The short answer

  • Choose Maravoa if you are an independent stylist or small salon that wants straightforward pricing, portable client records, detailed color history, and a focused salon workflow.
  • Choose Vagaro if consumer marketplace exposure, classes, memberships, multi-location tools, integrations, or a broad add-on ecosystem matter more than keeping the system compact.
  • Price check: Maravoa starts at $19/month. Vagaro's limited-time one-calendar base price was $23.99/month when verified Jul 23, 2026.
  • Important tradeoff: Vagaro offers substantially more breadth and consumer discovery. Maravoa is narrower by design and may cost less in configurations that include direct customer texting.

The detailed comparison below covers calendars, text-message costs, payments, exports, record ownership, and a worked one-professional example.

How Maravoa and Vagaro differ

Maravoa and Vagaro solve overlapping problems, but they are built at different scales. Vagaro is a broad beauty-and-wellness platform with a consumer marketplace and a large add-on catalog. Maravoa is a focused salon operating system for independent professionals and small teams who want simpler pricing and a portable client book.

All Vagaro prices and product details below are from Vagaro's own public pages and were checked July 23, 2026. Prices can change; dated figures are included so you can verify them before deciding.

Pricing: flat plan or calendar-based plan

As of July 2026, Vagaro lists a limited-time US base price of $23.99 per month, including one bookable calendar. Each additional employee calendar is $10 per month through seven paid licenses; after seven licenses, additional employees can be added without another calendar charge.

Maravoa prices the account by how the professional signs up, not by where they work.

One independent professional

  • Maravoa: A professional who signs up for their own Stylist account pays $19/month, wherever they work. If a Maravoa salon owner invites them as a sponsored seat, the professional pays $0 themselves because the salon's flat team plan covers the seat. Solo is $29/month when they sign up to run their own shop.
  • Vagaro: $23.99/month limited-time US base price for one bookable calendar, as of July 2026.

Additional calendars

  • Maravoa: No per-calendar scaling within the selected plan.
  • Vagaro: $10/month per additional employee calendar through seven paid licenses, as of July 2026.

Pricing shape

  • Maravoa: Flat plan price.
  • Vagaro: Base subscription plus optional premium features.

The fairest comparison is the total configuration you would actually use. Vagaro's base subscription includes a wide feature set; some capabilities are separately priced premium features. Maravoa includes fewer categories of tools and keeps its plan structure narrower.

Texting and appointment messages

Vagaro includes unlimited notifications and appointment reminders in its base subscription. Its direct SMS and text-marketing system is separate: as of July 2026, the smallest US Text Messaging plan is $20/month for 1,000 credits, with additional credits listed at $0.030 each. Vagaro says business-initiated customer SMS, customer replies delivered as SMS, longer segmented messages, and media can consume plan credits.

Maravoa includes booking confirmations, appointment reminders, and client texting in Solo. On the $19/month Stylist plan, a dedicated texting number is an optional $2/month add-on. Maravoa does not currently offer Vagaro's large campaign builder, audience filters, or marketplace-linked Daily Deals.

What one professional with texting would actually pay

As of July 2026, compare the configuration rather than only the sticker price:

Maravoa Stylist

  • $21/month with a dedicated texting number: $19 for a self-signed Stylist account plus the optional $2 texting add-on
  • Includes the professional's calendar, client records, money tracking, reports, self-booking, recurring appointments, and a per-client color card that keeps each formula, developer, processing time, technique notes, and before-and-after photos on a color history timeline.

Maravoa Solo

  • $29/month flat, with client texting included
  • Adds the one-person shop layer beyond Stylist: checkout, gift cards, inventory, sales-tax tools, a service catalog, and business settings.

Vagaro

  • $23.99/month limited-time base subscription for one bookable calendar
  • $20/month for the smallest US Text Messaging plan with 1,000 credits
  • $43.99/month before card-processing costs in this worked example
  • Additional text credits are listed at $0.030 each.

In this one-professional, texting-enabled example, Stylist is $22.99/month less and Solo is $14.99/month less than Vagaro before card-processing costs. The products are not identical: Vagaro includes a much broader marketplace and feature ecosystem, while the Maravoa ladder separates a portable professional account from the added tools for running a one-person shop.

Payments and checkout

Both products charge card-processing costs separately from the software subscription. The actual card cost depends on the provider, transaction type, and account configuration, so this comparison does not use one platform's rate card without itemizing the other's on the same basis.

Vagaro's integrated card flow uses Vagaro Merchant Services and does not integrate with third-party card readers. A business can still process a card with another provider and manually record that payment in Vagaro for reporting. Eligible US businesses that activate Vagaro processing can receive a free or discounted reader, subject to Vagaro's promotion terms.

Maravoa sends card checkout to the professional's own connected Stripe account. Cash and external-payment records can live beside card transactions, and reporting stays scoped to the business or independent professional who earned the money. Stripe processing charges are separate from the Maravoa subscription.

Cancellation and taking your records with you

Vagaro provides a self-service cancellation path for the business account owner. Its support guidance recommends exporting records first: reports are run and exported individually to PDF or Excel, and the full customer list can be exported to PDF or Excel by the owner. If reports were not exported before closure, Vagaro says the owner must reactivate the account to retrieve them and then deactivate again.

That is real portability, with an owner-permission boundary. Vagaro says employees cannot export the customer list themselves, although the owner can filter the report to an employee's customers and export it for them.

Maravoa is designed around a professional-owned book. A professional who signs up for their own account can move between a hosted Stylist account and their own Solo business without rebuilding their client list, formulas, photos, appointments, or financial history.

Built for the Chair

Built with working stylists to make your Tuesday at 2 p.m. easier.

Maravoa is shaped around the work at the chair, and around who owns it.

  • The portable book. A professional's clients, color history, and revenue records belong to them: an owner-invited professional works on a $0 sponsored seat inside a Maravoa salon, priced by how they sign up rather than where they work, and their book stays theirs.
  • Color card timeline. Every client has a color card that keeps the formula, developer, processing time, technique notes, and before-and-after photos on one color history timeline.
  • Recurring appointments in seconds. A standing appointment can be set to repeat, so a regular's future visits are scheduled together.
  • Rebooking at checkout. Checkout prompts booking the client's next appointment in the same motion as taking payment.
  • Texting included. Two-way client texting is included in the price, with a dedicated per-salon number.
  • Owner money tools. A month-close profit-and-loss view in plain language, and refunds that can be undone.

Where Vagaro is better

Vagaro is the stronger choice when breadth and consumer discovery matter more than a compact salon workflow. Its base subscription includes a free Vagaro Marketplace listing, online booking through Vagaro plus Instagram, Facebook, and Apple Maps, memberships, packages, gift certificates, loyalty tools, inventory, invoices, advanced reporting, and SOAP notes.

Vagaro also offers capabilities Maravoa does not currently match: a branded consumer app, APIs and webhooks, check-in apps, large-scale email and text marketing, Daily Deals, classes, multi-location tools, payroll and accounting integrations, and a much larger hardware catalog. A growing wellness business, class-based operation, or salon that wants a marketplace channel and a broad ecosystem may reasonably prefer Vagaro even if the final monthly configuration costs more.

Maravoa is intentionally narrower. It is a better fit when an independent professional or small salon wants booking with recurring appointments, client records, color history with before-and-after photos, texting, checkout, and clean reporting without adopting a larger platform.

Common questions

Is Vagaro cheaper than Maravoa?

It depends on the account. As of July 2026, Vagaro's limited-time one-calendar base is $23.99/month. In Maravoa, an owner-invited sponsored seat inside a Maravoa salon costs the professional $0; a professional who signs up for their own Stylist account pays $19/month; and a one-person Solo shop is $29/month. Vagaro's total can rise with additional calendars and premium features; Maravoa's price follows how the account is set up rather than calendar count.

Does Vagaro include appointment reminders?

Yes. Vagaro lists unlimited notifications and appointment reminders in its base subscription. Direct customer SMS and text marketing use its separate Text Messaging plans and credit rules.

Can I export my Vagaro customer list?

Yes. Vagaro documents PDF and Excel export for the full customer list by the business owner. Employees cannot perform that export themselves, but the owner can filter and export an employee's customer list.

Which product is better for a booth renter or independent stylist?

Choose based on the job you need done. Vagaro offers broader marketing, marketplace, class, membership, hardware, and integration tools. Maravoa offers a smaller salon-specific system with flat plan pricing and a client book designed to stay with the professional who owns it.

Can I try Maravoa before signing up?

Yes. Try the live demo with real sample data and no login, or start a free trial.