Appointment reminder text templates for salons, barbers and nail studios (CASL-safe)

Short answerA good appointment reminder text puts your business name first, gives the service, day and time, offers one way to confirm or change it, and ends with “Reply STOP to opt out”. Send a confirmation at booking, a reminder about 48 hours ahead and a short one 2 hours before. Keep each under 160 characters and leave offers out, or it stops being a reminder.

A reminder text takes seconds to send. An empty chair costs you the whole hour. But a reminder that reads like spam, or quietly breaks the rules, does more harm than good.

Below are eleven templates you can copy, written for three made-up businesses: Cedar & Co. Hair (a salon), Velvet Nail Studio and Larkspur Barber Co. (a barbershop). Then the timing, the CASL part and why each one stays short.

What should an appointment reminder text include?

Five things, in this order: who you are, what and when, one thing to do, where your details live, and how to opt out. Anything else makes it longer and easier to ignore.

• Your business name first. The client sees it in the notification before they open the text. A number they don’t recognize, with no name, looks like spam.
• The service, day and time. “Thu at 2:30 pm” beats “tomorrow” if the text is read late at night.
• One action. Confirm, change or reply. Not all three with three links.
• A link to your details. Every [link] below goes to your booking page, which should also show your address and phone number. That’s what lets your contact details sit behind a link instead of in the text.
• “Reply STOP to opt out.” Every time, at the end.

Appointment reminder text templates you can copy

Swap the names, services and times for yours. The square brackets are placeholders. I kept straight apostrophes on purpose; the length section explains why.

At booking

Write the policy line in your own words, and make sure it matches what the client saw when they booked. A policy that appears for the first time in a reminder is a surprise, not a policy.

Before the visit

When plans change

After the visit

Keep the no-show text warm and short. People miss appointments for real reasons, and a scolding text loses the client along with the hour. The review request that goes out after a visit has its own post: how to ask for a Google review.

When should each reminder go out?

Send the confirmation straight away, the main reminder about 48 hours ahead and a short nudge on the day. The rest go out when something happens.

Do reminder texts need consent under CASL?

Generally no, as long as the text only deals with the appointment. It still needs your name, a way to reach you and a working STOP line. The full rules for texting clients are in our CASL checklist; here’s the part that matters for reminders.

In practice: templates 1 to 9 are about the booking itself. The no-show text invites a new booking, so treat it like marketing and send it only to clients who bought from you, asked about a booking recently or ticked your consent box. Aftercare stays safe while it sticks to care; “and 20% off cuticle oil” turns it into a promotion.

How long should a reminder text be?

Under 160 characters, so it travels as one segment. A standard text holds up to 160 characters. Longer messages are split into segments of 153 characters each, because 7 characters in every segment go to a header that tells the phone how to put the pieces back together.

One emoji, or a curly quote pasted from a word processor, switches the whole message to a different encoding where a segment holds 70 characters. That’s why the templates above use straight apostrophes and no emoji.

Why it matters: texts are counted per segment. Our plan includes 2,000 segments a month, and a two-segment reminder uses two of them. A short text is also easier to read in a notification. Every template here is under 160 characters as written; once a real link and your policy line go in, count again.

What our system sends by default

In the system we build, a client who books gets a confirmation, then a reminder before the visit, by text and email. A missed appointment gets a follow-up to rebook, and every visit is followed by a review request. We set the timing with you; nothing goes out that you haven’t agreed to.

• Every text names your business and carries the STOP line.
• STOP replies take effect immediately. The legal limit is 10 business days.
• The text-consent box on your booking page is never pre-ticked.

Price

$299 CAD a month, $0 setup, month-to-month

Texts included

2,000 segments a month, then $0.06 per segment

When texts start

After carriers approve your business number, usually 1–2 weeks

The full picture of booking, reminders and missed-call text-back is on our AI automation page. To see it with your own name on it, book a free demo site, built within 48 hours of a 15-minute call, or ask for a free video audit of how your bookings work today.