Arkden builds Vietnamese-language register software. It started on a family food truck in Philadelphia, where it still runs every day, and it is now sold to Vietnamese-American owners across the US.
Straight away: there is no shortage of nail salon software. There are more than fifteen companies selling it, many of them Vietnamese-owned. Arkden is not the only register that speaks Vietnamese, and it may not be the right one for your salon.
What follows is not a comparison. It is the five questions worth asking any vendor before you sign — including this one. Each comes with where to look for the answer, because the answer is usually in the contract rather than on the price page.
1. How long is the term, and what does leaving cost?
The monthly price is rarely what decides the cost of a bad fit. Four clauses do, and all four live in the contract rather than on the website. Find each one before you sign, and ask the salesperson to point at the line:
- Term length. How many months are you committing to? A month-to-month agreement and a 24-month agreement can advertise the same monthly price.
- Early termination. What does it cost to leave before the term ends? Look for a flat fee, or a clause that accelerates the remaining months.
- Auto-renewal. Does the term renew by itself? If so, how many days of written notice are required to stop it, and in what form — email, certified letter, a form on their site? A 30-day written-notice window that you miss by a week renews the whole term.
- Who pays the lawyers. Some agreements require the customer to pay the company's legal fees in a dispute regardless of who wins. It is a normal clause in software contracts and it is easy to miss.
Ask: How many months? What does early termination cost? Does it auto-renew, and what notice stops it?
2. Am I required to process cards through them?
This one is structural, and understanding it explains most of the pricing you will see.
In this category, the software is frequently not where the money is made — card processing is. A salon running $60,000 a month in card volume is worth far more in processing margin than in a software subscription, which is why some vendors can afford to discount the software heavily, or give it away, to owners who process with them.
That is not automatically a bad deal. It becomes one the day you want to change card processors, because the software and your customer history are on the other side of that decision.
Ask: If I keep the card machine I use today, can I still use this software? Does the price change if I do? And if I leave the processor later, what happens to my data?
3. “Vietnamese” — the machine, or the person on the phone?
Nearly every vendor in this market advertises Vietnamese support. It can mean two very different things:
- A Vietnamese speaker answers the support line, while the screens your technicians tap all day are in English.
- The software itself is in Vietnamese — the checkout screen, the ticket, the receipt, the settings.
Both are worth having. Only the second one helps a technician at 6pm on a Saturday. And the difference is impossible to tell from a marketing page, which is why the question has to be asked as a demonstration rather than as a question.
Ask: Show me the checkout screen in Vietnamese. Not the brochure — the screen a tech taps every day.
4. What does one month actually cost, adding everything up?
“Cheap” is hard to compare in this market because the price is scattered across several line items and often several separate agreements: software here, setup there, website and booking billed separately, card processing somewhere else entirely.
So do not compare monthly prices. Fill this in, for every vendor you are considering:
| Vendor A | Vendor B | Arkden | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software, per month | $99 per location | ||
| Setup / onboarding, one time | $299, waived on annual prepay | ||
| Website | not offered | ||
| Online booking | not offered yet | ||
| Card processing — % and per-transaction | you keep your own processor; Arkden never touches it | ||
| Anything billed annually, divided by 12 | none | ||
| Total per month | $99 per location | ||
| Contract length | month to month | ||
| Cost to leave early | none | ||
| Notice required to cancel | none |
Two lines people forget: the annual items (a website build, a marketing retainer) belong in a monthly column divided by twelve, and card processing belongs in it at your real volume, not at the headline rate.
Ask: Adding everything — software, setup, website, booking, card fees — what exactly does one month cost at my volume?
5. When it breaks on a Saturday evening, who answers?
A salon is busiest Saturday afternoon, and that is when equipment picks its moment. A large support organisation means a queue at precisely that hour, and the person who reaches you may not speak Vietnamese and has probably never worked a front desk.
Ask: Whose number is the support line? What are its hours on a Saturday? Has the person who answers ever worked in a shop?
And Arkden? The honest version
Arkden is a register that speaks Vietnamese — the screens themselves, not only the person on the phone. Month to month, no binding contract, nothing to pay to leave. It never touches your salon's money: keep whatever card machine you use today. The price is public, on the page.
And three things said just as plainly:
- It does not process cards. That is deliberate — software that never holds your money can never hold it up — but if you want checkout and card processing in one box, this is not that box.
- It does not have turn tracking, technician payroll or appointment booking yet. If your salon needs those today, Arkden is not enough yet. Better to say so now than to take your money and disappoint you.
- If you are comfortable working in English, Square is cheaper. Arkden exists for people who would rather run their shop in Vietnamese.
Want to see it run? Here is a salon's own price list on it — manicures, pedicure tiers, nail art, waxing. Nothing to install, no account, no phone number to hand over.
Pressing it charges nothing and signs nothing — it just opens a text on your phone. Read the full terms first →