What switching from Booksy actually involves
Booksy is especially popular with barbershops and hair salons, running a US-style pricing model alongside a consumer app where clients find your profile. Once you start thinking about leaving, a few practical questions come up right away: where does your client list end up, what happens to appointments already on the books, and how do you even cancel with a provider that has no self-service cancel button. What CelerBook does differently on price and features sits in the comparison between CelerBook and Booksy. This guide covers the practical part around that comparison: the switch itself, in a way your clients barely notice.
Switching salon software feels more daunting than it is once you break it into stages. You do not flip a single switch on one day. You set up CelerBook first, run both systems side by side for a while, and only cancel once everything has moved over. That is a few hours spread across a couple of weeks, not a day of downtime.
Getting your client list and appointment history out of Booksy
Booksy has no export button anywhere in the Biz app settings. According to Booksy's own support articles, you request a copy of your client list from their support team, either through the in-app chat (tap the question mark icon in the left menu and choose Support) or by email. Ask explicitly for a CSV file, and name the fields you need: name, email address, phone number, and the service history per client if you want that too. A PDF with just names is not much use once you sit down to re-enter that data.
Expect a few working days of turnaround, since it is a manual request rather than an instant download. Ask for the export first, well before you start on the rest of the switch, so it is ready by the time you get to entering clients.
While you are in touch with support, request your appointment history too if you want to keep it for your own records. That is not data you enter into CelerBook, but it is a useful archive of what your clients have had done before.
Entering your clients into CelerBook
Be upfront with yourself here: CelerBook does not currently have an automatic import for client lists. You move clients over one at a time, under Clients and New client, entering name, email address and phone number for each. For a list up to a few hundred clients that is a quiet afternoon's work, not a full day. For a bigger list, the CelerBook team helps: email [email protected] with your situation and you get support with the migration.
A practical tip: start with your most active clients, not the whole list in whatever order it came in. Sort your Booksy export by last visit or by visit count, and enter the fifty to a hundred clients who come back most often first. They are the ones due for another appointment soon, and they need to already be in the system before you switch over. Fill in the rest of the list over the following weeks, in quiet moments between appointments.
Treat this step as a cleanup moment too. Clients who have not been in for two years do not need to make the trip. A shorter, current list works better than a full copy of years of Booksy history.
What to do with appointments already booked in Booksy
Let existing bookings run their course in Booksy right up to the day itself. There is no need to move or cancel anything already on the books. Pick a cutover date for yourself: from that date, new appointments go into CelerBook, and Booksy stays live as long as there are still future appointments in it that clients made there. Once the last scheduled Booksy appointment wraps up, you no longer have a reason to keep checking both calendars.
Resist the urge to move everything at once by manually copying existing Booksy appointments into CelerBook. That wastes time and creates double communication for clients who already have a Booksy confirmation. One source of truth per appointment is the simplest rule to follow.
Telling your regular clients
Regulars have your Booksy link saved, sometimes as a favourite in the app, sometimes as a bookmark. Say nothing, and they will simply book through Booksy again next time, even long after you stop checking it. Tell your regulars actively, not after the first booking goes wrong.
A short WhatsApp or text message to your regular client base works best: mention that you are booking through a new link from a certain date, share that link, and keep the message brief, no extra fanfare needed. At the front desk you can leave the same message up for a few weeks for anyone who skims past a text.
Do not forget the places where your old Booksy link is saved: your Google Business Profile, your Instagram bio, any mention on your own website, and the signature under your emails. Update those one by one to point to your new booking page. A forgotten link sends clients to a profile that is not yours for months.
Cancelling Booksy: subscription, trial and terms
Booksy has no self-service button to stop your subscription. You contact Booksy support, through the in-app chat or by email, giving your business name and the account's email address, to request cancellation. Your Booksy features stay active until the end of the current billing cycle, even if you ask to cancel before that date.
If you subscribed through the Apple App Store instead of paying Booksy directly, their support team cannot stop that charge for you. Apple controls that billing, so you handle it through the subscriptions settings on your iPhone.
Only cancel once CelerBook is running, your clients are entered, and your regulars know where to book next. Booksy itself offers a 14-day trial with no credit card required, so if you are still deciding, use that window to compare CelerBook properly before you cancel anything.
Your Boost profile, your app listing and reviews left behind
Booksy Boost is the feature that pushes your profile higher in the Booksy app, in exchange for a one-time 30 percent commission on the first visit of a new client who comes through it. Once you cancel your account, your profile disappears from the app and that commission stops on its own, since no bookings come in through that channel any more.
Your reviews do not travel with you. A profile with hundreds of ratings on Booksy stays there, it does not move to another system. That is the real cost of leaving a platform where clients discover you: not the monthly fee, but the loss of a channel and the reputation sitting on it.
If a meaningful share of your new clients has come through the Booksy app until now, that is worth weighing honestly before you cancel. Build an alternative first: a Google Business Profile with your own reviews, an active Instagram, and a clear booking link you share everywhere. Once that is in place, cancelling Booksy no longer costs you an intake you cannot afford to lose.
Timing: pick a quiet week
Plan the switch for a week with an average or light calendar, not the rush around a holiday or a long weekend. You need room that week to enter clients by hand, check your services and working hours in CelerBook, and fix any mistakes a test booking turns up, all without a full salon floor suffering for it.
Also avoid the first or last week of the month if that happens to be your busiest stretch, for weddings or a seasonal rush for instance. An ordinary midweek period in the middle of the month is usually the calmest time to get used to a new way of working.
Checklist: switching from Booksy in four steps
| Step | Action | Who does it |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Prepare | Create a CelerBook account, set up services and working hours, request a client export from Booksy support | You |
| 2. Enter clients | Add your most active clients first under Clients and New client, the rest over the following weeks | You |
| 3. Inform clients | Send regulars a short message with the new booking link, update Google and Instagram | You |
| 4. Cancel | Let the last Booksy appointments run out, then cancel through Booksy support | You, after Booksy confirms |
Based on Booksy Biz's own support articles (support.booksy.com) on client export and cancellation, and on the CelerBook platform itself. Checked September 2026. Provider workflows can change, check the current support page if in doubt.
Want the price difference laid out first: what Booksy actually costs sets the US subscription and the Boost commission next to CelerBook's pay-as-you-go model. Still weighing your current contract terms in general, read salon software with no contract. And once you have switched and want to rebuild your new-client flow without Booksy's Boost, there is a concrete plan in attracting clients to your hair salon.
With CelerBook you pay 0.25 EUR ex VAT per completed appointment, the first 5 per month free, with a cap of a maximum of 30 EUR ex VAT per month for a solo operator plus 5 EUR per extra staff member. You get your own booking page at yoursalon.celerbook.com, automatic SMS reminders and confirmation emails, client management, staff scheduling per team member, and calendars in Dutch and English. No fixed contract, no usage means no costs. Try CelerBook for free.