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Vagaro vs Pabau

Why is Pabau the right Vagaro alternative for you?

This page will unpick some of the key differences between Vagaro and Pabau so that you can decide which is the best fit for your business. 

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Main differences between Vagaro and Pabau

Vagaro

Vagaro is popular, easy-to-use booking software built for salons, spas, beauty, wellness and fitness businesses. It covers the essentials well — online booking, a branded booking page, calendar and resource scheduling, automated reminders, point of sale, and a listing on the Vagaro Marketplace where consumers discover and book local businesses.

Vagaro is priced per bookable calendar, and much of what a clinic needs day-to-day — a branded app, digital intake and consent forms, advanced SOAP templates, text marketing and extra storage — sits behind paid add-ons.

It’s a strong fit for salon and spa teams, but its setup is geared toward beauty and wellness rather than medical-led, regulated treatments.

Pabau

Pabau offers an all-in-one cloud software solution tailored to seamlessly manage the unique workflows in med spas, healthcare businesses and aesthetic practices of all sizes. It’s intuitive and easy-to-use enough that new businesses can get it up and running in no time, but it’s comprehensive enough to help practices scale and grow.

It supports businesses with everything from online booking, patient management, forms, automated recalls/reminders, pre- and post-care, POS, and marketing.

It’s not just there to simplify running your business, it’s designed to help you drive revenue and grow.

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Pricing

Vagaro

Vagaro uses a straightforward subscription priced by the number of bookable calendars — each provider you schedule counts as a calendar. Plans start from around $23.99 per month for a single calendar and scale up as you add providers, with larger, multi-location businesses moved to a custom enterprise tier. There’s a 30-day free trial, and it’s a cancel-anytime subscription with no long-term commitment.

The headline price looks low, but many of the tools a clinic relies on — a branded app, the Forms add-on (intake, consent and advanced SOAP templates), text marketing and extra storage — are paid extras billed on top, and payment processing (from 2.2%) isn’t included. Those add-ons make the real monthly cost harder to predict as your team grows.

Pabau

Pabau charges a flat monthly fee based on the number of users and clients. For that, you get an incredibly feature-rich system with online bookings, digital client records, robust client records, inventory, point of sale, marketing builder, and lots more. For more information visit our pricing page. 

Pabau’s core functionality is built-in, and we don’t charge extra for essential features. There are some optional fees and upgrades like credits for SMS, telehealth and Pabau Scribe and Marketing Plus (which are super useful!), but everything you need day-to-day is built in.

Pabau offers 12, 24 and 36-month contracts, but they are optional.

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Feature comparison

Why Choose Pabau Over Vagaro
Vagaro

Core functionality built-in

Vagaro’s entry subscription covers booking, calendar and POS well, but much of what a clinic needs — a branded app, the Forms add-on for intake and consent, advanced SOAP templates, text marketing and extra storage — is charged as paid add-ons on top of your per-calendar fee. Pabau comes with all core features built in for a flat monthly fee.

Built-in before and after photos

Pabau’s before-and-after feature comes with every plan. It lets you store photos in client cards, share them with clients, and track progress visually.
Vagaro is built around salon and spa booking and doesn’t offer clinic-grade before-and-after photo tracking, so medical and aesthetic teams often find this a gap.

Predictable pricing with core features included

Vagaro’s per-calendar pricing looks low up front, but the branded app, forms, text marketing and storage add-ons stack on top, so the real monthly cost can be hard to predict.
With Pabau, the features a clinic uses every day are included in one plan and you can pay monthly — so what you see is what you pay.

Built-in customizable reports and analytics

Vagaro includes sales and staff reporting — revenue by service, top performers, retention and hours worked — but deeper, clinic-specific and location-level reporting can feel limited as teams grow, and advanced options are gated by plan.
Meanwhile, Pabau has more than 40 pre-built reports you can customize, or build your own, at no extra cost — with visual pie charts and graphs.

Robust client portal

Vagaro’s consumer experience centres on booking and discovery through the Vagaro Marketplace and a branded app (a paid add-on).
With Pabau, clients get a portal on mobile and desktop to manage bookings — including cancelling and rescheduling — communicate with the clinic, follow their treatment journey, and view lab results.

Clinical documentation built for medical-led care

Vagaro provides a very basic SOAP-style notes field, with intake, consent and advanced SOAP templates available through its paid Forms add-on — its setup is geared toward salons, so regulated clinical workflows can feel patched together.
Pabau is built for medical and aesthetic care: structured charting, smart medical forms, consent and a complete client record are built in, with electronic prescriptions sent directly to pharmacies in the UK and faxed prescriptions in the US.

Efficient no-show management with flexible, automated deposits

Pabau offers flexible deposits you can customize by service or client, and set a deposit rate to reduce no-shows and protect revenue — backed by automated reminders and confirmations to keep your calendar full.

Flexible and intuitive calendar

Pabau gives you a flexible calendar you can view by day, week or month and tailor to how your team works, with a clean, intuitive layout that’s quick for new staff to pick up.

Vagaro packs a lot into its dashboard, which can feel cluttered and carries a steeper learning curve when you’re getting set up.

Having Pabau implemented into the clinic is certainly a relief. It just reduces a whole lot of stress in the clinic.

Amish Patel, Owner / Director / Lead clinician
Intrigue Cosmetic Clinic
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  • 4.7 / 5
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  • 4.8 / 5
G2 Leader
G2 Likely To Recommend

Top 5 reasons to choose Pabau over Vagaro

1. Intuitive, easy-to-use system

Pabau is a modern and intuitive system that is a no-brainer for businesses of all sizes. Its intuitive interface and user-friendly features allow users to find everything they need with just a few clicks.

Many of our clients who are solo practitioners or small businesses have stated that they started using our intuitive and user-friendly system from the get-go.

By contrast, many practices find that Vagaro’s feature-packed dashboard can feel cluttered, with a steeper learning curve when setting up services, staff and add-ons.

2. Practice management solution for practices of all sizes

Pabau is great for solo practitioners, new businesses, and big businesses alike. It’s an affordable option for teams of one, and it’s also robust enough to grow with you and handle large clinics.

Vagaro works well for smaller salon and spa teams, but as practitioner numbers rise, staff permissions and roles, location-specific reporting and keeping a clean audit trail can become trickier to manage — areas where a clinic-grade platform pulls ahead.

3. An all-in-one solution for med spas and aesthetic practices

Pabau is a superb solution for the aesthetic industry. It has everything you need to run your business: a robust client card, detailed face mapping, e-prescriptions (for the UK) and prescriptions via iFax (for the US), automated recalls for easier client/calendar management, and smart allergy tracking with SNOMED. It also comes with a secure payment terminal for easier payments.

Vagaro is primarily salon and spa software, so the depth medical-led practices rely on — clinical documentation, digital consents, treatment charting and before-and-after photos — is light or sold as paid add-ons, making it only a partial fit for med spas and aesthetic clinics.

4. Core functionalities built-in

With Pabau, everything you need to run your business is built in, so you won’t have to pay extra for things like before-and-after photos, detailed and customizable reports, review management, or the client portal. There are some optional fees and upgrades, but everything you need day-to-day is built in.

Vagaro’s per-calendar plan covers the basics, but the branded app, digital forms, text marketing and extra storage all come as paid add-ons on top of your plan. That can add up for businesses with a limited budget, or those wanting more predictable, all-in pricing.

5. A richer, more convenient client experience

Pabau’s robust client portal keeps your clients engaged, reducing no-shows while improving treatment outcomes. Clients can easily book/cancel/reschedule appointments online, pay invoices, find treatment notes, see progress photos, and view and edit their medical histories with just a click.

Vagaro’s consumer experience is built around booking and discovery through the Vagaro Marketplace and a branded app (a paid add-on). It doesn’t give clients a full clinical portal, so they can’t follow their treatment journey or access their files and photos the way Pabau’s portal allows.

Customers That Chose Pabau Over Others

“A clinical CRM that meets all of my needs and makes my life a lot easier! [I love] having my patient’s journey all in one place. Being able to manage marketing and new leads, which previously required juggling various systems.

Pabau has allowed me to streamline my business and gave me more time — which is invaluable.”

Craig H.

Small-business owner

G2 review

“[We love] the ability to free up the clinic of paper once and for all. Having tried a number of different software systems there has always been some paper somewhere. Pabau completely eliminates this. It has every feature you could dream of to reduce the workload.

There’s always someone available if you need help with the system as well.”

Lee H.

Medical practice manager

GetApp review

“Our previous system was OKAY but we needed too many additional “add-ons” to continue to grow our business and service our customers. Pabau is a one-stop shop.”

Carissa P.

Health, wellness, and fitness manager

Capterra review

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Vagaro is a registered trademark of Vagaro, Inc. Last updated on 07.23.2026

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