Tattoo studio software that keeps the chairs booked

A tattoo or piercing studio runs on a rhythm: a client enquires, books and pays a deposit, completes their consent, sits for the work, pays at the counter, and, for larger pieces, comes back for the next session. OneBookPlus supports every stage of that rhythm, from the booking-page deposit that protects your artists' time through to the healed shot that goes back into the portfolio and the review that wins the next client.

Bookings and deposits

Most studios live and die by chair utilisation, and a no-show on a half-day session is a real loss. With OneBookPlus, clients find your studio through Instagram, Google or your website and book directly through your branded online booking page, choosing an artist, a service and a time in real time. You set a required deposit per appointment type, a flat amount or a percentage, and the client pays it before the slot is held. No deposit, no booking. When life gets in the way and someone cancels late or doesn't show, the cost falls on the forfeited deposit rather than on your day, and your policy is applied consistently to every client without an awkward conversation at the front desk.

Consent, intake and aftercare

Before the needle touches skin, each client completes a digital consent and intake form on their phone, contact and ID details, medical history, allergies and medications, and acknowledgement of the aftercare advice. The signed form is timestamped and stored securely against their client record. Capturing and retaining client and consent records is part of operating a compliant studio under your state or territory's skin-penetration and public-health rules, which are administered by health departments and local councils and cover hygiene, infection control and record-keeping. OneBookPlus gives you a single, consistent place to capture those records, legible, complete and easy to retrieve, though you should always confirm your specific obligations with your local council or state health department.

Point-of-sale, retail and tips

At the counter, the point-of-sale rings up the tattoo or piercing session alongside retail aftercare, jewellery and a tip in one transaction. Card payments process through Stripe, and because GST is calculated per line, your taxable service revenue and your retail product sales are split correctly for BAS, no manual sorting at quarter-end. Deposits already paid are credited against the balance automatically, so the client only pays the remainder. Every sale flows into your accounting in real time, so the takings at close of day reconcile themselves.

Reminders and multi-session pieces

Automated SMS and email reminders go out before every appointment, with pre-care instructions so clients arrive prepared, fed, hydrated and not sunburnt. For a sleeve or back-piece that runs across several sittings, each session links to the same client record with its notes, references and consent, so picking up where you left off is effortless even months later. Fewer no-shows, fewer half-empty afternoons, and a smoother experience for the client who's committed to a long project with your studio.

Pricing a session when your real constraint is chair time

Studios rarely go broke on their hourly rate. They go broke on the hours that were blocked out and then not worked: the cancelled half-day, the client who books three hours and needs five, the walk-up that arrives at the one moment nobody is free. Chair time is the constraint, so the number worth knowing is not what you charge per hour but what an hour of a working chair has to earn once rent, insurance, consumables, artist split and the software you run are covered. Price above that floor, not around the studio down the road. The hourly rate calculator works the floor out from your own overheads and the hours you can realistically bill, and the GST calculator checks whether the figure you quote is GST-inclusive before a client hears it. Once you know the floor, a deposit stops being a policy argument and starts being simple arithmetic: it is the part of the blocked hour you refuse to write off.

Where the money leaks: card fees, tips and retail

Three quiet leaks show up in almost every studio's books. The first is card processing, which is a percentage of everything you take, including the retail balm and the tip, and is worth knowing to the cent before you decide whether to surcharge. The second is tips, which pass through your POS but do not belong to the studio in the same way service revenue does, and which get messy at quarter-end if they were never separated at the counter. The third is retail, which is taxable in a way your service revenue also is but which carries a different margin, so mixing them hides whether the shelf is earning its space. Ringing all three through one point-of-sale with GST calculated per line keeps them separable without anyone doing extra work. If you are deciding whether to pass card costs on, the card surcharge calculator shows what a surcharge can lawfully recover, and studios trading as sole traders can sanity-check the year ahead with the sole trader tax calculator. Both are general information rather than tax advice.

Portfolio, reputation and growth

Growing a studio comes down to keeping your chairs full and your artists' work in front of new clients. After each session, snap the finished or healed piece against the client's record, building both their personal history and a gallery you can showcase. Two hours after the session, the moment a client is happiest, OneBookPlus can automatically request a Google review, building the online reputation that wins the next person searching for a tattoo studio nearby. Your booking page doubles as a lightweight website showing your artists, services and reviews, and the dashboard ties everything together, bookings, deposits, POS takings, retention and BAS-ready financials, so you always know exactly where the studio stands. If you also run beauty or barbering chairs alongside the tattoo side, the hair and beauty salon page and the barbershop page cover the same booking and retail workflow for those services, and the OneBookPlus and Fresha comparison sets the two pricing models side by side.