THE WHOLE HIVE, EXPLAINED
Comb is booking and business software for independent beauty professionals: hairstylists, barbers, estheticians, booth renters, solo studios, and suites. It combines appointments, client care, creative tools, payments, loyalty, and business operations, with help from Sage. Colony supports a shared booking presence for teams through a separate paid plan.
Public product information reviewed 2026-09-18 · Published by Comb
Comb is booking and business software for independent beauty professionals: hairstylists, barbers, estheticians, booth renters, solo studios, and suites. It combines appointments, client care, creative tools, payments, loyalty, and business operations, with help from Sage. Colony supports a shared booking presence for teams through a separate paid plan.
Comb Works, LLC. publishes this product guide. Its official website is https://www.comb.works and the application is at https://app.comb.works. Product screenshots use fictional demonstration clients; they are not testimonials or evidence of business outcomes.
The individual plan costs $45 per month, billed monthly in USD, or $450 per year, billed yearly. Annual billing is $37.50/month equivalent. The monthly and annual plans have the same individual features. A 14-day trial is offered.
500 marketing texts per month are included; additional texts cost more. Images by Sage have usage allowances. Colony is a separate paid team plan. Payment processing is separate from the software subscription.
Colony for 2–3 people costs $50/month or $500/year, billed in USD. This is the total plan price, not a per-person price; the owner is included in the 3-person capacity. Pending invitations reserve seats.
Colony for 4–6 people costs $75/month or $750/year, billed in USD. This is the total plan price, not a per-person price; the owner is included in the 6-person capacity. Pending invitations reserve seats.
Colony for 7–9 people costs $100/month or $1000/year, billed in USD. This is the total plan price, not a per-person price; the owner is included in the 9-person capacity. Pending invitations reserve seats.
Card payments: 2.69% + 30¢. Per transaction when your business covers the processing fee.
Buy now, pay later: 5.09% + 30¢. Per transaction when your business covers the fee. Available with supported buy-now-pay-later payment methods.
Optional instant payouts cost 1.8% of the payout amount in addition to processing, subject to eligibility and available funds. These are Bee Paid rates, not legacy Stripe rates.
Client-covered online fees use 3.59% + 30¢ for cards or 8.09% + 30¢ for buy now, pay later, applied to the total charged including the fee. Comb calculates the added amount; this is not simply the percentage of the original bill. Supported card-reader payments with client-covered fees use a 3.73% + 32¢ surcharge confirmed by the client.
From the appointment to the payout, Bee Paid brings payments into Comb. Take payment, keep the details together, and give your hard-earned money a plan.
Bee Paid payment processing requires onboarding and an eligible account. Processing is priced separately from the Comb subscription.
Honey Pot splits scheduled payouts by percentage between your connected bank accounts. Name your pots, choose the allocation, and set a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule. Requires at least two connected, eligible bank accounts. Allocations must total 100%. Payouts depend on available funds and account status. This is allocation between your bank accounts, not provider payroll or commission splitting.
Offer supported Klarna and Affirm payment options through Bee Paid. Clients review the options and terms offered to them at checkout; your business receives settlement through Bee Paid rather than collecting each client installment. Supported Klarna options include Pay later and Pay over time, where available. Payment methods depend on country, account activation, transaction eligibility, and provider approval. Client borrowing terms are set by the provider and shown before acceptance. Merchant processing fees apply; settlement follows your payout schedule.
Eligible U.S. businesses can access business loan offers through Adyen inside Bee Paid. Review the amount, fees, repayment terms, and agreement before deciding whether to accept. Loans are issued by Adyen N.V. San Francisco Branch and subject to credit approval. Business purposes only. Availability depends on your account and Adyen’s eligibility assessment. An offer or approval is not guaranteed. Comb provides the software experience; Adyen is the lender.
Your working day. Your rules.
Clients book. Your calendar keeps up.
Exact starts · Offer the times you choose.
Services by day · Give each day a focus.
Separate hours for clients marked VIP.
Let color develop while you see another client.
Leave the room you need around a service.
Set a ceiling for your working day.
Request a deposit before the visit.
Require a saved card for eligible bookings.
Keep the next interested client in view.
Remember the person, not just the appointment.
Visits, purchases, photos, and context together.
Remember their preferences between visits.
Allergies, style, formulas, products—and reminders at the visit.
Make your regulars easy to recognize and find.
Keep visual references with the person.
Let clients share the look before they arrive.
Keep bowls, product amounts, developer, timing, photos, and result notes for next time.
Preview a completed formula’s color direction on a client photo and compare with the original. A consultation visual, not a guaranteed result.
More than a blank notes box.
Build the questions your services need.
Collect consent alongside the client record.
Signed documents, kept with the client.
Send documents and keep them with the client record.
Organize observations, treatment, and the next step.
Custom fields, service-linked templates, and a record for each visit.
Talk through the visit. Review the draft.
Pick up where you left off, with a record of changes.
Your craft, down to the last detail.
Lengths, layers, zones, and saved designs.
Shape and placement you can revisit.
Map curved rows and individual pieces across head views; record installs, move-ups, replacements, and maintenance.
Record the areas and details of your work.
Mark treatment areas alongside your notes.
Sage prepares a starting point from reference imagery.
Give regulars the regular treatment.
Reward visits and purchases your way.
A little progress with every qualifying visit.
Make the next milestone feel special.
Give their birthday a little extra love.
Thank clients for bringing someone new.
Your colors, artwork, and stamp style; Sage can help with the art.
Bundle visits and track what is left.
Recurring offers with service visits and product credits. Bee Paid required.
Sell a thoughtful gift. Redeem it at checkout.
Keep in touch. Keep your evening.
Keep clients in the loop about their visit.
Chirp · Keep business conversations together.
Send news and offers to your client audience.
500 marketing texts/month. Extra texts cost more.
Choose who a message is for.
Choose the trigger, service, audience, and message.
Small jobs. A lot off your plate.
Drone · Send clients back to the booking they started.
Drift · Match openings, contact clients, and optionally prioritize VIPs.
Breathe · Protect time as the day fills up.
Tend · Follow up around the next service interval.
Echo · Use your writing sample to guide supported messages.
Swarm · Offer openings around existing appointments.
Big-brand energy. Your name on it.
Your colors, layout, service menu, and brand.
Give your work a place to shine.
Make the menu look as good as the work.
A gift that looks like your business.
Give your booking website its own atmosphere.
Sage drafts descriptions and campaign copy for review.
An extra pair of hands. And a little perspective.
Sage · Work with current calendar, client, and business context.
Prepare forms, services, campaigns, and more. Review before applying.
Sage Live · Talk through the work.
Carry forward the preferences and goals you share.
Sage Match · Help clients find a service that fits.
See who is past their usual visit rhythm.
Decision Lab · Explore prices, capacity, and working patterns.
Momentum & Watch · Keep your priorities in view.
See visits, sources, and the booking funnel.
The business bits, all accounted for.
Services, products, discounts, tips, and receipts.
Follow the transaction from payment to refund.
Give every business cost a home.
Scan, review the details, and record the expense.
Keep work travel with your business expenses.
Track the costs that come around again.
Products, pricing, stock, and what you sell.
Track the products you use in your work.
Follow restocks, usage, corrections, and waste.
Review the day, sales, and recorded costs.
Your business. Your standards.
Set the confirmation level for online booking.
Beehavior · More context before the visit, not a safety guarantee.
A rating first. Written detail shared with the author’s approval.
Ban online bookings and remove future appointments with you.
Additional checks help recognize connected identities.
Bee Paid checks authorization, screens identified prepaid cards, and requires current cards.
Room for your people, too.
Colony · Invite your people into a shared booking website. Paid team plan, separate from your individual subscription.
Set your weekly working hours. Clients choose an available time that fits their service and your booking rules.
Handpick the start times clients can book. Make a start available for any service, selected services, or VIP clients only. Days without exact starts keep regular availability.
Give selected services their own days of the week. Services you haven’t assigned stay available on days without a service menu.
Set separate hours for clients you’ve marked as VIP. When enabled, their VIP hours replace the regular hours for that day. You can also let VIPs see broader availability by bypassing Swarm.
Swarm filters online openings around existing appointments to help keep your day compact. Choose Lax for more choice or Snug for tighter grouping. On an empty day, start with morning, evening, both ends, or any time.
Give every bowl, shade, and tiny adjustment a place to live. Keep formulas with the client, then bring them back into the next appointment.
Formula management is in beta.
“A little warmer” is easier to talk about when you can see it. Upload a clear client photo and let Sage preview the hair-color direction from your completed formula. Switch between the original and the preview during the consultation.
A consultation visual, not a promised result. Actual color depends on the starting hair, porosity, product chemistry, timing, and strand testing. You review the formula and make the professional decisions.
Record products, shades, amounts, developer, processing time, application steps, and result notes. Save variations and duplicate a formula when the next visit needs a different approach.
Bring together the starting canvas, target tone, inspiration, current-look photos, and finished results. Link products to your supplies and use saved formulas in the appointment.
Get help drafting or reviewing a formula. Once the key details are filled in, upload a clear client photo for a Sage hair-color try-on preview, then compare it with the original.
Sage works with current business and client context. Prepared changes and messages are reviewed before application. Availability depends on the supported workflow; examples are not guarantees of outcomes.
Check your schedule, find an opening, prepare a booking, move appointments, or protect some personal time. Example: “What does my schedule look like tomorrow?”
Look up visit history and notes, find clients due back, and prepare updates to profiles, preferences, tags, and the waitlist. Example: “Which clients are overdue for their usual return visit?”
Explore revenue, tips, appointments, cancellations, and service activity. Ask for a downloadable CSV when you need to take the detail with you. Example: “How is this month going compared with last month?”
Prepare campaign ideas, client audiences, and personal messages. Review the people and the wording before anything goes out. Example: “Draft a campaign for slow days this week.”
Prepare services, packages, intake forms, waivers, and follow-up automations from a description of what you need. Example: “Create a color consultation form with hair history and color goals.”
Prepare one-off or recurring expenses, ask about recorded supply spending, and see which products need attention based on your saved stock levels. Example: “Add a recurring $850 monthly studio-rent expense. Show me first.”
Build treatment-note templates and prepare appointment charts from the details you supply. Review the client, visit, and complete note before saving. Example: “Create a treatment-note template with observations, homecare, and a face map.”
Describe a recurring offer and have Sage prepare the membership for review, including your price, billing schedule, and included services. Recurring billing requires Bee Paid. Example: “Draft an $85 monthly cut club with one Signature Cut & Style visit and no rollover.”
Understand what clients can book, investigate missing availability, and review changes to working hours, booking rules, and Breathe settings. Example: “Why might clients not be seeing appointment times?”
Explore scenarios for service prices, open time, working hours, client recovery, and cancellations. See the assumptions before making a change. Example: “What if I raised my haircut price by $5?”
Build a plan around a business goal, track steps and check-ins, and have Watch look for changes that matter to the plan. Example: “Help me work toward an extra $500 this month without another workday.”
Tell Sage you like short answers or warm, straightforward client copy. Stated preferences can carry into later conversations.
Share the longer-term goals and working preferences that matter to you, so the next conversation has a little more context.
For appointments, client details, prices, and totals, Sage checks your current Comb records. Remembering your preferences is different from remembering an old number.
Your clients shouldn’t need to speak fluent service menu. Sage Match helps them turn what they want into a booking that makes sense, right on your Comb booking site.
Sage Match is in beta. Recommendations use client goals and the professional’s configured service guidance. Clients choose what to book.
Clients answer your published questions and add details in their own words. When you enable photos, they can share their current look and inspiration, with permission.
Sage interprets their goal and compares eligible services using your descriptions, service guidance, and optional photos. Relevant add-ons can be suggested alongside the service.
Clients see a short list with reasons, price where shown, duration, and any caveats. They choose what to take into booking. When your guidance or their needs call for it, a consultation can be the starting point.
Meet your Worker Bees: specialized helpers for the little jobs that keep a business moving. Following up. Finding the next booking. Leaving room for you.
Choose which Worker Bees to switch on and set their preferences. Enabled automations can run in the background; messages respect client preferences and your account’s messaging allowances.
When a client starts booking and leaves before finishing, Drone can follow up with a link back to their in-progress appointment.
Drift checks the waitlist for clients who fit an opening and can send alerts automatically. Choose small waves of outreach and optional VIP priority.
Breathe helps protect break time as your day fills up, using your settings for break length and frequency. You can adjust the protected time when plans change.
Tend uses rebooking timing to remind clients when they may be due again, with a booking link to make the next step easy. Set timing and service-matching preferences around your work.
Give Echo a writing sample to guide the tone of supported Worker Bee messages. It helps the follow-up feel more like your business, with less rewriting from you.
Swarm shapes the online openings clients see around existing appointments. Choose a looser or tighter fit, and how bookings begin on an empty day.
Mike’s wife, Kari, had a frightening experience with a client. There were threats. The kind of experience no one should have to accept as part of doing their job.
Comb was born out of that experience. Not just to help independent professionals run a business, but to give them more context, more control, and more support when it comes to the people they welcome into it.
That’s why safety is part of how Comb works. It has been personal from the beginning.
Comb explains public protections and the settings professionals control. The detailed detection rules remain private. Client records and private review content are not part of this public guide.
No. Beehavior gives you context from recorded client activity, including booking behavior and professional reviews. It is a signal to help you make a decision, not a prediction that someone will or won’t cause harm.
No. Comb uses a verification partner to help check phone and account details. These are checks of contact details and whether account information matches, not criminal background checks.
They control access to online booking with your business. Choose a client-confirmation level and, separately, a minimum Beehavior score. Existing clients and clients you add yourself retain their existing confirmation access; clients without booking history aren’t penalized by the Beehavior minimum.
No. Written reviews are shared by request. The author approves access before another professional can read them. A shared client record does not make those reviews public.
You should understand the tools you have and the decisions you control. We explain those clearly. We keep the detailed detection methods private so they’re harder to work around.