How to choose an esthetician app that you'll actually use
Most esthetician software is sold on feature lists. Feature lists are a bad way to choose, because the thing that determines whether you keep using an app isn't how much it does — it's whether you'll open it on a Tuesday with four clients back to back.
Here's a more useful way to judge.
Start with the thirty-second test
Between clients you have about thirty seconds of usable time. In that window you need to finish the last chart and glance at the next one.
So the question isn't "does it have charting" — everything has charting. The question is: how many taps from opening the app to a saved note? Count them on a trial account. If it's more than about five, you will stop doing it within a month, and then you own expensive software you don't use.
Same test for photos. If adding a before shot means opening a camera app, switching back, uploading, and tagging, it won't happen mid-service.
Non-negotiables
It has to work on a phone. Not "has a mobile view." Actually work — one hand, in a dim room, with gloves half off. Desktop-first software with a cramped mobile version is built for a front desk you don't have.
Charting and photos live together. A note in one place and photos in your camera roll is not a record. They need to be attached to the same client and the same visit, or you'll never find them again.
Consent and intake forms are built in. Paper forms mean transcription, storage, and a filing cabinet. Digital forms the client fills before arriving mean the information is already in the chart when they walk in, and you're not burning treatment time on paperwork.
It plays nicely with how you already take money. If you're on Square, Vagaro, Boulevard — whatever — the charting app should connect to it or at least not fight it. Running two systems that each think they own your client list is how duplicates start.
The question almost nobody asks
Can you get your data out?
Ask before you sign up, not after. Specifically:
- Can you export your full client list, with notes, in a format you can open?
- Can you get your photos out in bulk, or only one at a time?
- If you stop paying, do you still get access to export, or does it lock immediately?
Your client records are your business. Software that makes them hard to leave with is software that's counting on you not being able to.
Things that sound important and aren't
A huge feature list. Marketing automation, inventory, memberships, a booking widget, loyalty points. If you're solo, you'll use maybe a third of it. Every unused feature is another menu between you and the two screens you actually need.
"AI-powered" anything, unqualified. Some of it genuinely helps — dictating a note after a service and having it written up properly saves real minutes. Some is a chatbot bolted onto a settings page. Ask what specifically it does in your workflow, and whether it saves you time on the tasks you do daily.
Multi-location and staff permissions. Great when you have staff. Irrelevant and cluttering when it's you.
Questions worth asking before you switch
- What does migrating my existing clients actually involve — import, or retyping?
- What happens to my data if I cancel?
- Is my client health information encrypted, and who at the company can see it?
- What's the real monthly cost after the intro period, and does it go up with client count?
- If I have a problem on a Saturday, who answers?
That third one deserves weight. Skin notes plus contact details is sensitive information. "We take security seriously" on a marketing page is not an answer — ask how records are isolated between accounts, and whether staff can read client notes.
Switching costs are real, so switch deliberately
Moving systems takes a weekend you'd rather spend elsewhere. Do it once, properly:
- Export everything from the old system before you cancel.
- Import and then spot-check twenty clients by hand. Automated imports usually get 95% right; the 5% is always something like phone numbers or dates.
- Keep the old export file somewhere safe for a year regardless. It costs nothing and it's your safety net.
- Run both for a couple of weeks if you can bear it, then commit. Half-migrated is the worst state to live in.
What we optimised for
SlickChart came out of running an actual treatment room, which shaped what got built and what didn't. Charting, photos, consent forms and payment are on one screen on a phone, because that's the thirty-second window. It connects to your own Square account rather than replacing it. And your client data exports whenever you want it.
Whether that's the right fit is genuinely up to you — but run the thirty-second test on whatever you're considering. It predicts what you'll still be using in six months better than any feature comparison.
If you want to see what charting a visit looks like in practice, try SlickChart free — no card, and your data comes back out whenever you want it.