The three models, and what each one costs you later
Nearly every salon system in Singapore is sold one of three ways. The monthly number is not the thing to compare — what matters is what you are left holding.
| Model | What you pay | What you hold after five years |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | A monthly fee, forever, usually per user or per branch | Nothing. Stop paying and access ends that month. |
| One-time licence with maintenance | A larger sum once, then an annual fee to keep it supported and running | A licence, and a system that depends on the annual fee being current. |
| True perpetual licence | A sum once, with support optional afterwards | Software that keeps running unsupported. Rare in this market, and worth verifying. |
FingerBooth is the middle row. We have written that plainly above rather than letting “one-time” do the talking, because the gap between those three rows is where salon owners in Singapore have been getting hurt.
Why the recurring fee is the part that protects you
It sounds like the opposite. But think about what a genuinely never-pay-again system has to look like for the vendor to survive it, because that is what you end up living with.
- Site visits get charged, because there is no ongoing fee paying for support. Every problem becomes a quotation.
- Backup is whatever is on the machine. The PC under the counter dies on a Saturday and the system is down — and the client list may be gone with it.
- Little or no cloud. Your data lives on one computer in one shop, so you cannot see today’s takings from your phone, and a second outlet is a second island.
- Updates stop. A vendor with no recurring revenue cannot keep paying developers when sales dip, so the software you bought is the software you keep — including the day a Windows update breaks it.
The annual maintenance is what pays for the other side of all four: remote support with no call-out charge, cloud hosting with a daily backup, your numbers visible on your phone, branches that sync, and a system that keeps getting updated. The fee is not a tax on the purchase. It is the difference between software on a PC and a service that stays alive.
It is the scenario worth picturing, because it is the one that actually happens. Your data does not live on the machine under your counter — it lives on our cloud and the counter connects to it. So a dead PC is a dead PC: you carry on from another one and your client history is untouched.
On a local-only system that same Saturday can be the end of ten years of client records. The annual fee is worth more than it costs on exactly one day, and this is that day.
Five things to get in writing, from any vendor
- The total for year one, and the total for year five. Not the monthly figure. Make them write both numbers down.
- What recurs, what it is called, and when it starts. Maintenance, subscription, support, licence renewal — the word does not matter, the obligation does.
- What happens if you stop paying it. Does the system keep running, run in a reduced form, or stop? This is the single most expensive thing to assume.
- What the recurring fee actually buys. Upgrades? Support? Hosting? Backups? All four, or some of them?
- How you get your data out, and in what format. Before you need it, not after.
Our answers to those five
So you can hold us to the same standard:
- Year one: $2,500 per branch, or $3,500 with hardware. Year five total: $5,252 for one branch, software only. No GST.
- What recurs: maintenance, $688 per branch per year, starting in year two. Year one is included in the purchase.
- If it lapses: the system stops until it is renewed.
- What it buys: upgrades and updates, technical support by remote screen control and WhatsApp with no on-site call-out charge, and cloud hosting with daily backup.
- Your data: yours. Reports, sales, stock on hand and customer information all download to Excel from inside the system, any time.
What this is not
This page is not an argument that a one-time licence beats a subscription. For a single-chair studio that may close in a year, a monthly plan you can cancel is genuinely the lower-risk choice, and we say so on the comparison page too. It is an argument that you should know which of the three rows above you are signing, in writing, before you pay anyone.
Questions we get asked
Is FingerBooth a one-time purchase?
The licence is. You pay $2,500 per branch for the software, or $3,500 with a laptop, thermal receipt printer, cash drawer, setup and installation — once, not monthly. The first year's maintenance is included in that.
From year two there is an annual maintenance fee of $688 per branch, about $57 a month. That part is not optional, and the next answer explains exactly why.
What happens if I stop paying maintenance?
The system stops working until you renew. We would rather tell you that on this page than have you find out when the counter will not open on a Saturday.
So the accurate description of what you are buying is: a one-time licence with a required annual maintenance fee from year two. Not a perpetual licence you can run forever without paying us again. Anyone who tells you otherwise about any system — including verbally, in a meeting, about ours — should be asked to put it in the quotation.
Your data is not held hostage by that. If it has already lapsed and you need your records out, tell us and we will put access back long enough for you to export them. You do not have to renew to get your own client list.
Then why is it cheaper than a subscription?
Because the big number is paid once rather than every month. At $2,500 up front and $688 a year after the first, five years is $5,252 for one branch. A subscription at $150 a month is $9,000 over the same five years and you own no licence at the end. The crossover is usually somewhere in year three. Run your own numbers on the pricing page calculator rather than taking ours.
Whose data is it, and can I get it out?
Yours, and yes. Your reports, your sales, your stock on hand and your customer information all download to Excel whenever you want them — it is a standard function of the system, not a favour and not a support request.
What we do not do is build bespoke one-off exports in some other vendor’s format. Excel is the format, and it opens anywhere.
Would you stop us moving to another vendor?
No. We would obviously rather you stayed, and we will ask why. But we will not freeze your account or block you from downloading your own data because you have decided to switch. Holding a salon’s own client list hostage is not a retention strategy, it is a reason to warn other owners.