The shade hunt
She says "the same as last time" and you spend eleven minutes matching bottles under the lamp. Multiply that by the six regulars a day who say it.
About 4.5 hours of unbilled chair time a month
Built for nail studios
Her color history, wear time and next set, one tap from the chair
PolishBook holds every shade, base, top coat and structure note you have ever put on a client, together with how long that set actually lasted. When she sits down you already know what held for four weeks and what lifted on day nine.
- Running in 412 US studios
- 1.9 million service records stored
- Set up in one afternoon
The daily friction
You remember her ring finger, not the bottle number
Six weeks between visits, forty clients on the book, and the only record of the exact taupe she loved is a photo buried somewhere in your camera roll. Here is what that costs across a month.
Lifting you cannot explain
A client comes back at day ten with two corners lifted. Without the prep and base coat you used, you guess, redo it free and hope it holds this time.
Two free repairs a week is roughly $520 a monthQuiet weeks you did not see coming
Regulars slip from a three week rhythm to five weeks and nobody notices until the book looks thin. By then she has already tried the place near her office.
One lost regular is around $1,150 a yearStock guesswork
You order builder gel by feel, run out of the one structure shade half the book asks for, and stare at a shelf of colors nobody has requested since spring.
$300 to $700 tied up in dead stock
How it works
Four steps, and the card writes itself
You are not going to type notes between clients. PolishBook is built so a full service record takes two taps at the end of a set and pays you back at the start of the next one.
Build your color shelf once
Scan or type in the polishes, gels, builders and top coats you actually stock. Brand, line, shade name and code, plus the bottle photo. Most studios finish the shelf in under an hour, and a technician can add a new bottle from the chair.
Close out the set in two taps
Pick the shade from your shelf, tap the service shape, add a structure or prep note if it matters. The card stamps the date, the technician, the products used and the price without any extra typing.
Log wear time when she returns
At her next appointment PolishBook asks one question: how did the last set hold. Perfect, small chip, lifted corner, broken. That single answer turns your history into a pattern you can act on.
Let the rebooking nudge do the chasing
Each set gets its own return window from her real wear data, not a flat two week rule. If her builder sets go four weeks and her polish changes go ten days, she hears from you on each clock.
What is inside
Six things a nail studio actually needs on the card
Nothing here is borrowed from a generic booking app. Every screen was drawn next to a technician with a client waiting.
Shade history per client
Every color she has worn, with the exact brand, line and bottle code, ordered by visit. Tap any past set to rebuild it on the spot, including the base and top coat you paired with it.
Wear time on every set
One tap at her next visit records how the last set held and for how many days. After three visits you can see which base, shape and length combination survives her job.
Rebooking nudge tuned per set
The return reminder is calculated from her own wear history and the service she had, so a strong builder client is not pestered on a two week loop. You approve the message list in one sweep each morning.
Product usage and reorder points
Each closed set deducts from the bottle it came out of, so the shelf count follows real work instead of memory. When a builder or a top seller drops below your set line, it lands on the order list.
Allergy, lift and prep notes
Flag a client who reacts to a specific acrylic monomer or whose natural plate needs a gentler prep, and the warning shows the moment her card opens. Nothing is buried three screens deep.
Chair and technician view
Booth renters see only their own book, while an owner sees the whole floor, retention by technician and which colors carry the revenue. Access is set per person, so a renter's client list travels with her.
Mauve Ledger 214
Gel polish. Average wear 22 days across 61 sets.
Coral Counter 08
Summer top seller. Reordered every 7 weeks.
Bare Almond 31
Paired with rubber base. Lowest lift rate on file.
Lilac Structure 77
Builder overlay shade. Books a 4 week return window.
What changes
The numbers studio owners report after one season
These are averages across 412 studios using PolishBook for at least ninety days, measured against their own first month on the product.
More rebookings confirmed
The nudge fires on the client's own wear clock instead of a flat calendar rule, so the message arrives while her set still looks good and she is thinking about the next one.
Saved on every returning client
No shade hunt, no scrolling a camera roll, no asking her to describe a color from six weeks ago. The card opens with the last three sets and the products already listed.
Fewer free repair visits
Wear notes show which base and prep combination lifts on which client, so the second set is built differently. Repairs stop being a mystery you absorb at your own cost.
Less stock sitting on the shelf
Usage is deducted from real closed sets, so the order list reflects what the book actually consumes. Owners cut slow shades and keep depth in the four colors that carry the week.
From the floor
Technicians and owners on what actually changed
"I rent a booth and my clients follow me, so the history is mine and it moves with me. When a client comes back after the holidays I can tell her the exact almond shade she wore in October and how many days it lasted before she chipped the thumb."
"We have five chairs and three of them are renters. Before PolishBook nobody could tell me why one technician had a lift problem in February. The wear notes showed it in a week: the same rubber base on clients who swim. We changed the prep and the repairs stopped."
"The rebooking reminder is the part I did not expect to like. It waits for her real cycle instead of blasting everyone on Monday. My four week builder clients get one message and about seven in ten of them book straight from it."
412US studios running PolishBook every week
1.9Mservice records with a shade and a wear note
68%of nudged clients rebook within four days
Pricing
Priced per studio, not per client card
Store as many client histories, shades and photos as your book needs. The plan you pick depends on how many chairs you run, not how busy you get.
Booth Renter
$19
per month, one technician
- Unlimited client cards and color history
- Wear time logging on every set
- Rebooking nudges by text and email
- Your own shade shelf, portable if you move salons
- Bottle photos and prep notes
- Email support answered within one business day
Salon
$49
per month, up to 8 chairs
- Everything in Booth Renter for every technician
- Shared studio shelf with per technician access
- Product usage tracking and reorder points
- Retention and lift reporting per technician
- Front desk view for the person on the phone
- Import from a spreadsheet or a card box, done for you
Salon Group
$99
per month, up to 5 locations
- Everything in Salon across every location
- Group shade catalog with per site stock counts
- Cross location client lookup with consent
- Owner dashboard comparing sites side by side
- Bulk price list updates pushed to all chairs
- Named onboarding contact and a quarterly review call
Every plan is billed monthly in US dollars and can be cancelled at any time from your account settings. No contract, no setup fee, and your client history exports to a spreadsheet whenever you ask.
Questions we get
Straight answers before you book a demo
The price is fixed by chairs, not by clients or by how many records you store. A booth renter pays $19 per month whether she has 40 regulars or 400, a salon with up to eight chairs pays $49, and a group of up to five locations pays $99. Photos, shade history and wear notes are all included at every level. If you outgrow a tier we tell you before the change lands on your invoice.
Most studios are working on live clients the same day. Building the shade shelf is the longest part and usually takes 45 to 90 minutes depending on how deep your stock is. If you send us a spreadsheet, a booking export or clear photos of your card box, we import your client list and their last service for you at no charge on the Salon and Salon Group plans. Technicians pick up the two tap close out in a single shift.
You own it. PolishBook stores records on encrypted servers in the United States, and we never sell, rent or share client information with anyone. A booth renter's client list belongs to her, so if she leaves the salon she exports her own histories and keeps working. Owners can export the whole studio to a spreadsheet at any time, and deleted records are purged from backups within 30 days.
It does not have to. PolishBook sits alongside the calendar you already use and connects to Square Appointments, Vagaro, GlossGenius, Acuity and Google Calendar, so an appointment opens the matching client card automatically. If you would rather run your book inside PolishBook, the built in schedule handles chairs, deposits and no show notes. Studios often start alongside their calendar and move over after a season.
You cancel in your account settings in two clicks and the plan stops at the end of the month you already paid for. There is no contract, no notice period and no cancellation fee. Before you go, export your full client history and shade records to a spreadsheet so nothing is lost. We keep the account dormant for 60 days in case you come back, then delete it.
That is exactly when it pays. A client who tries a new shade every visit still has a shape, a length, a base and a prep that hold for her, and that is the part the card protects. The history also gives her a menu of her own past sets to point at, which shortens the consultation instead of extending it. Studios with the most adventurous clients report the biggest drop in shade hunting time.
The Polish Room
Questions from the studio floor, answered in full
The Polish Room is the PolishBook magazine for nail salon owners and booth renters. Pricing math, state board disinfection rules, product chemistry and honest timing benchmarks, each piece answering one question a technician actually asks.
Talk to us
Bring one client card to the demo
Tell us how you work today, a card box, a notes app, a booking system with a comment field, and we will show you the same client inside PolishBook on the call. Half an hour at the desk, your screen next to ours, and not one slide.
We answer every request within one business day, in person, no automated sequence. Prefer email? Write to jimenezjulien42@gmail.com and mention your chair count.