The Low-down on the free app for independent hairdressers with full transparency!
What does a free app for independent hairdressers really mean? A lot of people cringe when they see ‘FREE’ – there must be something hidden, something you’ll not find out until its too late and WHAMO! you’re hit for charges you were not expecting. None of us like surprises- of the negative financial type anyway!
You might also be asking yourself, “why would Unwritten spend the time and money to build an app that people use to make money and don’t charge for it”? Well, its in the business model that counts and we have built our business with the idea that everyone can actually win.
So what does a free app for independent hairdressers really mean? Are there any charges for using the Unwritten App?
Subscription free
Firstly, lets talk about subscriptions. We are all very used to subscriptions, they are a part of our daily lives, Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and the list goes on… most of us have given up even trying to manage the sheer number of software subscriptions we use in our daily lives.
The Unwritten app is subscription-free, meaning there is no recurring monthly fees just for access in using the platform. That means, literally if you download it and don’t use it, you will not get charged.
Credit Card Processing fees
Some software vendors like Square and Fresha have their main source of income from taking a % of the transactions of your sales you do through the platform.
When you use the Unwritten app we don’t take a % share of your income that you put through the platform. You get charged the standard Stripe processing fee of 1.75% + 30c for each transaction.
Emails and SMS messages
All emails in the Unwritten app are free, there is no charge. This is for emails sent for transactions and also for appointment confirmations and reminders(which is automatically on in the system). If you choose to turn ON SMS appointment reminders, we charge 9c per SMS. There are no charges for SMS messages sent for Transactions (ie sending a bill to someone to complete).
So how does Unwritten earn income to be able to build and maintain this app?
Since Unwritten also supplies professional products (both its own Unwritten brand and other top professional brands)our ability to make money relies on indie hairdressers buying and selling products through our platform.
We have negotiated deals with a number of top independent professional haircare brands and we stock those brands, (over 100 different products) in our warehouse, essentially like an online wholesale shop. You can purchase those brands for use or for sale.
We are also able to ship products to your customers so you don’t have to purchase and hold stock of the products. This means you make the transaction through the app as normal with your services and we fulfil the order to your customer. Every time that customer purchases products from you or from our online shop you get paid commission.
Finally, we have an online consumer store which showcases the awesome Unwritten product range. For every consumer that purchases via our shop an indie hairdresser gets paid. If its a consumer connected to an indie hairdresser the hairdresser gets the commission. If its a consumer that is not connected to any hairdresser on our platform, then a portion of that income goes into our Profit Share Fund, which vests each quarter, and our whole indie community shares in the profits of unwritten.
If you have any questions please jump onto the chat on this website or you can DM us on any of our channels!
