Clinic App vs Timely: one system, built around AHPRA rules

For a cosmetic or skin clinic, Clinic App is the stronger choice for two reasons: everything runs in one system, and it is built around Australia's AHPRA and TGA advertising rules. Timely is well-priced, self-serve booking software that describes its plans as for hair and beauty professionals, prices by bookable staff and has no membership feature. Clinic App puts bookings, checkout, memberships, rewards, consent and treatment records on one patient record, keeps rewards off prescription treatments, and charges flat fees.

If your clinic runs on Timely and you are looking at Clinic App, you deserve a straight answer. This page sets out what Timely does well, where it stops short for a cosmetic clinic, and why clinics move to one system built around the rules they work under.

Every claim about Timely below links to Timely's own pricing page or help centre, as they read on 29 October 2026. Prices are in Australian dollars, excluding GST, as Timely lists them.

What does Timely do well?

Timely does the core booking job well, publishes its prices and does not lock you in. Its pricing page lists three plans, Build, Elevate and Innovate, at A$42, A$65 and A$79 a month for one bookable staff member (as listed on 29 October 2026). Its price calculator raises the total with each staff member up to seven; from 8 to 19 staff, Elevate holds at A$436 and Innovate at A$534 a month, and larger teams get a custom quote. Build is for 1 to 7 staff. It says there are no contracts, and it offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.

Credit where it is due:

• Payments built in. Every plan includes in-salon and online payments, deposits, cancellation fees, cards on file, gift vouchers and next business day payouts, according to the plan comparison.
• Included SMS. 100, 200 or 350 SMS per staff member each month, depending on plan, then 12 cents per SMS.
• Rewards. A points program, Timely Rewards, is on Elevate and Innovate, with advanced rewards settings on Innovate.
• Consultation forms. The Consult app for iPad and iPhone is free, and sending electronic forms before appointments is included from Elevate.
• Getting started. Every plan includes transferring data from your current system, and multiple locations are included on every plan.

For a small team that wants to sign up today and run its own set-up, that is a strong, honest offer. We cover what Timely's points program does in more depth in does Timely have a loyalty program?

Where does Timely stop short for a cosmetic clinic?

The biggest gap is memberships. Timely's help centre says it does not currently have a feature for managing memberships. Its suggested workarounds are selling a package or a client credit each time the member pays, with the payment taken by payment link, by charging a saved card, or outside Timely.

For a cosmetic or skin clinic, that is not a small gap. Maintenance treatments repeat on a rhythm, and a monthly membership is how many clinics turn that rhythm into predictable revenue. A workaround that has to be resold every billing cycle puts the job back on the front desk.

Other points worth knowing before you choose:

• Plan gating. Rebooking reminders and reconnect messages, and consultation forms that send automatically, are on Innovate only. Before and after photos, review requests and the waitlist start at Elevate (plan comparison).
• Who it is written for. Timely describes each plan as being for "hair and beauty professionals".
• Forms you cannot download. Timely's Consult guide says forms a client completes on their own device can be viewed but not downloaded. That matters for a clinic's records if you ever leave.

What changes when everything is in one system?

In one system, every booking, payment, membership, reward, consent form and treatment record sits on the same patient record, so nothing is copied between tools. On Timely, a membership is a package or credit resold each cycle, with the payment taken by link, by charging a saved card or outside Timely, as its memberships help article describes. Rewards, before and after photos, review requests and automatic forms depend on which plan you are on.

In Clinic App, that is all one place:

• The day: diary and online booking, deposits and cards on file, front desk checkout and payments, reminders, the waitlist and rosters.
• Repeat revenue: memberships with monthly billing, packages, gift vouchers, rewards, a prepaid wallet, referrals and review requests.
• The clinical side: consent forms and intake, treatment records and photos.
• The business: multi-location, stock and reports.

One login for the team, one bill for the owner, and one record per patient. At checkout, the front desk sees what the patient has paid for, what they are owed and what they have signed, without opening a second tool.

Which one is built for AHPRA and TGA rules?

Clinic App is built around the rules an Australian cosmetic clinic advertises and treats under, so the safe way to do something is the default.

Those rules come from two regulators. The TGA says prescription-only medicines must not be advertised to the public: see its guidance on complying with the restrictions on advertising prescription medicines to the public. AHPRA's guidelines for advertising a regulated health service prohibit testimonials, and its guidelines for advertising higher risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures warn that inducements are used extensively to influence consumer choice. Its guidelines for performing non-surgical cosmetic procedures say a patient's consent must be documented.

Here is how Clinic App builds those rules in:

• Rewards stay off prescription treatments. Points, rewards, discounts and offers never apply to Schedule 4 (prescription-only) treatments.
• Medicine names stay off public pages. Prescription medicine names are kept off public, patient-facing promotional surfaces.
• Messages are checked before they send. Marketing campaigns and automatic messages are checked for prescription medicine names, including disguised spellings, before they can be sent.
• Review requests stay clean. They never offer points or rewards for a review, they skip staff, and they are checked for prescription medicine names.
• Consent keeps its wording. Consent forms are signed digitally, and the exact wording the patient agreed to is stored with each signature and versioned. Consent for a patient under 18 is refused unless it goes through a guardian path.
• Records keep their history. Changes to treatment records are amended or struck out, never deleted.
• Data stays in Australia. Patient data is hosted in Sydney, and card numbers are handled by Stripe, never stored by Clinic App.

What Timely says. We could not find a page on Timely's website or help centre that describes how prescription-only treatments are handled in rewards, offers or messages. That fits software written for hair and beauty, but in a cosmetic clinic it leaves those checks to the front desk.

Software cannot follow the rules for a clinic: the clinic and its practitioners stay responsible for their own advertising and care. What Clinic App does is take easy slips out of the front desk's hands, such as a points offer on a prescription treatment, a medicine name in a promotion or a reward for a review.

How do Clinic App and Timely compare side by side?

Timely figures from its pricing page and memberships help article, as listed on 29 October 2026. Clinic App also covers front desk checkout, rosters, stock, multi-location and reports in the same system. Clinic App rows describe the product as it runs on 29 October 2026.

Timely is honest about what it is: booking software for hair and beauty, priced by headcount. A cosmetic clinic needs one system that holds the whole patient and knows the rules it advertises under.

How does the cost compare for a clinic with several staff?

Timely's total rises with each bookable staff member up to seven, and Clinic App's fee is not multiplied by your team. Timely's pricing FAQ says part-time staff are charged at the same rate as full-time staff, so a nurse who works two days a week counts as a full staff member.

As an example only: for six bookable staff, Timely's price calculator showed A$252 a month on Build, A$330 on Elevate and A$404 on Innovate, excluding GST, on 29 October 2026. To be fair to Timely, larger teams pay less per head: from 8 to 19 staff the total holds at A$436 on Elevate and A$534 on Innovate. Those figures are before SMS beyond the included allowance, card processing fees, a terminal, and optional direct phone support on Build and Elevate at A$30 a month. Card processing is now a straight cost to the clinic too: under the Reserve Bank's changes, surcharges on eftpos, Mastercard and Visa payments are removed from 1 October 2026.

Clinic App charges flat fees, with no setup fee, no per-seat fee and no lock-in. It is quoted for your clinic after the free audit, because it depends on what you run. Rewards, forms, photos and bookings are all in the one system, so there is no higher plan to unlock rewards, forms or photos, and no separate membership or loyalty tool to pay for. For a line-by-line view of what drives booking software costs, see how much clinic booking software costs in Australia.

Which one should you choose?

Choose Timely if you are a small team, mostly beauty-led, you want to start today on a self-serve trial, and you do not sell memberships. Its published prices and no-contract terms make it easy to try.

Choose Clinic App if you run a cosmetic or skin clinic and want one system for the diary, the desk, payments, memberships with monthly billing, packages, rewards, consent forms and treatment records, built around AHPRA and TGA rules so rewards stay off prescription treatments and consent keeps its exact wording. Patient data is hosted in Sydney, and Clinic App is Australian owned, based on the Gold Coast.

If you are weighing Clinic App against other systems too, see Clinic App vs Fresha and what all-in-one clinic software should cover.

What does switching from Timely to Clinic App involve?

A switch starts with your Timely export and ends with every patient, balance and future booking checked in the new system. Clinic App imports your client list, visit history, gift vouchers and package balances from Timely's CSV or Excel files. You see a preview before anything is saved, and a report of any rows that were skipped.

Two things do not come across from any system, and we plan for both:

• Saved cards. Cards are not on Timely's list of exportable data, so each patient gets a link to re-save their card.
• Memberships. Because Timely runs memberships as packages or credits, the balances come out in reports, but the monthly billing is set up fresh. That is the point of moving: from switch day it runs itself.

Before switch day, we map how your clinic actually runs: who books, how the desk checks out, which memberships, packages, treatments, rooms and staff you have. The system is set up to match, and your front desk, nurses and managers get their own training hub built around your set-up. I onboard each clinic in person.

The step-by-step export is in how to export your clients from Timely. The wider process is in how easy it is to switch clinic software and how Clinic App learns how your clinic runs.

Zoe Wogan

Founder, Clinic App

Zoe founded Clinic App, the all-in-one system for Australian cosmetic and skin clinics, and onboards each clinic in person.