The $24 app that costs $56.

GlossGenius leads with $24 a month on annual billing, but the features most working pros actually need live in Gold, and Gold is $56 a month when you pay month-to-month. CNL Systems is $29 a month, flat, one plan, everything included. That's the whole comparison. The rest of this page is the detail.

Start with the pricing architecture, because everything else on this page follows from it: a ladder built so the number in the ad and the number on your card statement are two different numbers.

What does GlossGenius actually cost?

GlossGenius has three tiers: Standard at $28/month, Gold at $56/month, and Platinum at $168/month. Those are the month-to-month prices. The smaller numbers in the marketing ($24, $48, and $148) all carry the same condition: a year paid in advance. Under the $24 and the $48, GlossGenius's own pricing page prints this:

Billed annually, you save 14%.

Under the $148 the line reads "Billed annually, you save 12%." The discount changes by tier. The condition doesn't.

Read that pricing page slowly. The $24 headline is Standard, billed annually. Getting the advertised number takes a year's commitment. The tier holding the features a working book runs on is Gold, the one GlossGenius's own page labels "Most popular." Gold costs $56 if you pay month-to-month, which is how a person who isn't sure yet would want to pay. That's more than double the number in the ad.

None of this is hidden, exactly. It's just arranged so the smallest number does the talking.

And here's the comparison that pricing page never invites you to make. Standard is the bottom tier, the one missing the tools the next section lists, and it costs $28 a month paid monthly. CNL is $29 a month with everything included. A dollar separates the cheapest, most gated slice of GlossGenius from the whole of CNL.

What's locked behind Gold?

Gold is where GlossGenius keeps the tools a growing book runs on. Its own pricing page lists Gold's key features as Forms & Waivers, an automated waitlist, Time Tracking, and Room & Resource Management. The compare table says the same thing from the other side: waitlist, resource management, forms and waivers, rebooking reminders, and time tracking all sit behind a crossed-out circle in the Standard column.

Look at that list again. Waitlists, rebooking reminders, and intake forms are not power-user extras; they are what a Tuesday looks like. A tier system only works if the lower tier is missing something you'll miss, and GlossGenius knew exactly what to withhold.

Payroll isn't in Gold either. It isn't in any tier. GlossGenius sells it as a plan add-on at $40 a month plus $6 per seat, stacked on top of whatever tier you're already paying for.

Text marketing is the sharpest edge, because there the gate isn't the feature, it's the allowance. All three tiers get text marketing. Only two get credits: the compare table lists 500 included with Gold and 2,500 with Platinum, and lists none at all next to Standard. Texting is how this business fills a slow week, and on the bottom tier the meter starts at zero.

How is CNL different from GlossGenius?

CNL has one plan at $29 a month, because there is nothing being withheld to sell you later. There's no Gold, and there's no ladder. The site, the booking calendar, payments online and in person, reminders, the client list, email campaigns: all of it is in the one price, and the price doesn't change based on how you'd like to be billed.

A few more differences worth knowing:

• No cut of your sales, ever. Card processing runs at Stripe's standard rates with no markup from CNL. Your $40 fade is your $40 fade.
• Live within 24 hours. A real person sets up your site, services, and hours with you. Not a template wizard and a help center.
• The client list is yours. If you ever leave, ask and you get the full export with history and notes included. No hostages.

What about card processing fees?

GlossGenius charges a flat 2.6% to process cards, and getting your money instantly costs an additional 1.8% on top. Here's how the pricing page sells that first number:

Enjoy one low processing rate and no Tap to Pay, card-on-file, or manual entry fees.

The rate stays one rate right up until you want your money now. Instant payout adds 1.8% on top, and 2.6% plus 1.8% is a meaningful slice of a day's chair revenue, paid for the privilege of being paid. CNL adds nothing: processing runs at Stripe's standard rates, and there is no CNL markup at any speed.

Who is GlossGenius actually right for?

The pro GlossGenius is built for is the one who has already prepaid: a year of Gold up front to get the $48 rate, a card statement that stopped getting read months ago, and no appetite for moving the book again. What keeps that pro on GlossGenius is inertia, not fit. Once the year is paid, the sunk cost does the retention work.

And notice what getting there required. You committed, prepaid, and picked a tier before you'd felt the software in a busy week. The pricing structure asks you to bet a year on it. A flat monthly price asks you to bet a month. We think the second one is how software should earn a working pro's money, which is why CNL doesn't offer an annual-prepay discount to make the advertised number smaller. The advertised number is the number.

What does switching to CNL look like?

You sign up, and you're live within 24 hours. A real person sets up your site, services, and hours with you, not a checklist and a help center. We register your domain at cost, about $12 a year for a .com, or connect one you already own for free. From there it's your book: online booking with deposits where you want them, payments online and at the chair, reminders that send themselves, and your client list building up under your own roof.

And the door swings both ways, on purpose. If CNL ever stops earning the $29, ask and you get your full client list with history and notes included, then go where you like. We'd rather keep you with the product than with a lock.

Can you get a custom domain on GlossGenius?

No. Here is GlossGenius's own help centre, in an article marked "Available On: All Subscription Plans":

You can only customize the portion of the URL that appears before ".glossgenius.com." Custom domains are not supported at this time.

All subscription plans. This is not a Standard limitation you buy your way out of at Gold. Every booking site GlossGenius builds lives on a glossgenius.com subdomain, so the address you put on your card and your Instagram bio carries their brand, not yours.

The same help centre offers a workaround: ask your registrar to forward a domain you own to your GlossGenius booking site. Look at what that actually does. A forward is a bounce, not an address. Your client taps your domain and the address bar they land on still reads glossgenius.com.

CNL works the other way around. We register a real domain for you at cost (about $12 a year for a .com), or connect one you already own for free. Your name on the door, and on the address bar.

The short version

If you want the features GlossGenius holds in Gold, be ready for $56 a month billed monthly, plus 2.6% processing, plus 1.8% if you want your money now. And all of it sits at an address you don't own. Or pay $29 flat for the whole thing on your own domain, and keep every dollar your chair earns. You're running a real business. Price it like one.

Every GlossGenius price and quotation on this page was checked against GlossGenius's own pricing page and help centre on August 22, 2026, and re-verified against that page on August 24, 2026. Prices move; the ladder doesn't.