What does a booking system cost in Saudi Arabia?

The four shapes a price takes

A fixed monthly subscription: you pay a known amount every month however big you get. It is easy to budget, and it gets relatively cheaper as your bookings grow, but you pay it in the dead month too.

A commission on every booking: it feels comfortable at the start because the start is almost free, but it grows with you. A shop doing 400 bookings a month at an average ticket of 120 SAR, on a 5 percent commission, pays 2,400 SAR a month. Work it out on your numbers a year from now, not on your numbers today.

A system built for you once: you pay a large amount up front and it is yours. That suits a special case nobody covers, but after it is delivered the hosting, the changes and any breakdown on a busy night are yours, and that bill never ends.

A free tier with limits: it opens the door and the limit arrives later, a number of bookings a month, a number of services, no staff accounts, or no reports. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as you know the limit before you hit it mid season.

• how many bookings you expect a year from now, not today
• whether your income swings between seasons
• who fixes the system if it breaks on a busy night

The fees that never reach the pricing page

The advertised price is one thing and the first invoice is another. The questions that show the gap are few, and you can send all of them in one message before you sign up.

Per staff fees in particular turn the sum upside down. A system at 100 SAR a month plus 50 SAR for each staff member becomes 350 SAR when you have five, while you budgeted for 100.

And the question about your data matters more than its price. Ask: if I stop the subscription, can I download my customers and my bookings as a file? If the answer is vague, treat it as an exit cost, because going back to the paper book from zero costs you more than the subscription did.

• a one off setup or training fee
• a price for each staff member you add
• charges for messages and reminders
• a fee to take your data out if you leave
• a full year commitment paid up front
• the gap between the monthly and the yearly price

How to work out its worth from your own numbers

Instead of asking whether it is expensive, ask how much it gives back. Take three numbers from your own book: appointments a week, the average ticket, and how many people do not show up.

An example with made up figures: 80 appointments a week at an average ticket of 100 SAR. If five of them never come, that is 500 SAR gone in a week, roughly 2,000 SAR a month. Nobody can promise you how far that share will fall in your shop, but if it falls from five to four, the system has paid for itself.

Then add your own hours. An hour a day spent answering “any slots? when do you close?” is an hour you are not working and not sitting with your family, and you can price it at your hourly rate if you want to see it as a number.

So a system at 200 SAR a month needs to save you about two lost appointments to break even. If your shop does not reach that many appointments in the first place, a free plan on any system is the honest answer, and there is nothing wrong with that.

What you genuinely get for nothing, and where free stops

Free carries you further than you expect at the start: a booking link in your shop’s name, modest limits, and a full trial period. If your shop is new and your bookings are in the dozens, that is enough and you do not need to pay in your first month.

Free usually stops at three points: when you pass the booking limit, when you need an account for each staff member with their own hours, and when you want to know your numbers from reports instead of guessing. You will recognise all three yourself, without anyone telling you.

And watch out for the other kind of free: a system with no subscription that takes a commission on every booking, or one that puts your shop inside a marketplace it owns and sells your own customers back to you. That is not free of charge. The charge is simply not on the pricing page.

WGTK’s own prices, plainly

So that we do not ask you to question others while staying quiet ourselves: we have no permanent free plan. There is a 4 month trial with every feature and no card. After it, Pro at 99 SAR a month: unlimited bookings and services, staff accounts, and the reports. Growth at 199 SAR with the AI assistant and e-invoicing. And Enterprise at 499 SAR a month for branches. If the trial ends without a subscription, the dashboard and the booking page pause and your data is kept.

The trial runs 4 months with everything included and no card, and nothing is ever charged automatically. There is no commission on bookings on any plan, and reminders go out from your shop’s own WhatsApp number, so we do not charge you per message.

None of that means it is the right fit for you. If you need more than one branch in a single account, or a link to a particular accounting system, look elsewhere with a clear conscience. The right system for you is the one you open every day without thinking about it.

Try it before you pay

Whichever one you choose, do not pay for a year up front on the strength of screenshots. Take the system through one real working day: enter your services, open the link from a customer’s phone, book an appointment, record a walk in with its amount, and look at the screen at the end of the day.

And let one of your staff try it with you. If it is hard for them, you will both be back in the paper book within two weeks, however handsome the system looks from outside.

Before you sign, ask the last question: if I leave after six months, what do I take with me? The answer to that tells you more about the company than the whole pricing page.