Frequently asked questions

MIRA is an AI intelligence system for service businesses - barbershops, hair salons, spas and nail salons. It runs the front desk over text message, keeps a memory of every client, and turns what it learns into advice you can act on. Nothing that touches money or a client relationship happens without your approval.

MIRA is designed for barbers, salons, wellness centers, med spas, and other service businesses that want to provide a premium booking experience without requiring customers to download an app.

No. That's the point. Customers simply text your business number. No apps, no accounts, no friction.

Most businesses are up and running in under 10 minutes. Connect your calendar, add your services, and you're ready to go.

MIRA integrates with Stripe. Customers can pay deposits or full amounts via secure SMS payment links. Funds go directly to your Stripe account.

Stripe's standard processing fees apply (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction). MIRA doesn't add any additional payment fees.

Yes. You can set deposit requirements per service type. MIRA will automatically request and process deposits during booking.

MIRA handles routine conversations: checking availability, confirming bookings, sending reminders, processing payments, and answering common questions about your services.

Yes. You can set the tone, customize responses for common questions, and define your business policies that MIRA will follow.

You have full visibility into every conversation. You can intervene at any time, correct bookings, or take over the conversation manually.

No. Your customer conversations and data are never used to train our AI models. Your data stays yours.

Yes. You can pause MIRA at any time from your dashboard. During paused periods, you'll receive messages but MIRA won't auto-respond.

When MIRA encounters something outside its training - like a complaint or unusual request - it flags the conversation for human review instead of guessing.

You control access. Invite team members and set permissions for who can view conversations, manage bookings, or adjust settings.

Yes. We follow TCPA and carrier guidelines. Customers can opt out at any time by texting STOP, and we maintain appropriate consent records.

Yes. Consent is captured through a clear website or booking form disclosure before messaging begins, and customers can opt out at any time by replying STOP.

MIRA is designed with healthcare privacy in mind. Contact us for details about our HIPAA-ready configuration for medical and wellness businesses.

Nothing eliminates them, but three things measurably reduce them: a reminder close to the appointment, a deposit on high-value services, and a policy you actually enforce. Reminders do most of the work — a text the day before and again a few hours out catches ordinary forgetfulness, which is what most no-shows are. Deposits handle the rest, at the cost of some friction at booking. Enforcement matters more than the size of the fee: a $10 charge you always apply beats a $50 one you keep waiving.

For a standard cut, usually not. For anything long or expensive, usually yes. The rough line is what the slot is worth: if losing it costs you an hour and $100, a deposit pays for itself. If it costs you twenty minutes and $25, asking for card details up front will lose you more bookings than it saves.

Treat it as a pattern rather than a run of one-offs. Most owners forgive each cancellation individually because they cannot see the history, so someone on their sixth gets the same benefit of the doubt as a first-timer. Once you can see the count, the options are simple: require a deposit from that person specifically, offer them same-day slots only, or let them go. The first is usually enough.

Speed decides it. A slot that opens twenty minutes before the appointment goes to whoever you can reach in those twenty minutes, which in practice means texting people directly rather than posting it somewhere and hoping. Keep a short list of clients who said they would take an earlier slot and work down it in order — broadcasting to everyone gets you either nobody or three people for one chair.

Only if you will actually charge it. An unenforced fee is worse than none, because it teaches clients the policy is decoration. If you will enforce it, keep it small enough that you are willing to: most owners find they will charge $15 without hesitation and quietly waive $50. The point is deterrence, not recovering the revenue.

Multiply the empty slot by how often it happens, then add the time you spend trying to refill it. A barber charging $40 with two no-shows a week loses roughly $4,000 a year in direct revenue alone, before counting slots that stayed empty because nobody had time to work the phone. The figure is usually larger than owners expect, because each individual loss is small and they never get added up.

Most tools land between $20 and $200 a month, usually priced per staff member or per location, and often with a percentage taken on payments processed through the system. Three things are rarely in the headline price and are worth checking: setup fees, contract length, and card processing rates. MIRA is $50 per active provider per month plus $0.75 per confirmed booking, with no setup fee and no contract.

Often not. If you manage your own book and the phone is not interrupting your work, a notebook and a calendar app genuinely do the job. Software starts paying when the interruptions cost more than the subscription — usually once you are answering messages mid-cut, or losing slots you had no time to refill. Below that point it is an expense without a return.

A booking page waits for the client to come to it; an assistant handles the conversation the client already started. In practice most people text rather than open a link, ask questions a form cannot answer, and cancel by message — so a booking page catches the organised clients and misses the rest. The trade-off is cost and predictability: a booking page is cheaper and does exactly one thing.