Overview
A barber working for themselves runs the diary in their head, in a notebook, or across three apps that do not talk to each other. Appointly set out to replace all of that with one place: the client books, the slot is held, the payment is taken, and the professional gets on with the haircut.
One app for both sides of the chair: clients find and book a salon nearby, professionals manage availability, services and prices in the same place.
Sphinx Solutions built the mobile platform for iOS and Android. The brief was an interface a first-time user could work out unaided, and a booking flow short enough that nobody abandons it halfway.
Clients open on a map of salons around them, filter by service, price or rating, and see opening hours and reviews before they commit. Booking runs through a session, a date and a time, with the fee shown before anything is confirmed.
Professionals set their own availability, list the services they offer, price them, and keep client history and past appointments in one thread. Reminders and confirmations go out on their own.
Client Requirement
01
Scheduling that suits a barber or hairdresser working for themselves, not a rota tool designed for a chain and cut down.
02
Haircuts, styling, colouring, beard care and treatments, each with its own duration and price, rather than one generic appointment slot.
03
A client should be able to find a salon, choose a service and confirm a time without leaving the app or ringing anybody.
04
Some appointments are a chair and a pair of scissors; some are a video call about hair loss or colour. Both had to be bookable the same way.
05
Secure in-app payment with support for deposits, so a no-show costs the professional less than the whole slot.
06
Edit the service list, set prices, block out days and keep the calendar in step without asking anyone for help.
Independent barbers and hairdressers lose money to problems that have nothing to do with cutting hair. Appointments written down and forgotten, two clients booked into one slot, and a phone that rings while both hands are busy.
The people who need scheduling software most are the ones with the least time to learn any.
The tools that did exist were built for salons with a receptionist. A sole trader got a rota system with staff management they did not need and a monthly fee they could not justify.
Nothing joined the three jobs up either. Finding new clients, holding the diary and taking payment sat in separate places, so a booking made in one did not show up in the others.
And the app had to work for two very different people at once: a professional using it every day, and a client using it twice a year. An interface that suits one usually irritates the other.
We built a single app that carries discovery, booking and payment, with a separate view for the professional and for the client, so neither has to work around the other’s needs.
The result is an app a barber can run a business from and a client can use once without being taught.
Sphinx Solutions delivered a cross-platform booking app for independent barbers and hairdressers: nearby salon discovery, service and session booking, in-person and video consultations, in-app payment and automatic reminders, on iOS and Android.
“Our partnership with Sphinx Solutions changed everything. Their work in mobile app development turned our idea for a modern salon booking system into a platform that is dependable, seamless and easy to use, and the team’s commitment to quality showed the whole way through.”
How We Work
Step 1
We worked through what independent barbers and hairdressers actually struggle with, and which of it software can fix.
Step 2
A scalable structure able to carry live availability, video consultations and in-app payment without the three getting in each other’s way.
Step 3
A responsive interface for two audiences at once: daily use by the professional, occasional use by the client.
Step 4
Service listings, video consultations, payment processing, automatic reminders and calendar synchronisation.
Step 5
Performance, usability and security testing across devices, with booking and payment exercised hardest.
Step 6
Launch on both stores, then monitoring, updates and technical support as the product and its users move on.
Implementation
A scalable backend handling live updates, so overlapping bookings across a full service list resolve immediately rather than eventually.
A clean, responsive UI that a salon owner can work at speed and a first-time client can follow without a prompt.
Encrypted data handling and secure payment gateways across the whole booking flow, which is where both the money and the personal details are.
Optimised API calls and server configuration, so Saturday morning behaves the same as Tuesday afternoon.
Impact
Bookings, changes and cancellations land in one calendar, which takes the scheduling mistakes out of a day that was already full.
Reminders, confirmations and messages reach people without the professional stopping mid-haircut to send them.
Services, prices, availability and client history sit in one place, so the work around the work takes less of the day.
Online booking and in-app payment let a one-person salon take work outside opening hours and beyond the people who already have its number.
Tech stack
In closing
Appointly is what an appointment book looks like when it is built for the person holding the scissors. Live scheduling, a service list the professional controls, secure payment and a booking flow short enough to finish on a phone, all in one app rather than three.
For clients it is a salon they can find, judge and book in a couple of minutes, at any hour. For the barbers and hairdressers using it, it is the difference between running a diary and running a business.
What people usually ask about Appointly and about building something like it.
Appointly is an appointment booking app for salons and beauty professionals. Clients find a salon nearby, book a service at a time that suits them and pay in the app; professionals manage their availability, services and prices in the same place.
Anything the salon lists: haircuts, styling, colouring, beard care and treatments, each with its own price and duration. Appointments can be in person or an online video consultation, booked the same way.
We handled the whole build: design, backend architecture, development and deployment, on iOS and Android.
Yes. It was built for salons, but the structure suits spas, clinics, studios or any service business that takes appointments and payment for them.
React Native for cross-platform performance, Redux for state management, and AWS for hosting.
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