All right, welcome back. In this video, we are going to just cover choosing set more or square for your booking option. Now, this is really going to just give you you know, a breakdown of how to choose between set more and square for booking, I'm doing a little bit of a pros and cons list for you. They are both very comprehensive platforms that you can use. And I just want to share with you my experiences with both and just kind of giving you a list of those pros and cons to help you decide if you haven't already made that decision on your own because there have been some updates to both platforms and in previous classes, I would have taught to stick to set more. But now there are definitely some really robust tools out there for you on both platforms that I want to share with you both of those.

So, we're going to take a look at the free versions, I'm not going to talk about the pro versions, because I'm all about saving you guys money, building your business, on the best budget possible because there are a ton of tools out there that allow you to do exactly what you need them to do without having to pay all these extra expenses on on, you know, subscriptions to this and memberships to that. Okay, so we're going to take a look at set more here, we're going to look at the set more free version. Now my list of pros, you could probably Google this, and you know, say set more versus square appointments, which one's better? The when you look at reviews, and you look at side by side, pros and cons. Sometimes it's just overwhelming because you're like, well, this one doesn't have that and that one doesn't have this.

I wish they were both together, right? So um, but here's my comprehend. List of pros and cons. So as we look at set More's free version, what I absolutely love about their free version is that they've got an Instagram feed integration where it shows a live feed of your Instagram. I absolutely love that about set more. They also have the Instagram book button as of just very very recently just just released square didn't have the option to have a book button on Instagram and now they do so that is awesome.

So originally I would have said let's stick with set more. But now square is is catching up with some of those things. So also looking at set more. The another really amazing powerful tool of set more is that you have the opportunity to get reviews from your clients. They come to you in private and then you can set them to be public so that other people can see This is really really powerful, I'm sure you know, any type of review is extremely powerful for you. It is facing a new client.

So utilizing that is very, very powerful. It does have a brand new feature as of just a couple of weeks ago, set more does offer into payment processor integration with square. So now if you use square for payment processing, the only reason you would use this if you is if you offer education, maybe you offer you know technical classes where you teach how to do up dues or whatever. That would be good for you in set more so they do have class booking options but also payment options. The other thing is is if you're taking deposits for your weddings, or if you take a prepayment options for your services, so this is great for If you don't then having you know that integration isn't a big deal. Google Calendar sync is great because then it just syncs to all your devices, you get reminders and everything, which is awesome.

They have a custom URL. So for your booking page, you can create your own custom URL. I think this is extremely important. As far as a from a branding standpoint, having that custom URL. It has Facebook integration, meaning that you can set up a book option of book your appointment option on your business Facebook page. It has a website booking widget, where you can create a button for your website.

We'll get into some of that a little bit later. Again, like I said, they have class booking options. This may not apply to most of you, but it is something that is nice to point out. They've got email reminders that you can customize, and this is available for iPhone and Android. Now if we take Take a look at square appointments free version. Here are the pros for that.

They have the Instagram book now button available now, this is a pretty fairly new feature, which is awesome. They've got of course the payment processor. They've got a private feedback to get your reviews and then you have to figure out how you want to utilize that information. You can export that information but you can't have it facing directly for your potential new clients to see on your booking page like set more does, that would be a drawback. You can still get feedback and reviews from your people but you can't publicly show those. Google Calendar sync Facebook integration just like set more booking widgets, buttons, email reminders, and text message reminders.

It is proven that your clients there will be less likely of them to know To show you if you use text message reminders. Now, of course, if we're talking weddings and bright, you know, events and things like that. Hopefully they won't, you know, cancel with us last minute. But it's always really helpful to have those text message reminders. You can also create custom gift cards, there's lots of promotional things that you can do on square appointments that you can't do with set more. So one of those things is custom gift cards, which is also going to be in our bonus section at the end of this course.

It's available for iPhone and Android. It's got a very modern interface, which I love. They've got urine statements and analytics. And the dashboard is just really beautifully set up for you so that you can see each day each week by month by year the kind of money and stats You know, throughout your business so that you can adjust accordingly which I absolutely love. The other really cool option in square appointments is that I believe it's after 100 or more transactions, they'll start to offer you different opportunities to borrow money. So if you are working on your own, and you know maybe you open a Salon Suite or your own salon and you need some of that square capital to work with, the more active you are utilizing square appointments and utilizing that payment processor, the more that they're going to offer you in borrowing money, you know, as a personal or business loan from them, and they've got some really cool opportunities with that.

Again, something that may not apply to you. But this is just a nice perk of the square appointments platform. So taking a look at some of the cons on set, more Sent Morse free version does not offer text message reminders. Unfortunately, you have to upgrade to their pro version. They do offer it, but it is in their paid version. You can't do any promotional items like gift cards or things like that.

The interface and dashboard is, to me somewhat a little bit outdated. And you know, just from a designer's perspective, that bothers me a little bit. But if it doesn't bother you, then it doesn't matter, right? If it's functional, then it doesn't matter. They don't send you any urine statements, no working capital, none of that kind of stuff. It's just your kind of basic booking platform, and it does all of the things that you absolutely need them to.

With square appointments. They don't have an Instagram feed integration, but they do offer all in I'll show you in the next slide that you know, you can put your Instagram and your Facebook icons on your booking page, which is also just as effective, but it's just an extra Step for that person to go and click on that and go to your Instagram feed and see your feed instead of having were set more has it just located on the booking page. Again, no public reviews on the client facing side of your booking page, and no custom URL. So not a ton of cons in these lists here. So they are both extremely robust, they both do really amazing things. So here is the full list.

If you want to take a screenshot go ahead and just kind of use this as a guide to see you know, if some of these things are important to you that you'd rather have, then make your decision based on that. I am very 5050 on both of these. So I think that either one is going to do exactly what you need it to do. If you go with that more, because you want the reviews, you want to have the Instagram feed, that kind of thing. And if you eventually want to offer gift cards and things like that, then you're just going to end up using both platforms and that's okay too. Okay.

So here's just a couple of screenshots that I wanted to share with you. This is what the dashboard in set more looks like. This is the calendar and then of course, all the tabs on the left hand side, square appointments dashboard looks a little bit more modern, a little bit more organized. It's got all of your analytics here, right on right on the home page. Lots of things that you can look at lots of different stats that you can take a look at and adjust your business model accordingly. A couple more photos here.

The booking page for set more, this is what that's going to look like you can upload a photo of yourself. You have these different tabs. On the left you have the booking option you can have an about me section is kind of like a little mini website, your services, photos. So when you click on photos, you'll see here that that's where your Instagram feed, your live feed is going to to populate this page, and then when you click on reviews, I'll show you in the next slide here, square appointments. The appointment booking page is here on the left hand side, this can look a little bit different if you offer more services, so yours might stack a little bit differently. You'll see the Facebook Instagram icons below at the top where they can click on to those pages, gift card options that you can just purchase directly online, which is really awesome that you can integrate into your website.

And then if you were to click on reviews on set more, there's a whole section for reviews and, and so these, you know, they're both really great. They're both very robust. So it's really ultimately, up to you. Okay, so I want you to kind of weigh your options, figure out which one works best for you. If you want to work them, work with them together. That is a great option as well.

So our form of action right now I want you to just take a little bit of time, don't overthink it, evaluate which platform suits you the best and just make a decision. And then I want you to watch the next video that corresponds with your choice. So if you are setting up your set more than check out the setting up with set more video. If you're going to set up with square set check out the setting up with square tutorial in the next video and I will see you soon