Subba.pro VS https://alanaknows.com/

Subba.pro's answer

Most tools in this space do one half of the job. Booking systems give you a calendar and wait for the customer to find it. Chatbots reply but can't actually do anything. subba does the whole loop: it answers the enquiry — phone, web chat, email or SMS — in under ten seconds, in the business's own voice, checks real availability, books the slot, takes a deposit or full payment into the owner's own Stripe, sends reminders that cut no-shows, and asks for a Google review the day after the visit.

The other unusual part is that subba doesn't assume you already have a decent website. If you don't, we build the booking site and register your domain, and you're live in about five working days. If you do, it's a one-line change to your existing contact form — no rebuild, no migration.

And it earns trust before it takes over. subba starts by drafting replies for the owner to approve, and only goes fully automatic when they're ready. Every enquiry, reply, booking and payment is logged and the owner can step in at any point.

Subba.pro's answer

subba is Cloudflare-native from top to bottom. The marketing site is built with Astro; the application runs on Cloudflare's edge platform (Workers, with Cloudflare's storage and data services behind it), which is what keeps response times low enough to answer an enquiry in under ten seconds and keeps the running costs low enough to sell at £9.99/month.

Payments run through Stripe, into the customer's own connected account. The conversational layer uses large language models, grounded in each business's own services, prices and tone so replies sound like the owner rather than a bot. Voice handling covers the phone channel.

On the integration side, subba connects to WordPress, Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Google Calendar, Stripe, Squarespace, Webflow and Wix.

Subba.pro's answer

subba is early-stage and most of our customers are independent, owner-run businesses who'd rather not be listed by name.

Subba.pro's answer

subba came out of Polarize Ltd, a UK digital consultancy, and started narrower than it is now.

We built a booking site for a barbershop — Donny Cutz in Doncaster — and the thing the owner kept saying wasn't about the website at all. It was that he'd finish a cut, look at his phone, and find three missed calls he had no chance of returning. The site was fine. The problem was that nobody was answering.

Then we built a site for a foot health practitioner (a family member, as it happens) and heard exactly the same complaint from a completely different trade. That was the moment it stopped being a barber product. A scaffolder, a pilates studio and a dental practice all lose money the same way: someone tries to book, nobody picks up, they try the next name on the list.

So subba stopped being "a website with booking attached" and became an AI receptionist that happens to come with a website if you need one. The promise narrowed to one line: never miss another customer.

Subba.pro's answer

It depends what you'd otherwise buy.

Against booking platforms (Fresha, Nearcut, Setmore, Calendly): those work brilliantly for the customer who is already on your website and happy to self-serve. They do nothing for the person who rings while you're mid-haircut or under a boiler, or who messages your Facebook page at 9pm. That's where most local bookings are actually lost. subba covers the enquiries that never reach the booking form.

Against AI answering services: most will answer and take a message. subba finishes the job — checks the diary, books the slot, takes the money, confirms it.

Against hiring someone: a part-time receptionist is a few hundred pounds a week. subba starts at £9.99/month and doesn't take holidays.

Practically: no contract, cancel anytime, unlimited bookings on every plan (you only pay for AI enquiries), payments go straight into your own Stripe rather than through us, and it plugs into what you already use — WordPress, Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Google Calendar, Squarespace, Webflow, Wix. If you have no website at all, we build one. Very few competitors will do that part.

Subba.pro's answer

UK owner-operators in local businesses that take bookings by hand — typically one to ten people, where the owner is the receptionist.

Four clusters: salons, barbers and beauty; studios (yoga, pilates, personal training); clinics (therapists, dentists, foot health, vets); and trades (plumbers, electricians, builders, cleaners).

The common thread isn't the sector, it's the situation. The owner is doing the work with their hands full, so enquiries go unanswered for hours. They're not technical, they don't want a new system to learn, and they've usually been quoted far too much for a website. They feel the pain as missed calls, a full voicemail box and jobs that quietly went to whoever replied first.