- Specialization
- Not classified
- Business
- Software Applications
- Market
- Beauty and Personal Care
- Ecosystem
- Not applicable
- Customers
- Small Businesses
More details
- Organization type
- Commercial Company
- Ecosystem
- Not applicable
- Business
- Software Applications
- Specialization
- Not classified
- Market
- Beauty and Personal Care
- Customers
- Small Businesses
- Delivery models
- Hosted Software
- Revenue models
- Transaction Fees, Subscription
- Listing status
- Not classified
- Latest equity round
- Seed
- Reported funding amount
- Not classified
About
Venue.ink builds an all-in-one booking and business platform for tattoo artists and studios, combining customizable forms, scheduling, client communication, flash management, deposits, and payments. Its differentiation is a tattoo-specific workflow designed to reduce administrative work while keeping the core product free for artists.
Market
Venue.ink competes in vertical SaaS for tattoo-business operations, combining appointment booking, client communication, scheduling, payments, flash management, and studio/event workflows in one platform. It differentiates from broader salon tools such as Vagaro, Booksy, GlossGenius, and Fresha through tattoo-native workflows, while also positioning itself as artist-friendly through a free-to-artists model funded primarily by a client booking fee.
Venue.ink targets independent tattoo artists and small-to-mid-sized tattoo studios that manage their own bookings, calendars, deposits, payments, and client conversations. Its workflows are designed for tattoo-specific needs such as flash catalogs, custom booking forms, reference images, guest spots, multiple studios, conventions, and reduced back-and-forth with clients.
At a Glance
Problem
Tattoo artists often run their businesses through Instagram DMs, spreadsheets, paper calendars, and disconnected payment apps. That workflow makes it difficult to track who has been answered, collect deposits automatically, send reminders, and protect against last-minute cancellations; more importantly, it turns time that could be spent tattooing into administrative follow-up. The killer use case is replacing a DM-heavy process with a single booking link where a client submits the required information, selects or receives a time, pays a deposit, and receives the necessary follow-up.
Product / Service
Venue.ink is a vertical booking and business-management platform for tattoo artists and studios. It combines customizable intake forms, artist-controlled calendars, proposed or client-selected appointment times, deposits, full payments, tips, automated reminders, client chat, and flash-art organization. The product is available on the web and through iOS and Android apps, with Stripe handling payouts and support for card payments, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Affirm, and other checkout options.
The core solo-artist product is free to use, with Venue monetizing primarily through a client-facing fee—typically 10% on deposits and payments, including payment-processing and platform costs—while studio and subscription options are also available. This aligns the company’s revenue with booking activity and lowers adoption friction for artists, while giving them a way to consolidate their workflow and reduce payment chasing, missed appointments, and scattered client conversations.
Market
Venue.ink competes in vertical SaaS for tattoo artists and studios, at the intersection of appointment scheduling, creator-business management, and embedded payments. Its tattoo-specific competitors include Porter, Tattoo Studio Pro, and InkDesk, while broader scheduling and commerce alternatives include Square, Acuity, and Vagaro. Venue differentiates by combining tattoo-oriented intake, flash management, deposits, messaging, scheduling, and payments in one product rather than asking artists to assemble a stack of generic tools.
The company is not pre-revenue. Y Combinator lists Venue.ink as an active Winter 2022 company in the SaaS, fintech, and creator-economy categories, and Stripe reports that the platform has reached 10,000 tattoo artists, processes more than $40 million in annual gross payment volume, and has averaged more than 30% month-over-month payment-volume growth since launch. Those figures indicate meaningful adoption and transaction traction, although they come from company and partner-reported sources rather than audited financial disclosures.
Founders & Leadership
Funding History
Sequoia Capital, base case, Pathlight Ventures
Recent News
Venue Ink launched Artist Website, a free tool for tattoo artists to share booking information and aftercare details and build a mailing list. The company said artists can also share social links and manage whether their books are open.
Venue Ink announced a partnership with Painful Pleasures that gives Venue users access to discounted tattoo machines. The announcement included a discount code.
Venue Ink announced that its tattoo booking app is live on the App Store and Play Store. The app lets artists manage bookings, payments, flash designs, calendars, and client messages from a mobile device.
Venue announced enhanced booking terms so clients see and agree to non-refundable deposit terms. The associated update also added a monthly calendar view and displayed client last names on tattoo requests.
Venue announced that Google Calendar syncing is available, automatically blocking times when an artist is busy on their tattoo booking calendar. Venue says the sync reads availability rather than event details.
Stripe reported that Venue.ink had onboarded more than 10,000 tattoo artists, processed over $40 million in annual gross payment volume, and was seeing more than 30% month-over-month payment-volume growth. The coverage highlights Venue’s use of Stripe Connect, Stripe Terminal, and expansion into the UK, Australia, and other markets.
Venue’s App Store listing presents its mobile booking and business platform for tattoo artists, including customizable booking forms, deposits and payments, inquiry and availability management, flash management, reminders, calendars, and support for multiple studios and conventions.
Active Roles
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Get notified when they postBusiness Model
Venue.ink keeps the core product free for artists by adding booking and payment fees to client transactions, with card processing fees listed at 10% on the Solo plan. It also offers paid Pro subscriptions—$50 per month for Solo Pro and $150 per month for Studio Pro—which reduce the transaction fee to 5%.