Is there free dog grooming software?

Here is what each free plan actually gives you, read off the vendor's own pricing page in October 2026. ShakeYourTail Free covers up to 100 clients, one user and one location, with email reminders only; SMS, deposits and contracts start at the £15 a month Core plan, and it is priced in pounds because it is a UK product. Tuft Essential is free for one calendar with online booking, a client booking app, digital contracts and deposits, but notifications are email and push only, there are no staff seats, and pricing is in pounds and euros. Doxford is free for up to five clients, then $39.90 a month. Square Appointments Free gives a solo professional a booking site, appointment reminders and unlimited staff calendars, paid for by card processing fees, but it is a general appointment tool with no pet profiles. Koalendar Free Forever allows unlimited bookings but no SMS and no payments, and it does not know what a dog is.

The pattern is the same everywhere: the free plan keeps the calendar and takes away the text message. That matters because the reminder text is the feature that pays for grooming software. A no show on a two hour groom is $60 to $120 of unrecoverable time, and the plans above either sell texting back to you by the message or leave you sending reminders from your own phone one at a time. A client cap is the other trap. Doxford's five clients and ShakeYourTail's 100 both run out for a full time groomer within the first year, at which point you migrate a book you have just built.

Two names that appear in "best free grooming software" roundups are not free at all. GrooMore has no free plan; its pricing page lists Standard at $49 a month and Premium at $79, and the free offer on its features page is a trial. Cuddles is the same: a 14 day trial of a $79 a month Starter plan. Read the pricing page, not the roundup, before you build a book in a tool.

GroomBoard is not free either, and we would rather say so than hide it behind a trial. Starter is $9 a month for one groomer with online booking, a digital appointment book, and 100 reminder texts a month included. Solo is $19 and Salon is $39 for up to five groomers. Every plan starts with a 7 day trial that needs no card, so the honest comparison is $9 a month with texting against $0 without it. If your book is under 100 clients and you are happy sending your own reminders, one of the free plans above will do. The day you stop wanting to send them is the day the $9 pays for itself.