Nail salon check-in app and virtual queue for walk-ins
Every station busy, nobody standing around.
Guests join your nail salon line from their phone or the Door Tablet, pick a manicure, a full set or a spa pedi and the tech they want, and see a wait that adds it all up. The TV shows who's at the station and who's next.
No card? Start on Free: 1 location, 50 check-ins a month.
- No app for your guests
- Works on any tablet
- Online tips tracked for each tech
Lacquer Nail Studio
72°H 78°L 61°3:41PM
Now Calling
Priya S.
Linhis ready for youUp Next
- 1Renee M.
- 2Grace O.~9 min
First nameGraceMobile (Optional)(555) 555-0123Who would you like?AnyoneLinhJoin the line
YOU'RE IN LINE#3GraceAbout 9 min. Watch the TV for your name.
Walk to Luis
- Straight ahead16 ft
- Turn right10 ft
- Turn left4 ft
- Station 9, on the right
Not where you are?
You
YouYour routeStation 9
This page updates live. Feel free to step out.
In line as Grace O. Leave the lineGrace O.
You're up!Linh is ready for you.Head to the front now.Running late?Let Lacquer Nail Studio know when you'll be there.On my way, 2 min5 min10 minSorry, I can't make it
Watch it in a minute
See NextUp Walk-in set up for nail salons.
Read the transcript
A Saturday rush at the nail salon, and a line of walk-ins with no way to tell who got here first. Every guest wants to know when it's their turn.
Customers scan a code at the door and join your line from their own phone. No app to download, and no account to make. They can browse next door, and come back when it's their turn.
The TV in your waiting area shows who's up next, and an honest wait, so nobody has to ask how much longer.
Hazel calls the next guest with a tap, starts the set, and finishes up. No clipboard, and no guessing who was first.
Start with a list of services made for nail salons, and NextUp Walk-in uses their times to keep every wait honest.
Insights show your busiest days and hours, your average wait, and how many guests you served, so you know when to put another nail tech on the schedule.
At our demo salon, Hazel's next guest is already on the way, and the waiting area stays quiet. Yours can run the same way.
Try our live demo line at nextupwalkin.com/demo, and start your fourteen-day free trial.
What walk-ins are like today
Where the time goes today, before anything changes.
Weekend rushes
Groups arrive together and the waiting area spills onto the sidewalk.
Mixed services, one guess
A polish change takes 15 minutes and an acrylic full set an hour, so whoever's at the front has to guess.
A list full of people who left
Paper lists fill up with names that walked out 20 minutes ago.
"Who's free?" Not every tech does every service, so guests end up waiting for the wrong station.
Tips and rent by hand
Cash tips, card tips and booth rent get sorted at the end of the night.
How NextUp Walk-in helps
What changes once the line lives on a phone, not on paper.
1
A clean, live list
People who leave the line drop off it themselves.
2
Honest estimates
Techs on duty and average service time drive the wait everyone sees.
3
Tips to each tech
Online tips are tracked for each nail tech, and with NextUp Walk-in’s Pro plan, booth rent is collected from renters for you.
Built for nail salons
The parts of NextUp Walk-in nail salons use most. Open one for the pictures.
- Lookbook
Every plan Put photos on the services you list. - Calendar and online booking
Pro Customers book a time from your Check-in Page. - No-show protection
Pro Ask for a card on file or a deposit when someone books. - Commissions and tip pools
Pro Set a commission rate for each person and share a location’s tips across the team. - Memberships and packages
Pro Sell memberships billed monthly or yearly, and prepaid packages redeemed one visit at a time. - Loyalty
Pro A digital stamp card in your colors, font and logo, with a reward you choose.
How NextUp Walk-in runs your salon
Every feature here is in NextUp Walk-in today. The ones marked Pro come with NextUp Walk-in Pro; the rest are on every paid plan. Compare plans.
The line
Every plan
- Join from the door, a link or a tablet. No app, no account, and a name is enough.
- Services and add-ons at check-in. Guests pick a gel manicure, a spa pedicure or an acrylic full set, plus nail art, French tips or gel removal, and see the total time and price. You choose whether picking is off, optional or required.
- The right tech for the job. Mark which techs do which services (and how long each takes them). Guests are offered only techs who do what they picked, and the line routes them the same way.
- Group arrivals. "Add someone" puts up to five people on one ticket so friends join together, each with their own service.
- A clean, live list. People who leave drop off themselves, the no-show timer can mark anyone called who doesn't come up, and Insights counts who left.
- The TV shows who's at the station and who's next, with names read aloud, in your salon's colors.
Booked sets and mani-pedi parties
Pro
- Online booking with a service, a tech and a time, and deposits or a card on file for long sets.
- Group bookings: one guest books for herself and up to 4 friends, all at the same time with anyone if the time has room.
- Standing fills weekly, every two weeks or monthly.
- "Tell me if a time opens" on full days.
- Flash sales on the booking page, like "Tuesday pedis 20% off" during slow hours, from a built-in library or your own templates. Walk-ins pay the usual price.
Health check before the polish
- A nail service check form (cuts, fungus or infection, diabetes) from the nail-salon starter, signed on the guest's phone before they join, so you can turn away infected nails before they're at the station.
Checkout and tips (not another POS)
- Cash with change, a pay link or QR, a saved card or a Stripe S700 reader. Tip buttons you set, split bills for friends, gift cards (Pro).
- Tips tracked for each tech, landing in your Stripe account, and you choose who pays Stripe's fee on tips.
- Products like cuticle oil, with stock.
- NextUp Walk-in's card fee is 0.5% of card payments, never on tips, at most $1 a payment, on top of Stripe's processing fee.
Team pay
- Commission per service (Pro): flat, percentage or tiered.
- Booth rent (Pro) from a saved card or bank account, or off a renter's statement.
- Tip pools (Pro) by hours, equally or by points. Cash tips are recorded per tech.
- Payroll files (Pro) for Gusto, ADP or QuickBooks Payroll, with a statement for every tech.
Bring them back
- Loyalty stamp cards (Pro) in your salon's look. Every 10th pedi is on you.
- Memberships and packages (Pro): a monthly mani club with visits included and a member discount, or a prepaid pedi series.
- Email campaigns with nail-salon templates (Pro) and rebooking reminder emails a few weeks after a fill.
- Ratings with your Google review link for every guest.
- "Our work" gallery on your Check-in Page and up to 12 photos per tech.
Fills, sets and the photo wall
- Sets and fills as separate services, each with its own length, price and deposit, so a 30-minute fill and a 90-minute full set are quoted honestly in the wait.
- Add-ons with their own time: nail art, French tips, gel removal.
- Removal first, as a rule. Tell a new set it needs a removal: the removal is put first on the visit, with its time and price, or the booking is refused with a plain message if you choose. You set how many days back counts.
- Fills inside a window. Mark a fill as following a full set within, say, 14 to 21 days. Outside the window the booking is blocked or warned, and the full set is offered instead (Pro, for booked appointments).
- Set history on every client. Shape, length, colors and the date of the last fill, kept under Trade details and shown to the next tech.
- Inspiration photos. Guests can send up to 3 reference photos with a booking if you switch it on for the location.
- "Last time" photos (Pro). Up to 3 photos and a note per visit, added after the client taps to say a photo is okay, so the next tech sees the shape and color.
- A fill date on the receipt. Give a service a "return in N weeks" and the receipt says "Return in about 3 weeks, around Nov 16", and the Rebook suggestion uses it.
- Book the next fill before she leaves (Pro). "Book their next visit" on the Done banner opens up to 3 open times near the client’s own rhythm, and Overdue regulars lists clients past their usual gap.
Also built in
- Lookbook, named Gallery: photos of your sets that customers pick from when they join, and your team sees the pick on the ticket. Every plan.
- customer screens in seven languages
- Insights (busiest hours, waits, no-shows)
- tech speed per service
- Monday summary email
- accountant package
- multiple locations.
Smarter waits
Every plan
- Best time to come today. The Check-in Page shows the lowest expected wait by quarter-hour for the rest of today, from the same weekday over the last 8 weeks and the live line, so someone with time to spare comes when it is quietest.
- Each nail tech's own wait. When clients choose who serves them, the Check-in Page shows every nail tech's wait next to their name, plus "First available". Once called, they see a range ("called in about 15–25 min") worked out from each person's real service times.
- "Tell me when the wait is shorter." When the wait is over 10 minutes, a customer can ask to be told when it drops, by email.
- Family tickets. A mother and daughter check in once for mani-pedis. Each gets her own place, service and tech.
- Overflow between locations. If another of your locations nearby has a much shorter wait for the same services, the join page offers a move there and keeps the customer’s place fair. For businesses with more than one location, so on paid plans (Free is one location).
- Seven languages for customer screens: English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Haitian Creole and Simplified Chinese. The newest six are machine-drafted, and corrections are welcome.
On the floor
- A button at each nail tech's station. Every team member gets a secret link to open on a spare phone or tablet at their station. One big button finishes the current visit and calls the next client, hands free.
- A page for each nail tech. A team member with a booking handle gets a public page with their photo, services and prices, and the live wait or booking.
- Visit photos and "Last time" (Pro). Up to 3 photos and a note per visit, added after the client says OK to a photo: the shape, length and color from last time, so the next tech can repeat it. It shows on the Staff Screen when they are called.
- On the TV (all opt-in): a full-screen "You’re up!" with the first name, the team member’s photo and a chime; spoken call-ups in English or Spanish; a large-text, high-contrast view; and rotating content between calls (the wait, flash sales (Pro), recent 4 and 5 star reviews, the best time to visit). The Apple TV and Roku apps show the spotlight, chime and rotating wait, sales and review cards; spoken call-ups, the large-text view and the best-time slide are on the web TV.
Bring regulars back
- Overdue regulars (Pro). Fills and pedis come every few weeks, so a client who has missed her usual visit shows up in a list. Clients past their usual gap with nothing booked, most overdue first, one tap to reach out by email (only to those who opted in).
- One-tap rebook (Pro). At checkout and on the Done banner, "Book their next visit" offers the 3 open times nearest the client’s own rhythm, with the same services and person.
- Loyalty streaks and tiers (Pro) on top of stamp cards: on-schedule streaks and tiers you name, with a perk for each.
- Client referrals (Pro, off until you switch them on). "Give a friend $5 off, get $5 store credit", paid for by you, with a yearly cap per client.
- First-visit certificate (every plan). A printable, shareable certificate for a client’s first visit.
Licences, cleaning and insight
- Licences and insurance for each team member, with expiry reminders: nail technician licence, cosmetology licence and esthetician licence, and booth renter or liability insurance.
- A cleaning log for each location, from a starter list for this trade (disinfect tools between clients, clean stations, clean sinks), ticked off per shift and printable for an inspector.
- Ask about your business (Pro). Plain-language questions about your own numbers, from Help, like "Which day was slowest last month?".
- How you compare (Pro): your median wait, no-show rate, rebook rate and average ticket against other nail salons of your size, over 90 days.
- Suggested team on duty and review themes (Pro), plus a weekly "This week, try" on every plan with up to three actions from your numbers.
Set history, on the client
The next tech sees the shape, length, colors and the date of her last fill.
A Saturday with NextUp Walk-in
An example day, hour by hour, with the line on everyone's phone.
- 10:00
Line opens. Three friends scan the door code together and pick spa pedicures.
- 10:20
A guest picks an acrylic full set. Only the two techs who do acrylics are offered, and the wait shows their real time.
- 11:00
Waiting area full. The line cap kicks in and the Check-in Page says the line is full for now.
- 11:30
Someone called doesn't come up. The no-show timer marks her after 10 minutes and the next guest is up.
- 1:00
A booked mani-pedi party of four checks in, all at the same time.
- 2:15
Priya’s client finishes a fill. The Done banner offers three times three weeks out, and she books one before she pays.
- 4:00
Checkout: each friend pays her own share on her phone, and tips are credited to each tech.
- Sunday
Tip pool closes. You review the shares and pay them through payroll.
See NextUp Walk-in set up for nail salons
Six screens, one system, always in sync — styled the way your customers and team will actually see it.
Why switch to NextUp Walk-in
- A real walk-in line, not a calendar hack. Most nail salon software is built around appointments, with walk-ins handled as part of the booking calendar and waitlist (see the comparisons). NextUp Walk-in gives walk-ins a live line, a TV and a Door Tablet.
- Priced per location: 3 team members included, then $10 a month each.
- Your clients stay yours: no marketplace and no competitor listed next to you.
- From a low-priced salon app: a four-tech salon is $69 on Pro, with the walk-in line, TV, rent, tip pools and payroll files included. Set history and a removal-first service order are built in. See the comparisons.
- From a marketplace app: no fee on a new client (the card fee still applies) and no marketplace, so people find you through your own link and Google profile. See the switching guides.
- Switching: code SWITCH gives your first month free on monthly billing. Import your clients yourself in a few minutes.
Related trades
Also built for
Comparing waitlist apps?
See comparisonSee how NextUp Walk-in compares with other booking apps: price per location, texts included, and who each app is actually built for.
How NextUp Walk-in compares
Price, the walk-in line and the nail-specific tools, side by side.
| Feature | NextUp Walk-in Pro | Salon apps with a marketplace | Premium salon suites |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price, salon of four techs | $69 ($59, plus $10 for the fourth team member) | About $60 to $90 (published pricing, published pricing, published pricing) | About $140 to $160 (published pricing, published pricing) |
| Walk-in line with a TV board and kiosk | ✓ (every plan) | A waitlist and walk-ins on the calendar | A waiting room, or walk-ins on the calendar |
| Only techs who do the service are offered | ✓ (every plan) | ✓ on some | ✓ |
| Group and party bookings | ✓ up to 4 guests at the same time (Pro) | ✓ on some | ✓ |
| Removal booked before a new set (service order rule) | ✓ (every plan): removal added first, or the booking refused | Not found | ✓ on some |
| Set history (shape, color, length) on the client | ✓ Shape, length, colors and last fill, plus up to 3 photos a visit (Pro) | Client notes | Typed set history on some |
| Next fill suggested at checkout | ✓ A "return in N weeks" per service on the receipt; on Pro, "Book their next visit" opens times near it | A rebook prompt on some | Touch-up reminders on some |
| Booth rent and tip pools | ✓ (Pro) | An add-on, or a payouts tool, on some | ✓ on some |
| Fee on a client the marketplace brings | None (the card fee still applies) | Some take 20% to 30% of a new client’s first visit | Not a marketplace |
| Card payments | Stripe’s rate plus 0.5% (at most $1 a payment, never on tips) | About 2.3% to 2.5% in person, plus cents | About 2.4% to 2.5% plus cents |
Prices and fees from each vendor’s published pricing page, checked October 26, 2026; the four-tech totals are our arithmetic from those pages. Named, linked comparisons are on the compare pages.
Nail salons: common questions
What is a virtual queue app for a nail salon?
It lets walk-ins hold their place in line from their phone instead of standing in the waiting area. With NextUp Walk-in, guests scan the door code or use the Door Tablet, pick their services and a tech, and follow their live place and wait on their phone, with no app or account. The TV shows who is at the station and who is next. The line, the TV and the Door Tablet are on every plan.
Can I keep my booking app and add a virtual queue for walk-ins?
Yes. Keep your booking app for appointments and run walk-ins through the NextUp Walk-in line, so the walk-in line stops living on a clipboard. If you would rather have one system, NextUp Walk-in’s Pro plan puts online booking, deposits and group bookings beside the line.
How do nail salons handle a weekend rush of walk-ins?
Guests join from their phone instead of crowding the waiting area. They see their place and the wait live, and know the moment a nail tech is free. You can cap the line, and the Check-in Page says it's full when you reach it.
How is the wait estimated when manicures and full sets take different times?
Turn on service selection and guests pick their services and add-ons when they join. The services method adds up each guest's services, uses each tech's own times and counts how long current visits have been going.
Can guests choose their nail tech?
Yes, if you turn it on. The join form shows today's techs with photos, and "Anyone" comes first. If a guest picks services, only techs who do those services are offered.
What happens to people who leave before their turn?
They drop off the line themselves, so the list stays clean. If someone's called and doesn't come up, staff can ask if they're still coming or let the no-show timer mark them. Insights tracks no-shows and people who left.
Can a group of friends book together?
Yes. Walk-ins can add up to five people to one ticket, each with their own service. With NextUp Walk-in’s Pro plan, one guest can book for herself and up to 4 friends at the same time.
Can I ask health questions before a service?
Yes. Start from the nail service check template. A required form is signed on the guest's phone before they join or book.
Are online tips tracked for each nail tech?
Yes. Each tip lands in your Stripe account and goes on that tech's statement for you to pay. NextUp Walk-in never takes a fee on tips.
Can I run a slow-day special?
Yes, with NextUp Walk-in’s Pro plan. Flash sales put a discounted price and a "Sale on now" banner on your booking page for the hours you choose.
Can I keep a client’s polish colors, shape and length?
Yes. Each client has a set history under Trade details: shape, length, colors and the date of the last fill. On Pro, add up to 3 photos and a note to each visit so the next tech sees the last set.
Can I require gel removal before a new set?
Yes. On the new set, add a rule that it needs a removal. The removal is put first on the visit with its own time and price, or, if you prefer, the booking is refused with a message. The wait and the booking count both services.
How much does a nail salon check-in app cost?
The Walk-in plan is $29 a month for your first location and $19 for each additional one, with the TV screen and the door tablet. Pro, at $59 and $39, adds appointments, deposits, memberships, commissions and payroll. Both include 3 team members per location, then $10 a month each. The 14-day free trial includes every Pro feature. A card is needed to start, but nothing is charged until the trial ends, when the plan is charged unless you cancel first. There is also a Free plan: 1 location, 1 team member and 50 check-ins a month, and no card needed.
Every station busy.
Set up your first location in about two minutes. Your line can be live before your next walk-in.