Tepali vs Vagaro for med spas (2026)

The short answer: Vagaro is salon booking software. A med spa runs on it by buying the clinical pieces as add-ons and living without the rest: generic notes instead of service-specific charts, no lot traceability you could hand an auditor, a chatbot that cannot take a call, a separate account per location, reports you export one at a time, and a marketplace that takes 20% of new clients. Tepali is the AI EMR for medspas and wellness clinics: front desk, charting, point of sale and marketing in one system, one monthly price per location with nothing extra to buy, and an AI employee that books new leads, charts every appointment and brings past clients back. A solo esthetician gets real value from Vagaro. A clinic that injects does not.

Every price and quote below comes from Vagaro's own pricing and support pages or a dated third-party source, and the comparison notes where Vagaro is the better choice.

Who this is for

Owners of med spas and wellness clinics, from one location to about fifteen. You do injectables, lasers, IV therapy, weight loss or hormone work. Your notes are medical records. Your product comes in vials that expire. A medical director signs things. Hair salons have none of those constraints, and Vagaro serves them well.

Tepali vs Vagaro at a glance

Sources: Vagaro pricing, add-on pricing, Fill My Books fees, Vera Receptionist, Forms vs SOAP notes, photos and product tracking, partial-use products, multiple locations, E-Prescribe, Capterra reviews, Trustpilot reviews.

1. Vagaro is a salon platform, and the med spa is bolted on

Vagaro was founded in 2009 as a booking marketplace for salons. Its own tagline is "the #1 software & app for beauty, wellness, and fitness." The product is organized around a stylist's calendar and a consumer app, and it is very good at that.

A med spa is a medical business that happens to take appointments. In Vagaro that shows up in the data model before it shows up in any feature list:

• The client profile is the record, not the visit. Notes hang off the profile. When a med spa migrates out of Vagaro, the treatment notes are not tied to the appointments they describe, and that link has to be rebuilt by hand.
• The clinical pieces are a shopping list. Forms, photo storage, the cart that deposits require, texting, the chatbot, e-prescribing and the data feed are each sold separately. For a salon they are optional. For a med spa they are the product.

In Tepali the appointment is the center of the clinical record. The chart, the injection map, the photos, the consents and the products used all live on the visit, and the profile is the sum of the visits.

2. The charting will not hold up in an audit

Vagaro's notes are generic. Filling a SOAP note on the client profile is free. Reusable templates need the Forms add-on, which allows up to 11 of them (Forms vs SOAP notes). Marking sites on a photo needs Forms plus the Drive storage add-on (photos and product tracking).

What that looks like in a real account:

• One SOAP box for every service. A neurotoxin visit, a laser pass and a weight-loss check-in all land in the same free-text fields, so the note says whatever the provider had time to type.
• No template that drafts itself from the booked service. Nobody picks the right template at 4:45 pm on a Friday.
• No good-faith exam tracking, no medical director sign-off queue, no version history on an unsigned note. A signed form cannot be edited, which is right, but the workflow around it is missing.
• Product usage lives in the note text or in a checkout line, not in the chart.

A March 2026 Phorest guide summarized Vagaro's clinical side as "forms and simple notes rather than full SOAP charting" (Phorest). That is fine for a facial. It is not what a state board wants to read.

Tepali charts per service. A template is tied to the services that require it, so the right fields draft themselves when the appointment opens. The ambient scribe listens during the visit, with consent, and fills the chart, so charts are complete without taking up provider time. Injection points sit on the client's own photo with product and dose. Signing locks the note. Good-faith exams are a signed chart note with a 365-day validity, and any service that requires one warns before treatment when the exam is missing or expired.

3. Cheap on the sticker, expensive in practice

Vagaro's regular price is $30 per month for one bookable calendar, plus $10 per additional calendar. The $23.99 in the ads is a six-month promotion (Vagaro pricing). Then the add-ons a med spa needs, from Vagaro's own add-on pricing page and support articles:

Everything above is per location. A three-provider med spa with forms, mid-tier photo storage, the cart, a text plan, Vera and the data feed is paying for eight line items before a single marketplace booking.

Vagaro's customers describe the same bill. "I cannot do deposits without having the shopping cart purchased so I pay an extra fee just to collect fees," a cosmetics business owner wrote on Capterra on April 15, 2026. "The à la carte structure can add up when you need multiple features plus processing fees," wrote another that month (Capterra). "HIDDEN FEES!!!" is a September 2026 Trustpilot headline (Trustpilot).

Tepali is one monthly price per location. Texting, calls, Instagram DMs, forms, photos, the AI employee, reports, memberships and inventory are included. Month to month, no setup fee, no cancellation fee.

4. Multi-location is not built in

Vagaro's own help center is direct: "Each location requires its own business account, monthly subscription, and feature subscriptions" (multiple locations). In practice that means:

• Every add-on above multiplies by location.
• Only one business can be logged in at a time. Staff switch accounts, and refunding a transaction requires being logged into the location that took it (multi-location reports).
• Sharing clients across locations requires business groups, and a client deleted at one location stays at the others (sharing between locations).
• There is no way to ask a question across the group. The owner opens each account and adds it up.

A Capterra reviewer running several teams put it plainly on May 20, 2026: "Vagaro is not currently built to support those operational demands."

Tepali is one login for the group. A location switcher sets which location you are looking at, or all of them. Hours, booking policies, membership plans, phone line and automations are per location. Staff and roles carry across. Reports are a question you ask the AI about one location or every location.

5. The reporting is weak, and your data is behind a paywall

Vagaro's reports are transaction lists. A December 2025 Capterra reviewer complained that a client's visit total can be "viewed only as individual transactions." Retention by provider, revenue by service category, clients due for a follow-up who have not rebooked: none of that is a report you can pull.

Getting your data out is worse:

• Reports export one at a time, to Excel or PDF, on the web version only (transaction list report).
• Only the account owner can export the client list (export your customer list).
• Appointment history is not self-serve. Jane's migration guide tells switchers that Vagaro "does not currently offer a way to export your appointments on your own" and to ask support for a CSV (Jane import guide).
• A live feed of your own data is the Data Lake add-on, $40 per month, and the API is another $10.

In Tepali you ask. Describe the business question and the AI writes the report, runs it, saves it and explains what the numbers mean. Every report downloads as CSV. If you ever leave, you get a full export of clients, history, charts and photos, free.

6. You still need other tools

Few med spas run on Vagaro alone. The stack around it usually includes:

• A phone system or answering service, because Vagaro has no phone and Vera cannot take a call.
• A lead follow-up tool for ads and Instagram, because inquiries do not turn into bookings on their own.
• Paper or a second EMR for anything the SOAP box cannot hold.
• A BI tool on the $40 feed for cross-location numbers.
• A separate prescribing and lab workflow.

Tepali covers the front desk, charting, point of sale and marketing in one system, and anything else your clinic runs on gets integrated on request, included.

7. No lot traceability you could hand an auditor

In most Vagaro accounts, lot numbers have lived in the note text, if anywhere. Vagaro added lot and expiry fields to partial-use products in April 2026, gated to businesses registered as injectables, medical spa or medical clinic, with units deducted at checkout (partial-use products). That is a step, and it is new enough that most accounts do not use it.

Even with the fields, Vagaro's documentation does not describe the thing a recall or an audit actually asks for: a report of every client who received a given lot. A lot number that can only be found by opening charts one at a time is a note, not traceability. If you are evaluating Vagaro, ask them to run that report in front of you.

Tepali tracks stock in units and lots per location. Charted use draws the lots down, every injection point carries its product, and low-stock alerts fire per item. Ask the AI who received a lot and you get the list.

8. No clinical integrations

Vagaro's e-prescribing is a ScriptSure bolt-on launched in November 2025 at $40 per prescriber and $5 per assistant (E-Prescribe). Vagaro's documentation shows no lab integration, no way to attach a lab result to a chart, and no loyalty integrations for the products a med spa sells. The API is paid, gated to processing customers and reported to take up to seven days to activate (webhooks). Weight-loss and hormone clinics run prescriptions and labs outside Vagaro entirely.

Tepali builds the integrations a clinic needs, e-prescribing and labs included, into the one system that already holds the chart, at no extra charge. Tell Tepali what your clinic runs on and it gets connected.

9. Nobody answers the phone, and the marketplace owns the client

Vera is Vagaro's AI receptionist, released in August 2026. It is a chatbot for your listing page and text number, it requires a text plan, and by Vagaro's own support page it "cannot currently view the availability of an employee's Calendar, schedule new appointments, or reschedule appointments via SMS messages" (Vera Receptionist). It does not answer calls at all. Every missed call during a treatment is a lead you paid for and lost.

Then there is the marketplace. Clients book through Vagaro consumer accounts, get Vagaro's marketing, and browse a listing where your competitors sit one tap away. When Fill My Books sends you a client, you pay 20% of that booking for a new client and 5% for one you already had (Fill My Books fees). Reviewers report paying the new-client fee even when the client came through the business's own link (Trustpilot, September 2026).

Tepali's AI employee answers the phone when your team cannot, books on the calendar with that location's rules, collects a deposit when the service needs one, and the call lands in the inbox with a transcript. The same AI answers texts and Instagram DMs, follows up with every new lead until they book, and reaches back out to clients who are due. Your booking page runs under your brand, and no one takes a percentage of your revenue.

Where Vagaro genuinely wins

• Entry price for a solo operator. A single esthetician with light documentation gets a lot for $30 per month.
• Consumer reach. The marketplace and consumer app are real distribution, 300,000 professionals by Vagaro's count. If new-client volume matters more than the 20%, that is a fair trade.
• The salon ecosystem. Payroll, a branded app, hardware, Affirm financing and seventeen years of integrations.

Who should choose which

Choose Vagaro if you are a solo esthetician or a salon-first business with light treatment work, you want the marketplace to feed you clients, and you do not need service-specific charts, lot traceability or one view across locations.

Choose Tepali if your notes are medical records, your product comes in lots, a medical director signs off, missed calls are lost revenue, and you would rather pay one price per location than assemble a system from add-ons. Switching is done for you: clients, history, notes, services, memberships and balances come across, with no downtime.

Book a Tepali demo and put it next to your Vagaro bill.

Frequently asked questions

Is Vagaro good for med spas?

Vagaro works well for salons and solo estheticians. A med spa hits its limits quickly: generic SOAP notes on the client profile, templates and photo markup behind the Forms and Drive add-ons, no good-faith exam tracking, no client-by-lot report, a separate account per location, one-at-a-time report exports, and an AI receptionist that cannot take calls or book. Clinics that treat their records as medical records usually need software built for that, such as Tepali.

How much does Vagaro cost for a med spa?

Vagaro's regular price is $30 per month for one calendar plus $10 per additional calendar. A med spa then adds Forms ($10), Drive photo storage ($10 to $100), the Online Shopping Cart for deposits ($10), a text plan ($20 per 1,000 credits, inbound counted), Vera ($10), the Data Lake feed ($40) and, if needed, E-Prescribe ($40 per prescriber), all per location. Marketplace bookings cost 20% for a new client and 5% for a returning one.

Does Vagaro have an AI receptionist that answers calls?

No. Vera, Vagaro's AI receptionist, replies to chat and text messages and requires a text plan. Vagaro's support page states it cannot view a calendar's availability or book or reschedule appointments by text, and it does not answer phone calls. Tepali's AI employee answers calls, texts and Instagram DMs 24/7 and books directly on the calendar.

Does Vagaro have charting for med spas?

Vagaro has generic SOAP notes on the client profile, reusable templates through its Forms add-on, and photo site marks with unit counts when Drive is added. It does not have templates that draft from the booked service, AI charting, good-faith exam tracking or a medical director sign-off queue. Tepali includes all of those, with injection maps on the client's own photo.

Does Vagaro track Botox lot numbers?

Since April 2026, Vagaro's partial-use products carry a lot number and expiry and deduct units at checkout, for businesses registered as injectables, medical spa or medical clinic. Vagaro's documentation does not describe a report of every client who received a given lot, which is what a recall requires, so ask Vagaro to run one before relying on it. Tepali tracks units and lots per location, draws lots down from charted use, and ties each injection point to its product.

Can I run multiple med spa locations on Vagaro?

Each Vagaro location is its own business account, subscription and set of add-ons. Only one can be logged in at a time, refunds have to be done from inside the location that took the payment, and sharing clients requires business groups. Tepali is one login across every location, with per-location hours, policies, memberships and phone lines, and reports you ask for across any or all of them.

How hard is it to switch from Vagaro to Tepali?

Migration is included, and Tepali does it for you. Clients, appointment history, notes, services, memberships and balances come across, and your Vagaro account keeps running until you are live, so nothing stops. It takes about thirty minutes of your time and usually a few days end to end.