Retention %
Retention % answers the question every owner ultimately cares about: of the guests a stylist served, how many actually came back to that stylist?
Retention % = Guests who came back to the same stylist (or have a future appointment with them) ÷ Guests the stylist served
Example. In the measured window a stylist served 40 different guests. 22 of them have since had another attended visit with that stylist, and 4 more haven't been back yet but have a future appointment with that stylist on the books. 26 ÷ 40 = 65%. The 14 guests who went to a different stylist, or haven't returned at all, count against the stylist.
It's shown per stylist in the Average Stylist Revenue table on the Sales Dashboard and on Revenue by Employee, and salon-wide on the Retention card in Salon Health (Shop Health for Bishops, Studio Health for Frenchies). Everywhere it appears it is split into new guests and existing guests (see New and existing guests). The salon-wide figure uses a different rule for what counts as coming back, described in Salon-wide retention.
The Frenchies stylist table (Nail It!) has no Retention % column. Studios see the studio-wide figure only, which follows its own rule (see Salon-wide retention).
Who counts as retained
Start with the guests a stylist personally served in the measured window (attended visits only — cancellations and no-shows don't count). Each guest counts once for that stylist, however many times they came in during the window, and is judged from their first visit in it. A guest counts as retained if either of these is true:
- they came back for another attended visit with that same stylist after that first visit, or
- they have a future appointment on the books with that same stylist.
That's the whole test. Unlike Rebooking %, there is no requirement that the next visit was booked before the guest left — a guest who walks back in three weeks later, or calls to book the following month, still counts as retained. Rebooking measures front-desk behavior at checkout; retention measures the outcome.
Retention is strictly same-stylist: a guest who returns to the salon but sees a different provider does not count toward the original stylist's retention.
New and existing guests
A stylist keeps a regular far more often than they win back someone sitting in their chair for the first time, so one blended number hides both. Retention % is shown as two figures:
- New — of the guests the stylist served who were seeing that stylist for the first time, the share who came back to that stylist.
- Existing — the same, for guests who had seen that stylist before.
In the stylist columns, "new" means new to the stylist, not new to the salon. A salon regular who tries a different stylist for the first time is a new guest for that stylist. A guest is new when their first visit in the window is their first visit ever with that stylist, and existing when they had seen the stylist before the window. Seeing the stylist a second time inside the window doesn't move them to existing; it counts as coming back. The salon-wide Retention card is different: there, new means new to the salon.
Example. Of the 40 guests in the example above, 10 were seeing the stylist for the first time and 3 of them came back to the stylist: retention for new guests is 3 ÷ 10 = 30%. The other 30 had seen the stylist before and 23 came back: retention for existing guests is 23 ÷ 30 = 76.7%.
The Average Stylist Revenue table heads the two columns New Retention % and Existing Retention %; Revenue by Employee heads them Retention % (New) and Retention % (Existing).
A column shows — when the stylist served nobody of that kind in the window.
The 90-day maturity window
A guest you saw yesterday hasn't had a fair chance to return yet, so measuring retention on last week's guests would make everyone look terrible. To keep the number honest, the dashboard shifts the measurement window back 90 days from the dates you select.
Both ends of your date range move back by the same 90 days, so the window keeps the length you picked — a 30-day range is still 30 days, just an earlier 30 days. It's a flat 90-day offset, not a jump to the calendar month three months prior. Select 1–30 June and Retention % is measuring the guests each stylist served 3 March – 1 April: every one of them has had at least three months to come back (or get a future appointment on the books).
The rest of the row (sales, visits, per-visit figures) still reflects the dates you actually selected. Only Retention % uses the shifted window, which is why it won't tie out against the visit count sitting next to it.
The 90 days is a maturity buffer, not a deadline: there's no cutoff by which a guest must return. Any later visit with that same stylist counts, however long it takes.
On Revenue by Employee, the Sales Dashboard's Average Stylist Revenue table and Guest Retention by Location you can run with a different number of days to look at a more recent or an older group of guests. The Salon Health Retention tile always uses 90 days.
Comparing with your booking system's own retention report
Mindbody and Zenoti each have their own retention reports, with their own definitions and settings, and those numbers will generally not match salon360's. Before comparing, line up the rules. salon360's are exactly these, and nothing else:
- Same stylist only. A guest who returns to the salon but sees a different stylist does not count for the original stylist.
- Each guest once. A guest counts once per stylist for the window, judged from their first visit in it, not once per visit.
- Measured 90 days back. The guests counted are the ones each stylist served 90 days before the dates you selected.
- No deadline. Any later attended visit with the same stylist counts, however long it takes.
- Future bookings count. A guest with an appointment on the books with the same stylist counts as retained, even before that visit happens.
- Attended visits only. Cancellations and no-shows count neither as the original visit nor as a return.
If your booking system's report differs on any of these — for example, counting a return to any staff member, or only counting returns inside a fixed number of days — the two figures are answering different questions, and neither is wrong. If the rules look the same and the numbers still differ, contact support with the stylist and month and we'll trace which guests each side counted.
Retention % is built entirely from appointment and visit records. It does not use time-clock data, so it is unaffected if your salon doesn't clock in and out through the booking system. The only stylist-table column that needs the time clock is Revenue / Hr.
Cross-brand consistency
The Lash Lounge and Bishops use the same per-stylist definition — attended guests, same-stylist return or future booking — so Retention % is comparable between them. A cancelled future appointment never counts as a future booking.
Salon-wide retention
The Retention card in Salon Health shows retention for the whole location. It answers a different question from the stylist column: of the guests the salon served, how many came back to the salon? The card gives two figures, because the answer is very different for someone trying the salon for the first time than for someone who already comes in:
- New guests — guests on their first visit to the location.
- Existing guests — guests who had visited the location before.
A guest is new when their first visit in the window is their first visit ever to the location. Coming in again later in the same window doesn't move them to existing; it counts as coming back. Which stylist they saw makes no difference here: a salon regular seeing a new stylist is an existing guest on this card, and a new guest in that stylist's own column.
The Lash Lounge and Bishops:
Salon Retention % = Guests who came back to any stylist (or have a future appointment) ÷ Guests the salon served
- Any stylist counts. A guest who returns and sees a different stylist is retained for the salon, even though that visit counts against the original stylist's own Retention %. That's why the salon figure is usually higher than the stylist column.
- Same 90-day maturity window. The guests counted are the ones served 90 days before the dates you selected, exactly as described above.
- Future bookings count, including an appointment later today or one already under way today. Cancelled or missed future appointments don't.
- Each guest counts once. A guest who came in several times in the window counts once, judged from their first visit in it.
- Both figures use the same rule. New and existing differ only in which guests are counted, not in what counts as coming back.
Frenchies studios use Zenoti's own Guest Retained definition, the one behind New Guest Retained % and Repeat Guest Retained % in Frenchies' Zenoti KPI report. New guests are the guests whose first visit to the studio fell in the cohort month, and existing guests are everyone else seen that month:
Studio Retention % = Guests who came back within 90 days ÷ Guests seen in the cohort month
- Cohort month. The guests counted are everyone with a completed visit in the calendar month four months before the month your date range ends in. With September selected, that's May's guests.
- 90-day return window. A guest is retained if they have another completed visit at the studio within the 90 days after the cohort month (for May: June 1 – August 29). Later visits don't count, and neither do future bookings.
- Completed visits only, both for the cohort and for the return.
Because the cohort is set by the month, picking a shorter range inside the same month (for example September 1–15) doesn't change the studio figures. This matches how Zenoti's own report behaves. salon360 calls a guest new on their first visit to that studio, while Zenoti's report calls a guest new on their first visit to any Frenchies studio, so a guest who has been to another studio before counts as new here and as repeat in Zenoti's report. Expect the two figures to sit close to the KPI report's New and Repeat Guest Retained % without matching them exactly.
By month, across locations
Guest Retention by Location (Draft Reports, The Lash Lounge) applies this salon-wide rule to every location at once, one calendar month at a time: the guests a location saw in the month, each counted once and judged at their first visit in it, and how many have come back or have a future appointment. It shows the counts behind each figure, new and existing, with a Systemwide block. Run for one calendar month, a location's counts are the ones its Retention card gives for the same dates.
Each figure has its own target on the Goals page — Retention % target, new guests and Retention % target, existing guests. With Compare set to Goals, the card grades each figure against its own target.
Read Rebooking % and Retention % together: high rebooking with low retention means guests book at checkout but cancel or drift away later; low rebooking with high retention means guests love the stylist but your front desk is leaving the booking to chance.