How to choose tattoo and piercing studio software

Adding the word “tattoo” does not make it tattoo software.

For tattooing, bring a piece that takes several sittings. Can you follow its consultations, releases, progress photographs, and recorded materials? Can a deposit carry through earlier sittings before you apply it?

Then ask who’s holding that deposit. Cash an artist holds and a card payment in the studio account are different. That matters when you work out what someone is owed, including when the client doesn’t show.

For piercing, ask them to price what you actually install. Your post and end have their own sizes, materials, and prices. Try a pair of lobes, then a lobe and a helix. Ask how included jewelry and upgrades affect the price, and whether you can find the original installation when the client returns for a downsize.

Bring the things you usually have to explain. Your books might be closed to new clients while regulars can still book. Friday the 13th might be walk-ins only. A PMU perfecting visit might be included in the original price.

What happens when the health department shows up and asks to see signed release forms? Try pulling up the exact form a client signed, with the identification and guardian information you’re required to keep. Then find the ink and needle lots recorded for that sitting. Bring your local recordkeeping requirements to the demo and make them show you how you’d produce those records.

You’ll learn more from those examples than from another page promising to “streamline your business.”

Look for screenshots that show the actual app and documentation you can open before signing up. A website full of tattoo photography tells you who the company wants to sell to. It doesn’t show you what it has built.

Use the trial. If access requires a demo, bring your own examples. A prepared presentation can skip the exact part you need to understand.

Have the people who’ll use it do the work. Let your front desk find a signed form and whoever handles the books check an artist’s earnings. Follow a preparation or aftercare message through to the client’s reply. Where does that reply go?

Then change something. Move an appointment. Partly forfeit a deposit. Correct a sale with a tip and split payment. Check what belongs to the artist, what belongs to the studio, and what is still owed.

Pay attention to what exists today. I know how tempting it is to talk about what’s coming. But you’re choosing software for work you have to do today, not six months from now.

Who makes the software? Can you identify the business and the people responsible for it?

Find the company name in the footer, terms, or privacy policy, then see what else it sells. If it offers software for salons, barbers, gyms, and tattoo studios, open those sites side by side. If the screenshots look the same and only the name, colors, and trade nouns change, I’d expect very little in the tattoo offering to have been built specifically for tattooing and piercing. Make them prove otherwise. “Built for your industry” should survive a little digging.

Check the domain, too. Open ICANN Lookup, enter the domain name, such as example.com, and look for the registration or creation date. It shows when the domain was registered, not when the company started or this website launched. Companies can change domains or buy older ones. But if the domain was registered last month and the website implies years of history, ask where you can see that history.

For a company asking you to trust it with your business records, a Gmail address for support isn’t good enough. Email at the company’s own domain is a basic expectation. It doesn’t prove your records are safe, but it’s a standard I expect a software company to meet.

Send a specific question before subscribing. Does the answer address what you asked? Are they comfortable telling you when the product won’t do something? Then ask an existing customer how fast support replies when there isn’t a sale on the line.

I’ve built REV23 myself since 2010. I’m hardly going to tell you a software company needs a room full of developers. But you should be able to find out who’s building it and why you should trust them with your business.

It’s getting easier to put together an impressive first version of an app. Your records may need to survive several generations of it.

Someone has to test updates, fix mistakes, and help customers recover when things go wrong. Whether that person uses AI won’t settle those questions. You want to know they understand what they’re shipping and will answer for it.

Ask what happens when an update causes a problem. Ask how records are backed up and whether restoring them has been tested. You don’t need to understand the code to expect a clear answer.

Who answers when checkout is blocked on Saturday? If a payout goes missing, who helps you find it? What can you still do if your internet connection, payment processor, or the software goes down, and how do you catch up afterward?

“Contact support” leaves quite a bit unanswered.

The years matter at REV23 because we’ve had to make these decisions, live with them, and answer to the people using what we built. Someone can copy a feature without understanding why it works the way it does. They don’t get the lessons we learned building and supporting it, or the judgment those lessons bring to the next decision.

Your front desk, artists, and whoever handles payroll may need different access.

Ask who can see identification, health disclosures, private photographs, and financial records. Who can refund a payment or export the client list? If someone changes a deposit or appointment, can you find out who changed it?

Permission to publish a client’s photograph deserves its own check, separate from consent to perform the service.

Make them explain the claims

“HIPAA compliant” sounds reassuring. But an ordinary tattoo or piercing studio doesn’t become subject to HIPAA just because its release form asks medical questions. HHS explains who the rules cover.

If a software company leads with that claim, ask what it means for your business. What has actually been assessed? Which protections does it provide? Does the company understand whether the law applies to you, or is it borrowing a healthcare term because it sounds impressive?

Your client records deserve protection whether HIPAA applies or not. Ask for the actual practices behind the claim.

Read the data policy, too. Does it cover the client records you’ll actually keep, or just cookies on the company’s website? Look for where records are stored, when the company’s own staff can access them, which outside services receive information, and what happens when records are deleted. Does the company sell client data or use it for marketing? “We take your privacy seriously” isn’t an answer.

You can read REV23’s data protection policy before signing up. It explains those points, including what happens to records when you stop using REV23. Ask other vendors for the same detail.

Consider what happens when an artist leaves with future appointments and outstanding deposits. You still have clients to look after and money to account for. Make sure the software supports the arrangements you actually have.

Use your actual artist count, locations, and expected usage when comparing prices. Include messaging, storage, hardware, migration, training, and support. Ask what triggers another charge and whether you’re committing to a contract.

Payments deserve their own conversation. Do you have to use a particular processor or buy particular hardware? What happens to fees when you refund a sale? Who handles disputes, and what do they cost?

If you need an accounting connection or another integration, ask to see what it transfers. A connection that leaves you entering the same figures twice may not solve the problem you’re paying it to solve.

Tattooing and piercing were REV23’s starting point. You can look through our product screenshots and public user guide before signing up, then take a 14-day trial with every feature included and no credit card required.

Bring the situation you’re tired of working around. Ask us to show you how REV23 handles it.