ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini: Which AI Should Your Salon Actually Use?

When other owners find out I run my salon's marketing with AI, the first question is never whether it works. It's "which one should I get — ChatGPT? The Google one?" Usually asked while I'm mid-pedicure.

So here's the answer I give at the salon, written down properly: the free tier of any of the big three is more than your marketing needs. Picking between them is the least important decision you'll make. But since you asked —

What they're each like to work with

• ChatGPT — the one everyone knows. Great all-rounder, handles images too, and there's a tutorial for everything because half the internet uses it.
• Claude — my personal pick for writing. Captions and review replies come out sounding most like a person and least like a brochure. It takes editing instructions well: 'shorter, warmer, drop the exclamation marks' actually works.
• Gemini — lives inside Google's world. Handy if your marketing life is Google Business Profile posts and Gmail, since it's right there.

What actually matters: what you say to it

The gap between a useless caption and a great one isn't the AI — it's the instructions. Tell any of the three "write an Instagram caption for my salon" and you'll get the same beige mush from all of them. Tell any of the three this instead:

Write an Instagram caption for [salon name] in [neighbourhood]. Voice: like texting a friend, proud but not salesy. Under 40 words. The photo: [describe it]. End with a soft invite to book. No hashtags except 3 local ones.

— and all three will hand you something you'd actually post. Same machine, different driver. The prompt is the skill, which is why I sell prompts and not 'AI tool recommendations.'

My honest setup at Sarang

Claude writes most of our captions and review replies. ChatGPT gets the brainstorming jobs — month of content ideas, promo angles. Gemini posts to our Google profile. Total monthly cost of the AI itself: zero. The thing you're really spending is the ten minutes of setup — and you only spend it once.

If you're choosing today: pick whichever one you've already opened once, paste in a good prompt, and start. Every pack I sell works on all three, on the free plans, on your phone, tonight.