Hey Mary Beth,
Heard you've got a new business opportunity coming together — and you want to set it up on GlossGenius so it has its own pricing, its own look, and stays separate from Willow Retreat. Smart call.
This guide walks you through the whole thing: signing up, bringing over what you need from your existing site, adding your services and prices, getting your custom QR code, and (if you want) pointing your own web address at it.
Every step is written assuming you're starting from zero — no tech background needed. Where there's a gotcha you should know about, I've called it out. Where you have a decision to make, I've told you what most people pick and why.
Take it one section at a time. The whole thing should take about 2 to 3 hours total, and you can absolutely break it across days.
If you get stuck for more than 15 minutes, stop and text me. That's what I'm here for.
Before you even sign up, here are three real things about GlossGenius that I want you to know going in. None of them are dealbreakers — but they'll save you a surprise later.
You can sign up and do basic setup on a desktop computer (and I'd recommend you do, since typing is faster). But day-to-day — checking your calendar, taking payments, answering clients — that all happens in the GlossGenius app on your iPhone or iPad. If you're a "I want to manage everything from my laptop" person, this is real friction.
GlossGenius processes your payments through Stripe (a big, legitimate payment company). Most of the time, money lands in your bank the next business day. But occasionally — usually when there's a refund dispute or an unusually large transaction — they'll hold funds for 2-7 days while it gets reviewed. Knowing this in advance means you don't panic when it happens.
GlossGenius doesn't let you embed their booking calendar inside another website. The way customers book is by clicking a link to yourname.glossgenius.com (or your custom domain, if you set one up). For a separate business with its own site, this is fine — that's exactly what we're building.
For a service-based business like yours — appointments, payments, no-show fees, gift cards, packages — GlossGenius does all the things you need, and the website + booking + QR code are all included. You don't need to wire together three different tools.
Here's the whole journey. You can skip ahead to any step using these links.
GlossGenius doesn't let you run two separate businesses from one account. So this guide assumes you're creating a brand new GlossGenius account for your new business — separate from anything Willow Retreat is on. Use a different email address than your Willow business email if you want clean separation (you can always create a free Gmail like marybeth.newbiz@gmail.com just for this).
GlossGenius offers a 14-day free trial — no credit card required. You'll have plenty of time to set everything up before you decide to pay.
You'll be asked about a plan at some point. The Standard plan ($24/month if you pay annually, $28/month if monthly) is what you want for a new spin-up. It includes the booking website, the QR code, payments, gift cards, and packages. The Gold and Platinum plans add things you don't need yet (advanced staff management, Google integrations). You can always upgrade later if you grow.
What you should NOT have to do during signup: enter your bank account info, your SSN, or your credit card. If you're being asked for those before you finish basic setup, pause and text me — something's off.
This is where you tell GlossGenius the basics: business name, address, hours, logo, brand colors. Your customers will see all of this on your booking page.
Just enter your best guess. Easy to change. The Settings menu is always there.
You don't have to start from a blank page. Some of what's on willowretreatwilmington.com can carry right over to your new GlossGenius site — your About paragraph, photos of you/the team, your contact style. Other things will be brand new (services, prices, positioning for the new business).
Heads up: there's no "import from Wix" button. Wix doesn't let you export pages anywhere. So this is a manual copy-paste — but it's faster than you'd think because most pages are just a few paragraphs.
Easiest method (no Wix Editor needed):
Some Wix sites have a "right-click protect" feature that stops copy-paste from the live site. If that happens, go into the Wix Editor instead: manage.wix.com → Edit Site → double-click any text block → Ctrl+A → Ctrl+C. You'll have to copy each text block one at a time.
You can only multi-select within one folder at a time. Plan to spend ~15 min if you have a lot of photos. Stock photos that came from Wix can't be downloaded — only ones you (or someone for you) personally uploaded.
If your existing Willow Retreat clients might also be customers of your new business, you can export their contact info from Wix and import it into GlossGenius later.
Think of this as moving — you take what you love and leave what doesn't fit. Your About paragraph, professional photos, and personal story carry over beautifully. Your specific Willow Retreat service prices and the booking buttons do not — those need to be different for your new business anyway.
This is where the new business actually takes shape. Each service is a thing customers can book — with its own duration, price, and (optional) deposit.
Add 1-2 services with placeholder prices. You can finish the rest later. The site is functional with even one service.
This is the step that lets you actually take payments. GlossGenius uses Stripe behind the scenes — the same payment system millions of small businesses use. It's safe, but it does need real verification info.
After your first successful payment, GlossGenius typically holds the funds for about 7 days as a standard new-account precaution. After that, payouts arrive in your bank the next business day. There's an "Instant Payout" option that costs 1.8% if you ever need money immediately — fine for emergencies, expensive as a habit.
Out of the box, your booking site lives at yourname.glossgenius.com. That's perfectly usable. But if you want a cleaner web address — like yournewbiz.com — you can buy one and have it redirect to your GlossGenius site.
Skip it for launch. Get the site live, get the QR code printed, start booking customers. Add a custom domain later (next month, next quarter) once you know the business is sticking. A custom domain costs ~$15-20 per year and adds 30 minutes plus a wait. It's worth doing eventually — just not on day one.
The setup is "domain forwarding," not anything fancy. GlossGenius does NOT need an A record, CNAME, or any DNS magic. You just buy a domain and tell the registrar "send anyone who types this to my GlossGenius URL."
"Masking" makes your custom domain stay in the address bar even after the redirect. Sounds nice — but it breaks payment checkout, breaks Google's ability to find your site, and breaks lots of normal web stuff. Always pick unmasked.
Good news: GlossGenius makes a QR code for your booking page automatically. You don't need a third-party QR code generator. The QR code points at your booking URL — when someone scans it with their phone camera, they go straight to your booking page.
The exact menu path can move between app updates. Open GlossGenius Help Article #113 directly — it's the official "Creating Booking Link QR Codes" guide and stays current.
QR codes need decent contrast (dark code on a light background). Don't print them on dark colors — they won't scan reliably. Test with two phones and decent lighting before you order 500 cards.
Before you send your booking link to real customers, walk through this checklist as if you were a stranger trying to book. Catching issues now is way easier than answering "the QR didn't work" texts later.
Once everything checks out, send your booking link to two people you trust (not random customers). Ask them to book something — even a fake $1 service you delete after — just to confirm the booking + payment + reminder flow really works. After they make it through cleanly, you're ready to publicly share.
You don't have to figure any of this out alone. Text or call me anytime if:
Seriously — that's what I'm here for. We'll figure it out together.