Short answer: salon software should be more than a calendar placed on the internet. It should keep services, staff availability, client information, booking rules, communication and payments in one controlled workflow. Tervita is designed for a small salon or clinic in Estonia where the owner often works as practitioner, receptionist and manager on the same day.
What problem does salon software actually solve?
A salon visit looks simple from the outside: a client chooses a time, arrives and pays. For the owner, the same booking can pass through several disconnected places. The appointment sits in a calendar, the phone number in a chat, consent in a form, the price in a separate list, the sale in a till and the follow-up task in somebody's memory. When those places do not agree, the result is double booking, forgotten messages, incomplete client history and an uncertain month-end total.
Tervita connects that chain. The public booking page exposes times that are genuinely available. Each service has a duration, price, eligible specialists and, when needed, a room or inventory requirement. A practitioner sees their day, reception sees the wider schedule and the owner uses permissions to decide who may access client, revenue or reporting information. The goal is not another dashboard. It is fewer records that people have to reconcile by hand.
If you are still defining the workflow, begin with the online booking guide for salons and the practical instructions for publishing your booking page.
What must a small salon system include?
The first layer is a dependable calendar. Every specialist needs working hours, time off and date-specific exceptions. A service duration cannot be decorative text shown only to the client; it must reserve the correct interval. If a service needs a treatment room, the system should help prevent the familiar situation where the practitioner is free but the workspace is not.
The second layer is client management. A salon does not need to pretend that ordinary service notes are an electronic medical record. It does need one controlled client entry for contact details, visits, consent and notes that are necessary to provide the service. Access should follow a person's role. A shared spreadsheet is not a valid permission model merely because everybody has used it for years.
The third layer is communication. A confirmation, reminder, change and cancellation should be generated from the real booking status. Tervita supports email and, when the selected plan and messaging setup allow it, SMS. Text messages are not hidden inside an unlimited promise: usage is metered because each delivered message has a real provider cost.
The fourth layer is sales and management information. Invoices, POS, gift cards, packages, loyalty, inventory and reports are not all necessary on an independent practitioner's first day. They matter when the business grows. Starter covers the core workflow. Pro adds tools for rooms, stock, point of sale, compensation inputs and deeper reporting so the salon does not need to migrate again just because its operation became more structured.
How should you evaluate salon software?
A long feature checklist does not demonstrate a usable workflow. During a trial, test five real situations. Ask somebody to book from a phone. Move an appointment to another employee. Cancel it and inspect what the client can see. Create a service with a different duration and booking window. Finally, check whether revenue and payment methods are understandable without rebuilding the numbers in a spreadsheet.
Then ask about limits. Does the price count users, bookable calendars or locations? Does a receptionist cost the same as a revenue-producing specialist? What does an SMS cost? Can you export data? Which integrations are operating now, and which ones still require a separate provider account or configuration? Our salon software buyer's checklist turns those questions into a repeatable comparison.
Tervita states its limits. It is a responsive web application, not a native iOS or Android app. Starter is for one location; multi-location operation belongs to a higher plan. An operational revenue report is not a statutory accounting report. A menu item for an integration does not mean that an OAuth application, external contract or vendor credentials are automatically included.
What does Tervita cost?
Starter costs €19 per month before VAT and includes up to three bookable specialists. Pro costs €49 per month, also includes three bookable specialists, and adds €8 per month for each specialist from the fourth onward. Administrators and reception staff who do not own bookable calendars do not have to become paid practitioners merely to use the workspace. Clinic begins at €99 per month and is intended for organisations that need agreed onboarding, support or a custom operating arrangement.
Every public plan begins with a 14-day trial without a payment card. A useful trial is not two weeks of random clicking. Prepare the services, durations, prices, employee schedules and cancellation rule before you start. Then the trial measures a real operating day rather than an empty account.
How do you move a salon into a new system?
The safest rollout is staged. Configure the future first: services, staff, working hours and public booking. Add already agreed future appointments so the new calendar becomes complete. Clean active client records instead of importing years of duplicates merely to increase a count. Test confirmations, cancellation and the mobile booking view using your own contact details. Only then replace the public booking link.
Avoid maintaining two active calendars longer than necessary. A parallel period feels safe, but it quickly creates an argument over which system is the source of truth. If an export from an old platform is not yet supported by a real Tervita import format, we do not promise an automatic migration. For a small salon, a controlled manual transition can be faster and cleaner. Larger data sets need a separately verified import plan and reconciliation step.
Who is Tervita a good fit for?
Tervita fits an owner who wants to keep a direct client relationship instead of building the business around a marketplace. The public booking page belongs beside the salon brand, can be shared in social profiles and can be embedded into the salon website. The product does not promise automatic marketplace demand or claim that installing software creates revenue. It provides the operational foundation: available times are visible, communication is consistent and decisions use the salon's own data.
An independent provider can begin with a calendar and client list. A three-person studio can remain on the same Starter price. A growing business moves to Pro when it needs multiple locations, room and stock constraints, point of sale, loyalty or a fuller management view. Physiotherapy, massage and lash-and-brow businesses have their own pages because their scheduling problems are not identical. The shared principle remains simple: the right person, the right service, the right resource and a client relationship the business can control.