A Sesami alternative for salons and studios on a budget
Sesami is aimed at larger retail and wellness brands and is known for its POS and multi-location work; its higher plans are priced accordingly. Booking Slot is for the salon, studio or clinic with one to twenty staff that wants the same POS-first behaviour at a small-business price.
Sesami and Booking Slot side by side
Competitor details are taken from public listings at the time of writing and can change. Always check the current App Store listing before deciding.
| Sesami | Booking Slot | |
|---|---|---|
| Target | Multi-location brands and enterprise retail | Independents and small chains |
| POS | Strong, check plan | Included on Growth, same engine as storefront |
| Multi-location | Yes, on higher plans | Roadmap (Pro) |
| Pricing | Higher tiers for advanced features | £14.99 to £79.99 flat |
| Group classes | Check listing | Growth and Pro |
| Reminders | Check listing | SMS and email allowance included |
Built for different sizes of business
Sesami is aimed upward. Its reputation is with larger retail and wellness brands, it is known for POS work and multi-location scheduling, and its advanced tiers are priced for businesses with that shape of problem. For a chain running appointments across several sites, that is the right target to be.
Booking Slot is aimed at the independent. One salon, one clinic, one studio, maybe two sites, somewhere between one and twenty people on the rota. Same POS-first behaviour, same insistence that the till and the website cannot disagree, at a price a two-chair shop can sign off without thinking about it.
This is not a claim that one is better. It is a claim that they are solving for different customers, and the useful question is which one you are.
Enterprise features priced for enterprises are not a flaw. They are a problem only if you are not one.
The multi-location question, answered honestly
This is the first thing to settle, because it decides the rest.
Booking Slot does not do multi-location today. There is no concept of separate sites with their own staff, hours and availability inside one install. It is on the roadmap for the Pro tier and it is not in the product.
If you run three salons and need a customer to pick a branch before picking a time, Sesami handles that and Booking Slot does not. Install Sesami and stop reading.
If you run one site, or two that could reasonably be separate Shopify stores, that gap costs you nothing and the rest of this page is relevant.
POS, which both take seriously
Sesami's POS work is well regarded, and this is one area where the two apps agree on what matters rather than differing.
Booking Slot's POS booking is a Shopify POS UI extension that calls the same availability and hold endpoints as the storefront, so there is no sync window in which the counter and the website can disagree. Several bookings go through one transaction. When the network drops, the till errors rather than completing a sale on cached data. It works on POS Lite and POS Pro, so no Shopify plan upgrade is needed.
The difference is where it sits in the plan ladder. Booking Slot includes it from Growth at thirty-nine ninety-nine a month, together with group classes and Google Calendar. Check Sesami's current listing for how theirs is tiered.
- POS booking from thirty-nine ninety-nine a month, not an add-on
- Same engine as the storefront, no sync step
- Several bookings in one POS transaction
- Shopify POS Lite and POS Pro both supported
What a small chain actually pays
Plan limits count resources, which means staff, rooms, chairs or courts: anything with a calendar that can only be in one place at once.
One resource is free with twenty bookings a month. Two is fourteen ninety-nine. Three to eight is thirty-nine ninety-nine, which is where POS, group classes and Google Calendar arrive. More than eight is seventy-nine ninety-nine with unlimited resources. Annual billing takes twenty percent off, and no tier takes a percentage of what you sell.
Work out your own number before comparing. A clinic with three practitioners and two treatment rooms is five resources, so Growth. A salon with six stylists is six, also Growth. A twelve-chair operation is Pro at seventy-nine ninety-nine, which is still a flat number you can budget for.
Where Sesami stays ahead, and which to pick
Be clear on the gaps. Beyond multi-location, Booking Slot has no waitlists, no booking subscriptions or memberships, no multi-day bookings, no intake questions on the picker and no automatic video links. Appointments, group classes and staff bookings is the whole scope. Several of those gaps are on the roadmap, which is not the same as being available.
Sesami also has years of production use behind it with larger merchants, which is worth something on its own. Booking Slot is new and says so rather than pretending otherwise.
Choose Sesami if you are multi-site today, need the features above, or want the reassurance of an established vendor at that scale. Choose Booking Slot if you are one site or two, want POS and proper staff scheduling without an enterprise price, and would rather have UK hosting, GBP billing and support from the person who wrote the code.
Questions about Sesami alternative
Will Booking Slot add multi-location?
Yes, on Pro. It is on the roadmap.
Can Booking Slot handle a team of 15?
Yes, on Pro with unlimited resources.
Do both use Shopify checkout?
Yes.
Is Booking Slot UK-based?
Yes, built and hosted in the UK.
Try Booking Slot free on your store
Install in a few minutes, link one product and take a test booking. Free for one resource and 20 bookings a month, then flat pricing from £14.99.