Frequently asked questions

SHIFT is a professional services management platform that unifies scheduling, payments, client management, and business intelligence into a single system. It's built for barbers, stylists, nail technicians, estheticians, and any beauty professional who books appointments and collects payments.

Most businesses go from signup to accepting live bookings in under five minutes. The onboarding pipeline guides you through business setup, service creation, and schedule configuration. Industry-specific templates mean you don't have to start from scratch.

Yes. Every plan includes a 14-day free trial with access to all features. You don't need to enter a credit card to start your trial. At the end of 14 days, you can choose a plan or your account will pause until you subscribe.

SHIFT is a progressive web app — it works in any mobile browser and can be installed to your home screen for a native app experience. The interface is designed mobile-first for providers who work on their feet, with touch-optimized calendars and gesture-based navigation.

Yes. SHIFT supports guest booking — clients can book and pay without creating an account or downloading an app. Identity is captured at confirmation (name and email) but no account wall stands between your client and their booking.

Email support@goingshift.com. Starter plans receive email support. Pro plans receive priority email support. Enterprise plans include a dedicated account manager. Our customer success team responds quickly — most tickets are acknowledged the same business day.

SHIFT prevents double-bookings at the database level using PostgreSQL exclusion constraints. This is a physical database constraint that makes overlapping appointments structurally impossible for the same provider, regardless of how many people are booking simultaneously.

SHIFT's AI runs in the background analyzing patterns in your booking, payment, and client data. It generates morning briefings, predicts when clients should rebook, identifies clients at risk of churning, and ranks available time slots based on each client's preferences. Every AI feature has a non-AI fallback — if the AI is unavailable, the system continues to work normally.

Yes. The Pro and Enterprise plans support multi-provider scheduling. Each provider gets their own schedule, client list, and earnings tracking. Owners get a unified dashboard showing the entire team's operations. Role-based access ensures providers see only their own data while owners see everything.

Yes. Automated SMS and email reminders are sent at configurable intervals before each appointment — typically 24 hours and 1 hour before. Clients can confirm, reschedule, or cancel directly from the reminder message.

Yes. SHIFT booking pages include Open Graph meta tags and JSON-LD structured data for search engine visibility. Your branded booking page is shareable as a direct link, embeddable on your website, and optimized for social media bio links.

Yes. Clients earn points for every visit and purchase. Points accumulate toward rewards you define — free services, product discounts, or credit toward future appointments. Tier multipliers (Bronze through Platinum) reward loyal clients with accelerated earning. Points are awarded automatically.

SHIFT offers three plans: Starter at $29/month, Pro at $79/month, and Enterprise with custom pricing. Annual billing saves 20%. Every plan includes a 14-day free trial with full access. No credit card is required to start.

SHIFT does not charge a monthly platform percentage. There is a small per-transaction fee that varies by plan tier (3% Starter, 2.5% Pro) in addition to standard Stripe processing fees (2.9% + $0.30). This is transparent and visible in your fee breakdown for every transaction.

Your clients can pay with credit cards, debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and cash. All payment methods are tracked in the same financial ledger so all revenue is reported in one place.

Your account pauses but your data is preserved for 90 days. You can reactivate at any time and pick up where you left off. We don't delete your client list, appointment history, or financial records.

Yes. You can upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time. Upgrades take effect immediately with prorated billing. Downgrades take effect at the end of your current billing period.

Yes. Client payment data never touches SHIFT's servers — it's processed directly by Stripe, which is PCI-DSS Level 1 certified. SHIFT's financial ledger uses PostgreSQL with immutability triggers that physically prevent modification of financial records. All API endpoints require authentication, and tenant isolation is enforced at the database, API, and application layers.

No. SHIFT does not use individual client data for model training. AI models are pre-trained on anonymized, aggregated industry patterns. Your client data stays within your tenant boundary and is never shared with other businesses.

SHIFT supports GDPR and CCPA data subject requests. Business owners can export all data in CSV format at any time. Deletion requests are processed within 30 days. Financial records are retained for 7 years as required for tax compliance.

SHIFT runs on Google Cloud Platform in US data centers. Data is encrypted in transit via TLS 1.2+ and at rest via AES-256. Database backups are automated daily. Infrastructure is protected by Cloudflare DDoS mitigation.

SHIFT provides a guided migration process. You can import client lists via CSV, manually recreate your services and schedule (most businesses complete this in under 30 minutes), and start accepting new bookings immediately. Existing appointment history stays in your previous platform — SHIFT tracks everything going forward.

Yes. Many businesses run both platforms in parallel for 1-2 weeks. You can accept new bookings on SHIFT while honoring existing appointments on your previous platform. Once the transition is complete, you can fully switch over.

SHIFT and Vagaro both offer scheduling and payment processing for salons. SHIFT differentiates with AI-powered client intelligence, database-enforced double-booking prevention, a double-entry financial ledger, and zero monthly platform fees. Vagaro offers a larger client marketplace for discovery. See the full comparison at goingshift.com/compare/vagaro.

Yes. SHIFT has dedicated booth renter management features. Booth renters operate as independent providers with their own schedules, clients, and payment processing. Rent collection is tracked with automatic reminders and configurable billing cycles.

No. SHIFT runs in any modern web browser on any device — desktop, tablet, or phone. For walk-in queue kiosk mode, any iPad or tablet works. For payments, Stripe supports contactless card readers, but most transactions happen through the online checkout flow.

SHIFT exposes a RESTful API for business data. API access is available on Pro and Enterprise plans. The API supports reading appointment data, client information, and financial summaries. Webhook notifications are available for real-time event integration.

Yes. The Enterprise plan supports multi-location management with a unified dashboard. Each location maintains its own schedule, team, and client base while owners see aggregate reporting across all locations.