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Updated · 2026

coil vs Acuity. Generic scheduling vs the tattoo trade.

Acuity Scheduling is a general appointments tool owned by Squarespace. It's competent, well-designed, and works for anyone who needs to book one-on-one time slots: therapists, consultants, photographers, tutors, coaches. Some tattooers use it as a thin booking layer on top of a Squarespace site. It does the job at the surface level. What it can't do is the rest of a tattooer's day: booking requests with the details already in, a drawing deposit before the booking deposit, healing photos checked for you, healed-photo follow-up, and a business phone number for client texts. Acuity is a calendar; coil is what runs the day around the calendar.

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The honest read

  • Acuity is a scheduling tool.

    Calendar, payment collection, basic reminders, custom forms. Built for anyone who books time. Not built for tattooers specifically.

  • coil runs the whole tattoo business.

    Same calendar, plus everything a tattooer needs around it: detailed booking requests, drawing deposits, healing photos checked for you, the healed-photo reward, apprentice approvals, and a page and clients that go with you if you change shops.

  • Pricing is similar.

    Acuity runs $20-$61/mo across tiers. coil is $59 solo, $49 a chair in a shop, and chair 9 and up are free. Where coil pays for itself isn't the calendar. It's the loss-prevention math on cancellations, drawing time, and tips that Acuity doesn't address.

The price difference.

 CoilAcuity

  • Solo / entry tier

    $59/mo~$20/mo

  • Mid-tier

    $59/mo solo · $98/mo 2-chair shop~$34/mo

  • Top tier

    $392/mo at most, any size shop~$61/mo

  • Card processing

    Acuity integrates with Stripe / Square. Neither Acuity nor coil takes a software cut on payments.

    Stripe standardStripe or Square standard

Feature by feature.

 CoilAcuity

  • Calendar + booking

    YesYes

  • Custom intake forms

    YesYes

  • Tattoo-specific inquiry form (body location, refs, color, budget)

    Acuity has custom forms but no tattoo-specific defaults.

    YesNo

  • Public artist site + portfolio

    Acuity bookings embed on Squarespace; Acuity doesn't ship a portfolio site.

    YesNo

  • Two-stage drawing deposit

    YesNo

  • Cancellation waitlist: texts your top five, first deposit wins

    YesNo

  • Healing photos checked for you

    YesNo

  • Style-fit read and a quote suggestion from your past jobs

    YesNo

  • Tattoo-discipline aftercare drip

    Acuity sends post-appointment reminders; not tattoo-cadenced.

    YesPartly

  • Healed-photo reward and touch-up credits

    YesNo

  • Tattoo-specific digital consent + waivers

    YesPartly

  • A business phone number for every artist

    YesNo

  • Apprentice bookings wait for your approval

    YesNo

  • Your page and clients go with you if you change shops

    YesNo

  • Site built from your photos or Instagram

    YesNo

  • Squarespace site integration

    NoYes

  • Roster + commission splits

    YesPartly

When Acuity fits you better

If you already have a Squarespace site you love and just need a competent scheduling layer plugged into it, Acuity is the natural pick because it's the same company. The integration is tight, the calendar is clean, and you don't have to migrate your existing site. If your entire business is one-on-one booked time slots and you don't need any of the tattoo-specific layers (deposits, healing photos, aftercare, consent), Acuity does the job.

When coil is the right call

If you want the full working-tattooer toolkit (not just a calendar), coil runs everything around the calendar. Deposits, consent forms, aftercare and Instagram DM replies come with it, and healing photos are read and flagged so the eleven-PM texts stop eating your evenings. If an artist on your roster leaves, they keep their page and clients, and that's the thing that gets the good ones to say yes to your shop in the first place. None of which Acuity does.

Questions

What people ask.

How much does Acuity actually cost?
Acuity's tiers run roughly $20-$61/mo across the Emerging, Growing, and Powerhouse plans. They don't take a cut of payments. Processing rates are paid to Stripe or Square directly. Verify on their pricing page before deciding.
Can I use Acuity with a Squarespace site?
Yes, that's the canonical setup. Both products are owned by Squarespace. If you already have a Squarespace site you love, Acuity is the easiest scheduling layer to add. coil is the alternative when you want the rest of the tattoo-specific tooling, but you'd replace the Squarespace site too: coil provides yourname.coil.tattoo as your public site.
Does Acuity have an aftercare engine?
Acuity sends post-appointment reminders. It doesn't send aftercare texts on a schedule (the day of, day 3, day 14 and week 6, worded for tattoos or piercings), and it has no equivalent to coil's healed-photo reward or touch-up credits.
Can Acuity collect tattoo consent waivers?
Acuity has generic intake forms that can be configured for consent capture. It doesn't ship tattoo-specific consent templates with medical-flag tracking, design approval, IP-address capture, and the immutable signed-state snapshot that coil writes for legal evidence.
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