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. It works from the services, prices, hours and availability you set, and you see every conversation.

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 finish setup in about 10 minutes: add your services, hours and providers, and your MIRA number is provisioned for you.

MIRA integrates with Stripe. Customers can pay the full amount through a secure SMS payment link. Funds go directly to your Stripe account.

Stripe's standard processing fee is added to the guest's card payment as a separate card processing fee, so your business receives the full price. MIRA doesn't add any payment fees of its own.

Not yet. You can require payment before a booking is confirmed, and Mira sends a secure Stripe link for the full amount. Deposits set per service type are not available today.

MIRA handles routine conversations: checking availability, booking, rescheduling and cancelling, answering questions about your services and prices, taking payment through a secure link, offering an opening to guests on your waitlist, and asking another guest whether they would switch times when someone needs a different slot.

Not the way most tools mean it. Mira has one voice for every business — you cannot change its tone or script its replies. What you control is what it works from: your services, prices, durations, providers, hours and availability, and whether payment is required before a booking is confirmed.

You see every conversation in your dashboard, and you can correct bookings there. Mira’s replies are not edited by you: if it gets something wrong, open a support ticket and our team investigates and fixes it.

We choose AI providers and settings that don't use your conversations to train their models. Some providers keep data briefly for safety and abuse monitoring.

Yes. Pause MIRA from your dashboard whenever you like. While paused, Mira stops answering, no new bookings are taken, and you are not billed for seats. Resume whenever you are ready.

Mira answers from your services, prices and business information. When it cannot help, it says so, and the conversation is in your dashboard for you to pick up.

You invite providers by email or phone number. Owners see everything; providers can see your shop's guests and bookings. There are no finer-grained permissions today.

MIRA is built around texting rules: guests agree before Mira replies, STOP and similar replies work at every MIRA shop, and proactive texts go out only between 9am and 8pm. Your shop is still responsible for how it uses messaging. See the Terms.

Yes. Before Mira handles anyone’s messages, the consumer texts the business first and then replies AGREE to a consent message that names the business, says Mira is an AI assistant, and says the conversation is stored. They can opt out at any time by replying STOP.

MIRA is not HIPAA-compliant, and we do not sign Business Associate Agreements. Mira handles booking details — names, times and services — not medical records. If your business needs HIPAA coverage, talk to us before signing up.

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, including you, plus $0.75 per booking MIRA makes, with 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.