card, but it is faster to enter it now so you do not have to come back to it).

Choose your plan. For most independent salons the Starter plan at $19 per seat per month covers everything you need: bookings, services, payments, basic SMS reminders, and the client list. For salons with multiple stylists who want individual reporting, advanced commission tracking, or marketing automation (drip campaigns to lapsed clients, birthday emails, win-back sequences), the Business plan at $39 per seat per month is the right tier. Enterprise at $69 per seat is for chain operations and groups with single sign-on or compliance requirements.

Seat count. A seat is a user who logs in. Stylists who only show up on the schedule but do not log into Deelo (no laptop access, no app) are not seats — they are just resources on the schedule. So a salon with one owner-manager, two front-desk staff, and six stylists who do not log in is three seats, not nine. Most independent salons end up at 1-3 seats.

Annual vs monthly. Annual is roughly 17% cheaper than month-to-month. If you are confident the tool is right after the trial, switch to annual at first renewal.

From the dashboard, open the Bookings app and go to Services. This is the catalog clients see when they book online.

Categories first. Group services into categories so the booking page is browsable. A typical hair salon ends up with categories like Haircuts, Color, Highlights & Balayage, Blowouts & Styling, Treatments, and Add-Ons.

Add services to each category. For each service, enter:

- Name (e.g., Women's Haircut, Root Touch-Up, Full Highlights, Balayage, Glaze, Olaplex Treatment) - Duration in minutes (this is the slot length on the schedule — a full highlights session might be 150 minutes, a glaze 30, a quick blowout 45) - Price (or starting price if you have stylist-tier pricing) - Description (one or two sentences clients see when picking the service — what is included, who it is for) - Eligible stylists (which stylists actually do this service — junior stylists may not be qualified for balayage or full color corrections) - Buffer time (optional 5-15 minute gap after the appointment for cleanup before the next client)

Tier pricing. If your stylists charge different rates by experience level — junior, senior, master, owner — Deelo supports per-stylist price overrides on each service. Set the base price as the junior rate and override per stylist for senior tiers. Clients see the right price for the stylist they pick.

Add-ons. Olaplex, deep conditioning, scalp treatments, lash tints — list these as separate services in an Add-Ons category so clients can stack them onto a primary booking. The booking flow lets clients add an add-on with one tap; you do not have to manually combine them.

Quick test. After adding 5-10 services, open your salon's public booking page (the URL appears at the top of the Services screen) and walk through the flow as if you were a client. Pick a category, pick a service, pick a stylist, pick a time. If anything reads wrong, fix it now while it is fresh.

Open Staff (or Stylists, depending on your branding settings) and add each person who works on the schedule, including chair renters if they want to take Deelo bookings.

For each stylist, enter:

- Name and photo (the photo shows on the booking page — clients pick the stylist they have a relationship with, and a face matters) - Bio / specialties (one or two sentences: "Specializes in balayage and corrective color, 8 years experience") - Working hours by day of week (e.g., Tue/Wed/Thu 10 AM-7 PM, Sat 9 AM-4 PM, off Sun/Mon) - Services they perform (link the stylist to the eligible services from Step 2) - Commission or rental setup (optional — for chair renters, mark them as "rental" and Deelo will not deduct commissions on their bookings) - Login access (only flip this on for stylists who will actually log into Deelo — most salons leave it off and the owner-manager handles the schedule)

Recurring exceptions. A stylist who takes a long lunch on Wednesdays or always blocks 4-5 PM on Fridays for kid pickup — set those as recurring blocks on the calendar so the booking page never offers those slots.

Time off. When a stylist takes a vacation day or a sick day, mark it on the calendar and the booking page automatically removes their availability for that day. Existing bookings on that day flag so you can reach out and rebook.

Color-coded calendar. Assign each stylist a color so the multi-stylist calendar view is readable at a glance. Trust us, when you have six stylists on the schedule on Saturday, you want different colors.

Open Booking Settings.

Your booking page URL. Deelo gives you a default URL like book.deelo.com/your-salon-name. You can change the slug to match your brand. Most salons also embed the booking widget on their existing website using the embed code Deelo generates — it is a single iframe snippet you paste into your site builder (Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, Shopify all supported).

Lead time. How far in advance must clients book? The default is 2 hours, which prevents same-minute walk-up bookings while still allowing same-day appointments. Some salons set this to 24 hours for color services and keep it at 2 hours for cuts; you can configure lead time per service.

Cancellation policy. Set the policy text that displays during booking and on confirmation emails. Common policy: "Cancellations within 24 hours of appointment are subject to a 50% fee. No-shows are charged the full service price." Pair this with card-on-file (Step 5) so the policy is enforceable, not just decorative.

Deposit. Optional. For color and balayage services that take 2-3 hours, many salons require a $25-50 deposit at booking that applies to the final bill. Deposits are configured per service.

New vs returning client flows. Deelo lets you require new clients to fill out an intake form (allergies, hair history, last color brand) before they finalize the booking. Returning clients skip that step.

Confirmation email and SMS. Customize the confirmation message clients receive when they book. Default is fine; salons that want a branded touch edit the copy and add a logo.

Open Deelo Invoicing and click Connect Stripe. You will be redirected to Stripe to either create a Stripe account or connect an existing one (most salons do not have one and create it inline — Stripe asks for the salon's legal name, address, EIN if you are an LLC or corp, your SSN if sole prop, a bank account for payouts, and a debit card for verification — this takes about 10 minutes the first time).

Why Stripe. Stripe is the payment processor; Deelo is the software layer on top. Rates run 2.9% + 30 cents for online card payments, and 2.7% + 5 cents for in-person tap or chip on supported readers. Deelo does not add a markup. Funds settle to your bank account on a 2-day rolling basis (Stripe's default).

Card-on-file for no-show protection. With Stripe connected, Deelo can require clients to enter a card during online booking and hold it on file. The card is not charged at booking unless you set a deposit; it is just stored against the cancellation policy. When a client no-shows, you can charge the no-show fee with two clicks. Salons that turn on card-on-file see no-show rates drop from 8-12% to 2-4% within a month, which alone usually pays for the software.

Tipping. Configure tip presets (15%, 18%, 20%, 22%, custom) so checkout flows include a tip prompt. Tips post to the stylist's record and report cleanly at month-end.

In-person payments. If you also take cards at the front desk, Deelo Invoicing supports Stripe Terminal readers (the BBPOS WisePOS E or the Stripe Reader S700). The reader pairs with the Deelo app and posts payments to the same client record as online bookings, which is the only way you get a clean lifetime revenue number per client.

Open the CRM app and click Import. You will see a CSV upload screen with field mapping.

Export from your old tool. Most salon software (Vagaro, Mindbody, Booker, Square Appointments, GlossGenius, Boulevard) has a client export option somewhere in settings. Export to CSV. The columns you want are: first name, last name, email, mobile phone, birthday (optional), last visit date (optional), preferred stylist (optional), notes (optional).

Upload and map. Deelo's CSV importer auto-detects most common column names. For anything ambiguous, drag the source column to the target Deelo field. The importer previews the first 10 rows so you can confirm the mapping before committing.

Deduplication. Deelo flags duplicate emails and phone numbers and lets you choose to merge or skip. For most salons, deduping on email is the right default — clients who book under multiple emails are rare and usually intentional.

Tag the import. Apply a tag like "imported-2026-05" to the imported batch so you can filter to them later for the soft launch (Step 8).

Validate. After import, spot-check 5-10 clients. Open their record, verify the email, the phone, the last visit. If something looks wrong, you have time to re-import; the importer is non-destructive on a redo.

Gift cards and account credits. If your old tool tracked gift card balances or store credit, those typically need to be migrated separately. Deelo's CRM has an Account Balance field per client — you can bulk-set balances via a second CSV import. Reach out to support if your previous tool's export does not include this and we will help you reconstruct it from receipts or transactions.

Open Notifications under Booking Settings.

Default reminders. Deelo ships with two default reminders: a 24-hour reminder and a 2-hour reminder. Both go out via SMS and email; clients pick a preferred channel during booking. The 24-hour reminder gives clients time to reschedule if life has shifted; the 2-hour reminder catches the day-of forgetters.

Reminder text. Defaults read like: "Hi {{first_name}}, this is a reminder of your {{service}} appointment with {{stylist}} tomorrow at {{time}}. Reply C to confirm or reschedule at {{booking_link}}." You can customize this per salon — some salons add a parking note or a "please arrive 5 minutes early" line. Keep SMS under 160 characters to avoid the message splitting and looking like spam.

Confirmation messages. When a client books, an immediate confirmation email goes out with the appointment details, the cancellation policy, and a calendar invite (.ics file) they can add to Apple Calendar or Google Calendar in one tap.

Post-appointment thank-you. A short thank-you email two hours after the appointment ends, with a one-tap rebooking link for the next visit. This is a high-leverage touch — salons that turn it on see rebooking rates climb 8-12 percentage points within 60 days because clients book the next visit while they are still happy from this one.

SMS compliance. Deelo handles TCPA opt-in language during booking automatically — clients have to consent to SMS reminders to receive them, and an opt-out link is included in every message. You do not need to do anything here other than verify it is on.

Do not announce the new system to the entire client list on day one. Soft-launch first.

Day one. Take walk-ins and phone bookings as normal, but enter them into Deelo instead of the old tool. This is your shake-out — the first time you check out a client through Deelo Invoicing, the first time you charge a card, the first time the SMS reminder goes out for a real appointment. Expect to find one or two configuration items you missed (a service mispriced, a stylist's hours wrong, the cancellation policy text reading awkwardly). Fix them as they come up.

Days 2-7. Send a soft-launch email to the 50-100 most-loyal clients (filter by your imported tag plus visit frequency). The email reads something like: "We've moved to a new booking system. Same salon, same stylists, easier booking. Try it out at {{booking_link}}." Their first booking through the new system will surface any remaining issues — booking page bugs, stylist availability gaps, a service category that was confusing.

Days 7-14. If everything is running cleanly, send the full client list announcement. Include a short FAQ (will my appointment history transfer? yes. do I need to re-enter my card? yes, once. is the booking page mobile-friendly? yes). Update your website's booking link, your Instagram bio link, and your Google Business Profile booking link to point to the new Deelo URL.

Day 30. Sunset the old tool. Cancel the subscription. Do not run both systems past day 30 — split systems lead to double bookings and accounting reconciliation headaches. By day 30 you have 30 days of clean data in Deelo, the muscle memory at the front desk is built, and the old tool has done its job.

A small set of issues come up on the first day for almost every salon. Knowing about them in advance saves a panicked support ticket.

Booking conflicts on the calendar. A client books online at 2 PM with Stylist A and at the same time the front desk takes a phone booking for 2 PM with Stylist A. The cause is almost always that the front desk is using a stale view of the calendar (a tab open from earlier in the day). Deelo's calendar refreshes in real time on a fresh load — train the front desk to refresh before they book a phone appointment, or use the dedicated phone-booking flow which always pulls live availability.

Payment processor verification. Stripe sometimes flags new accounts for additional verification (bank statements, ID, business license). The flag clears within 24-48 hours after you upload the requested documents. Until it clears, online payments still process but payouts are paused — they will release as soon as Stripe verifies. You will get an email from Stripe with the request; do not ignore it.

Mobile booking display. A handful of salons report that the embed code on their existing website renders too small on mobile. The fix is almost always a CSS width override (set the iframe to width: 100%) — Deelo's docs have a one-line snippet for the most common site builders. If that does not fix it, support will help you debug.

SMS not sending. The most common cause is that the client's phone number was imported without a country code. US numbers should be in the format +15551234567. Deelo's CSV importer auto-prepends +1 to 10-digit US numbers, but if your old export had non-US clients or unusual formatting, some numbers may need to be cleaned up. The CRM has a bulk-edit tool for this.

Service durations off. A stylist comes back on day three and says, "My color services are running over because the slot is too short." Adjust the duration in the service catalog. Existing bookings are not affected; future bookings get the new duration.

Reminder timing. A client complains that the 2-hour reminder went out at 6 AM for an 8 AM appointment, which felt early. Adjust the reminder window for the early-morning case (some salons disable the 2-hour reminder for appointments before 10 AM). Deelo lets you set time-of-day rules on reminders.