Bella Booking vs HB Salon Software
A cloud Hairware Beautyware alternative, month to month, no lock-in.
An honest comparison to help you choose the right salon, spa or clinic software for your business - whatever its size.
Quick facts at a glance
A side-by-side overview of key differences
Prices shown in AUD (inc. GST)
Bella Booking: Starter plan for 1-3 team members, Professional for 4+ (unlimited). Competitor pricing from official sources, verified September 2026.
Which is right for you?
An honest look at when each platform makes sense
Consider Bella Booking if...
- Cloud software in any browser, on a Mac, an iPad or a phone, with nothing installed and no salon computer that has to be switched on
- Month to month, cancel any time: no 12 month minimum and no paying out the rest of the term to leave
- Online booking, payments, the client portal and the product shop are in every plan, and gift cards, packages and memberships come with Professional. None of those is a paid add-on
- Prices published including GST, so the number on the pricing page is the number on the invoice
- SMS reminders included in the plan, 50 to 500 a month depending on plan, with top-up packs past that
- A 14 day free trial with no credit card, so you can see the product before a sales call rather than after one
- CSV export on clients, appointments, sales, packages, gift cards and reports, whenever you want it
- Find a time, gap-fill scoring and three schedule optimisation modes
- Service variants with client eligibility: a different price and duration for a first visit and a return
- Prerequisite services, so a treatment cannot be booked online before its consultation
- Memberships with recurring Stripe billing, 9 billing cycles, benefits with session tracking, online purchase and pause or resume
- Client reviews tied to a completed appointment, with AI moderation, published on your booking page
- Native online booking analytics: traffic sources, drop-off and visit-to-booking conversion, with no Google Analytics setup
- A weekly AI business digest and an AI Assistant you can ask about your schedule, clients and revenue
- Afterpay and Clearpay on deposits, gift cards and packages
- Digital tipping after the appointment, attributed to the team member who did the work, with a Tips summary report
- Dark mode, dyslexia-friendly reading fonts, colour themes and density settings
- Free onboarding on every plan, with free data migration on Starter and Professional
Consider HB Salon Software if...
- Your internet is unreliable and the diary and till have to keep working through an outage
- You want an Australian phone number that gets answered in a couple of minutes, included in the price
- You want an EFTPOS terminal from the same supplier as the software
- You post retail products to clients and need shipping, couriers or supplier dropship
- You want a cashbook, petty cash and BAS figures inside the salon software rather than in your accounting package
- Everyone works on Windows in the salon and nobody needs Mac or full browser access
- Onsite training in your own salon matters more to you than setting things up yourself
We believe in helping you find the right fit, even if it's not us.
Detailed feature comparison
A comprehensive look at what each platform offers
Platform & Architecture (the difference that decides this page)
Online Booking & Client Experience
Online Shop, Website & Client App
Payments & Commerce
Marketing & Communication
Back Office & Reporting (where HB is deep)
Contract, Support & Your Data
Pricing breakdown
What you'll actually pay
Prices shown are starting prices and include GST. Bella Booking Starter includes up to 3 team members; Professional includes unlimited team members. Competitor pricing may vary based on team size.
Bella Booking
Solo (1 team): A$25/month AUD • Starter (1-3 team): A$67/month AUD • Professional (4+): A$99/month AUD
HB Salon Software
Additional costs to consider
- • Every published price excludes GST: Single is A$129.57 a month before tax and A$142.53 after
- • The online shop, the website and the client app sit in HB Plus, another A$12.90 a week or A$55.90 a month before GST
- • SMS is 10c plus GST per message sent, with replies free
- • A 12 month minimum term, and leaving early means paying the balance of the remaining licence fees
- • Monitored cloud backup carries a one-off A$99 setup fee and is compulsory once you use HB Pay
Pricing information based on publicly available data as of September 2026. Visit each provider's website for current pricing.
Cost comparison by team size
Team Size Pricing Comparison
Monthly cost for different team sizes
Note: how team member limits work
Plan limits count the team members on your Bella roster who are on the scheduler or bookable online — front desk, managers and bookkeepers don't count. The comparisons in this table assume everyone listed takes appointments.
| Team Size | Bella Booking | HB Salon Software | Savings with Bella |
|---|---|---|---|
1 person | A$25/mo(Solo) | A$143/mo A$142.53 incl. GST (Single, 1 operator) | Save A$118/mo |
3 people | A$67/mo(Starter) | A$204/mo A$204.49 incl. GST (Mini, 3 operators) | Save A$137/mo |
6 people | A$99/mo(Professional) | A$262/mo A$261.69 incl. GST (Elite, unlimited operators) | Save A$163/mo |
12 people | A$99/mo(Professional) | A$262/mo A$261.69 incl. GST (Elite, unlimited operators) | Save A$163/mo |
Annual savings with Bella Booking
For a team of 6-12 members
Up to A$1952
per year
Bella Booking: Official pricing (Starter A$67/mo, Professional A$99/mo)
HB Salon Software: Official pricing page • Last verified: September 2026
Pricing may change. Please verify current prices on official websites before making decisions.
What HB Salon Software does well
We believe in honest comparisons. Here's what HB Salon Software excels at:
- 1Trading since 1986 and Australian owned and operated, with an office in Gosford NSW and a 1300 support line
- 2Australian phone support included in every subscription, six days a week, with HB's FAQ stating 95% of calls answered in under 2 minutes in 2026
- 3Published plan prices, where several Australian rivals still make you ring for a number
- 4Free data conversion from your old software, including systems that were never salon software, with no setup fee
- 5The core software keeps running when the internet does not
- 6Deep back office built up over decades: 100+ reports, a cashbook that produces BAS figures, petty cash, till reconciliation, operator targets and a PIN time clock with Xero-synced timesheets
- 7HB Pay integrated EFTPOS, with online payments across bookings, the shop, deposits and gift vouchers
- 8A genuine online suite: a shop that ships and dropships, a website fed from the software, a branded client app, and one client login across all of it
- 9HB Queue lets walk-in clients join the queue themselves and get an SMS when they are next
- 10Onsite training and same-day setup, plus more than 200 support videos
- 11The Ignite release shipped a long list this year, including a notifications centre, one-time-password client login, GA4 on the online pages, gift voucher refunds and signatures on consultation forms
HB Salon Software might be better if...
We believe in helping you find the right solution, even if it's not us. Here are some scenarios where other options might serve you better:
- 1The core software keeps trading when the internet drops, which Bella cannot do
- 2Australian phone support included in every plan, six days a week, with a published answer time. Bella is email and in-app only
- 3HB Pay gives you an integrated EFTPOS terminal. Bella has no card reader
- 4A deeper back office: a cashbook with BAS figures, petty cash, till reconciliation, four retail price levels and supplier stock feeds
- 5An online shop that ships, with couriers, dropship and free-shipping thresholds. Bella only does collection and reserve for the next appointment
Still not sure? - we'll give you an honest assessment of whether Bella Booking is right for your business.
Rated 5.0 on Capterra
“Streamlined patient booking with world-class support”
“The supportive & flexible system we have been asking for”
“Best Day Spa System Ever”
Switching from HB Salon Software?
We make it easy. Free onboarding on every plan, with free data migration on Starter and Professional.
How to switch from HB Salon Software
Step-by-step guide to export your data and move to Bella Booking. We offer free onboarding on every plan, and free data migration on Starter and Professional.
- 1
Check where you are in the 12 month term
Find your start date before you do anything else. HB's subscription terms set a 12 month minimum, then 30 days notice month to month, and clause 6.3 makes an early exit cost the balance of the remaining licence fees. Knowing the date tells you whether to move now or at the end of the term. Nothing below depends on it, so you can prepare either way.
- 2
Ask HB in writing for a copy of your data
HB publishes no export page and no export format. Their privacy policy says "You own all business data entered into or generated by our software" and that requests to access your information are made in writing to the Privacy Officer. Email support@hbsoftware.com.au from the account owner's address, ask what formats they can provide for clients, appointment history and sales, and ask whether the monitored cloud backup they set up can be handed to you. Do this early, because it is the step with someone else in the loop.
- 3
Save the reports that hold your history
While you still have access, open HB's reports and save what you would miss: your client list with contact details, appointment history, sales by service and by operator, and stock on hand. HB does not document an export format for reports, so print to PDF if that is all it offers. A PDF is harder for us to read than a spreadsheet, but it is far better than nothing.
- 4
Write down every balance a client is owed
The gift voucher registry holds voucher numbers, purchase dates, balances and redemption history. Prepaid packages track sessions a client has paid for and not yet used. Reward points sit on the client card. None of that survives leaving unless you write it down first. Bella has gift cards, prepaid packages and a loyalty programme to recreate all three in, but only from your list.
- 5
Capture your service menu, prices and products
Send us a link to your HB online booking page or your HB Web Studio site and we can read most of the menu straight off it. Add your retail product list with barcodes and cost prices, and tell us which services carry a deposit and how much. We rebuild the catalogue with pricing tiers, variants, add-ons and bundles.
- 6
Email everything to hello@bellabooking.com
Send whatever you have, from the email address on your HB account. We will tell you honestly what we can read and what we cannot before you cancel anything, and we validate, dedupe and import the rest for you. Free on Starter and Professional.
A note on appointment history
We generally recommend not importing old appointment history. Importing past appointments can trigger unintended automated messages (reminders, follow-ups) and cause data inconsistencies. Your clients and services are the essential data for a clean start. If you do want some history carried over, we recommend a tight recent range (e.g. the last 3 months) — our migration team will ensure no notifications are sent accidentally.
Good to know
Be realistic about this one. HB documents free data conversion INTO their system, including from software that was never built for salons, and nothing at all about getting data out again: no export page, no format, no self-serve download anywhere on their site. Their data also sits in a database on your own Windows machine rather than in an account you can sign into and download from. We have not yet seen an HB export, so we are not going to promise a one-click import of one. What we will do is look at whatever HB gives you, tell you what we can read before you cancel, and rebuild the rest by hand from your reports and your booking page.
Can't export your data?
No problem — we can work with anything. Screenshots of your service list, a link to your public booking page, a photo of your price board, or even a typed-up list. Send us whatever you have and we will build your account from it.
Need help with the migration?
Our team will handle the data import, set up your services, and walk you through everything — included free with every plan. We accept data in any format — CSV, Excel, screenshots, photos, links, or anything else you can send.
Sources: Information gathered from hbsoftware.com. Last verified: September 2026.
Found an error? and we'll correct it promptly.
Important Notice
The information about HB Salon Software on this page is based on publicly available data as of September 2026 and is provided for general comparison purposes only. Pricing, features, and policies may change at any time without notice. We make reasonable efforts to keep this information accurate, but we cannot guarantee its completeness or current accuracy.
Always verify directly with HB Salon Software before making any business decisions. This comparison reflects our understanding and may not capture all nuances of their offerings.