Salon and spa website in Montréal: what it must do

It is 11 p.m. A client saw your salon on Instagram, she wants a cut on Saturday, and she is not going to call. She finds your site, lands on a booking page that asks her to create an account, and gives up. She books somewhere else.

This guide is for hair salons, barbershops, spas, beauty institutes and tattoo studios in Greater Montréal. It covers what the site has to do, what booking platforms actually cost, what 500 local listings I scanned in June 2026 show, the two Québec laws that apply, and what a site costs. Prices come from public pages read on 22 October 2026.

What a salon site must do

Job	Feature	Why
Book in two taps	A booking button visible on the first screen on a phone	Your client decides at night, on her phone. Every extra step loses people.
Show the price	Service list with price and duration	It is the second question after availability. Without a price, she messages three salons.
Show your work	A gallery of your own photos, compressed	Instagram proves your style; the site has to show it without slowing down.
State the rules	Cancellation, deposit and late policy	Written rules prevent the argument at the desk.
Get her there	Hours, address, parking, transit, matching your Google listing	A client who arrives late because of bad directions does not come back.
Match her to a person	Team pages with specialties and languages spoken	In Montréal, the language of service matters as much as the style.

Open your site on a phone, on cellular data, and try to book Saturday at 2 p.m. Count the taps and the fields. If you give up, your client does too.

Your own site, an app page, or a marketplace

Three options, often confused.

Your own site is the only place you own: the address, the content, the search ranking and the client list. You can plug an existing booking tool into it, or have booking built into it.

The app page (your Fresha or Booksy profile) works, but it belongs to the platform. You do not choose its layout, what it suggests next to your name, or how it ranks.

The marketplace brings new clients at a price you should know:

• Fresha charges a one-time 20% commission on the first appointment value of a client who found you on its marketplace, with a minimum of $6 per client. Returning clients are not charged (Fresha).
• Booksy costs $29.99 a month for one professional, plus $20 per additional person. The optional Boost feature takes 30% of a new client's first visit, capped at $100 (Booksy).
• Stripe, if you take payments yourself, charges 2.9% + $0.30 per Canadian card payment (Stripe).

Example, on a first cut at $90: Fresha takes $18, Booksy with Boost takes $27 (under the $100 cap), Stripe takes $2.91. These are illustrations, not quotes.

The conclusion is not to move everything onto your site. Keep the marketplace if it brings you clients, and give your regulars a direct link to your own booking. You pay the commission once per new client, never on returns.

What 500 local listings show

In June 2026 I pulled 500 Google Maps listings through the Places API for hair salons, spas, barbershops, beauty institutes and tattoo studios in Montréal, Laval, Longueuil, Brossard, Repentigny and Pointe-Claire. I then opened each site's homepage to detect the platform, measure the mobile PageSpeed score and look for an analytics tag.

• 23% (114 listings) had no website, or only a social profile.
• Of the 386 sites, 116 ran WordPress and 94 ran Wix, Squarespace or GoDaddy.
• The median mobile PageSpeed score was 59 out of 100; 28% scored under 50.
• An analytics tag was present on 46% of sites.
• The median listing had 120 Google reviews.

The number that matters to you: almost one listing in four has no site. Your competitors exist on Google and Instagram but have no place of their own to answer the questions that come before a booking. A client comparing two salons favours the one that shows prices and a booking button.

The limits: the Places search returns what Google ranks for each query, not every salon in those cities. Each site got one PageSpeed run, and scores move a few points between runs. A tag on the page does not prove anyone reads the data. No business from the scan is named.

The Québec rules

French first. The Office québécois de la langue française states that customers are entitled to a complete French version of a business's website, and that service businesses, including salons, must serve and inform customers in French (OQLF). An English-only booking flow on an otherwise French site does not meet that. The detail is in the Law 96 guide.

Personal information. A booking form collects a name, a phone number, sometimes health information (allergies, pregnancy, skin conditions) or before-and-after photos. Law 25 requires a notice at the point of collection, a privacy policy, and explicit consent for sensitive information. A tattoo studio or spa that publishes client photos needs written, revocable permission, kept on file. The full list is in the Law 25 guide.

What it costs

My prices are public on the pricing page, before tax:

• Landing site, CA$3,500: services, prices, team, gallery, contact details, and a link or embed for your booking. French and English included.
• Custom site, CA$5,500: if you want to edit services, prices and photos yourself without a developer.
• Add-ons: integrated booking CA$900, third language CA$800, migrating existing content CA$700.
• Care: CA$150 a month on the landing tier (hosting, security, small changes).

If you already use Fresha or Booksy and it works, I will not sell you a booking system. The site then makes you findable, shows your prices and sends the client to the tool your team already knows. That is the CA$3,500 plan. If booking is the core of the business and commissions cost more than a build, we can talk about the other option.

To place these amounts in the wider market, the guide to website costs in Montréal gives the full ranges.

Audit your current site

• A booking button is visible on the first screen, on a phone.
• Prices and duration are listed for every service.
• The French version is as complete as the English one, booking flow included.
• Hours and address match your Google listing.
• The homepage scores 50 or more on PageSpeed Insights, mobile.
• A cancellation and deposit policy is written down.
• Every form shows a privacy notice.
• An analytics tag is installed, and someone reads it.

If you want a second opinion, in Montréal, Laval or Longueuil, book a 15-minute call and I will tell you which of these to fix first.

Sources

Pages read on 22 October 2026.

• Fresha pricing and Marketplace new client fees
• Booksy pricing (Canadian page)
• Stripe Canada pricing
• Language of commerce and business: your rights, Office québécois de la langue française
• Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (P-39.1), LégisQuébec