fix: correct blog post feature list to match shipped features
- Remove unshipped features from 'What you get' section: - SMS/email reminders (in roadmap) - POS & invoicing (in roadmap) - Offline mobile (in roadmap) - Business analytics (in roadmap) - Add shipped features that were omitted: - Client search (quick-find) - Appointment notes - Move SMS, POS, offline, analytics to 'What's Next' roadmap Fixes QA feedback from lint-roller on feature accuracy. Co-Authored-By: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
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Pawla Abdul
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# Why GroomBook: Built for Groomers, Not Corporations
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**March 2026**
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---
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## The Problem
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You're a grooming salon owner or solo groomer. You've looked at scheduling software before. Here's what you've probably experienced:
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- **MoeGo**: $50-150/month. Works, but you're paying every month forever, and if they change pricing or shut down, your business goes with it.
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- **Gingr or PetExec**: Enterprise software, $200+/month, designed for franchise chains. Way more than you need.
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- **Square Appointments or Calendly**: Generic scheduling tools that don't understand grooming. No breed-aware timing. No pet history. No waitlist system. You're constantly working around the tool instead of working with it.
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- **Paper and spreadsheets**: Reliable, but you lose time to manual double-booking checks, no-show tracking, and coordinating across your team.
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**Here's the core problem:** Most grooming software is either too expensive, doesn't understand your workflow, or locks you into paying forever. And if the company gets bought or shuts down, you're out of luck.
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---
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## What You Actually Need
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After talking to dozens of groomers, a few needs keep coming up:
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1. **Appointment scheduling that understands grooming**
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- A 15-minute Pomeranian bath-and-brush is different from a 45-minute Doodle shave-down
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- Generic tools don't account for breed, coat type, or complexity
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- You end up double-booking or rushing
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2. **Client and pet history in one place**
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- Notes about each pet: "this dog gets matted" or "anxious around water"
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- Service history: what was done last time, how long it took
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- Paper files get lost; no system means context lives in your head
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3. **Online booking so clients can help themselves**
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- Stop fielding "what times do you have?" calls
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- Let clients book, confirm, or cancel 24/7 without calling you
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- Reduce no-shows with automated confirmations
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4. **Automatic waitlist filling**
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- When someone cancels, automatically fill that slot from your waitlist
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- No more manually checking the list and calling people back
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5. **Your data stays yours**
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- This is the big one. You've seen salon software get acquired, change pricing, or shut down.
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- You want to own your client list, appointment history, and business data.
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---
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## What GroomBook Gives You
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GroomBook is **open-source, self-hosted pet grooming software** built specifically to solve these problems.
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### What you get out of the box:
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- **Smart appointment scheduling** — calendar view, groomer assignment, breed-aware service timing
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- **Client search & profiles** — quickly find clients and their complete pet history
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- **Pet history with appointment notes** — everything about every client and their pets, including detailed notes from each visit
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- **Online booking portal** — clients book 24/7, see real availability
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- **Automated waitlist** — automatically fill cancellations from your queue
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- **Role-based staff accounts** — front desk sees bookings; only you see financials
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- **Calendar feed sync** — push appointments to Google Calendar or Apple Calendar automatically
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### And because it's open source:
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- **You own your data** — runs on your server (or a $20/month VPS). Your client list never becomes someone's asset.
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- **No vendor lock-in** — if you want to customize it, hire any developer. If you want to move hosts, you just clone the repo.
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- **No monthly fees** — pay nothing to use the software itself. (Optional: managed hosting if you want someone else to handle backups and updates.)
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- **Community-driven** — anyone can contribute, audit the code, or suggest features.
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---
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## How Much?
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**Free.**
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MIT license. Download it, run it yourself, no subscription.
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You can have it running in 5 minutes:
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```bash
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git clone https://github.com/groombook/groombook
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cd groombook
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docker compose up --build
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```
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That's it. You have a fully functional grooming management system running locally.
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---
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## Who This Is For
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**GroomBook is built for:**
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- Solo groomers tired of paper and spreadsheets
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- Small salons with 2-5 groomers who can't justify $200+/month for enterprise software
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- Grooming business owners who value owning their business data
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- Groomers who want a tool built specifically for grooming workflows
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**GroomBook is not (yet) for:**
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- Enterprise salon chains with 20+ locations (that's not our focus)
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- Businesses that want 24/7 managed SaaS support with legal contracts (look at Phorest or Vagaro instead)
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---
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## Why Open Source Matters
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The grooming industry has a real problem: **software companies own the data**.
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You pay $100/month for scheduling software. You build your client list, your service history, your business on their platform. Then:
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- The company gets acquired. Pricing triples.
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- They pivot to focus on salons instead of groomers. Features you depend on get removed.
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- The platform shuts down. You have 30 days to export what you can.
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This happened to salon software owners. It's happening right now in the dog training world.
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**Open source prevents this.** If GroomBook ever stops being useful or disappears, the code is still yours. You can hire any developer to maintain it or move it to a new host. Your data was never anyone else's leverage.
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That's why we're building this as open source.
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---
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## Getting Started
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1. **Try the demo** — play with a fully functional test version: [demo.groombook.io](https://demo.groombook.io)
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2. **Self-host** — run it yourself with Docker Compose (no credit card required)
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3. **Read the docs** — detailed setup and feature guides at [groombook.github.io/getting-started](https://groombook.github.io/getting-started)
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4. **Join the community** — questions, feedback, and feature requests on [GitHub](https://github.com/groombook/groombook)
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---
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## What's Next?
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GroomBook v1 covers the essentials. We're actively building:
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- Automated SMS/email reminders and confirmations
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- Mobile app for iOS/Android
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- POS & invoicing integration
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- Offline-capable mobile experience for mobile groomers
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- Business analytics and reporting
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- Multi-language support
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- Groomer commission tracking
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- QuickBooks and accounting software integrations
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You can track the roadmap [on GitHub](https://github.com/orgs/groombook/projects/1).
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---
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## One More Thing
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If you've been making do with a whiteboard, paper calendar, or expensive software you resent paying for, you have a better option now.
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You deserve tools built for your work, not tools that force you to adapt to software. You deserve to own your business data. And you shouldn't have to pay $100+/month for it.
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That's what GroomBook is here to do.
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**[Try the demo →](https://demo.groombook.io)**
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---
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*Questions? Feedback? Found a bug? [Open an issue on GitHub](https://github.com/groombook/groombook/issues)*
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*Want to contribute? [See the contributing guide](https://github.com/groombook/groombook/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md)*
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