New marketplace lets barbershops list open chairs free and keep 100% of the rent, while licensed barbers find a verified chair in minutes instead of weeks
ChairUp, the barbershop chair marketplace, launched today across South Florida, giving barbershops a way to fill empty chairs with verified, licensed barbers — and giving barbers a way to find their next chair without Craigslist posts, Instagram DMs, or weeks of word of mouth.
Chair rental is already how the barbering industry works: most barbers are independent professionals who rent a chair rather than work as employees. But the market that connects them has never been organized. An empty chair costs a shop owner between $500 and $2,000 a month in lost rent, while licensed barbers routinely spend weeks finding a place to work through informal channels with no verification and no trust on either side.
ChairUp replaces that with a marketplace built for how the industry actually operates. Shops list open chairs free with price, photos, and availability — and keep 100% of the rent. Barbers verify their license against state licensing records, showcase their work through video portfolios, and book a chair by the week or month. Payments are engineered for chair rental: a barber’s card is authorized when a booking is accepted and charged only when the shop confirms check-in, with built-in no-show protection for shops. Payments run on Stripe.
“I’ve spent my career building companies that connect people to work, and barbering is the most underserved matching problem I’ve ever seen,” said Adam Fineberg, founder and CEO of ChairUp. “The money already moves every week in this industry — it just moves through handwritten signs and DMs. Shops shouldn’t lose rent on empty chairs, and licensed professionals shouldn’t need luck to find one. Now the whole market is in one place, verified, with payments handled.”
ChairUp launches first in Palm Beach County, expanding across Broward and Miami-Dade — a tri-county market with more than 1,500 licensed barbershops and 8,000 licensed barbers — with statewide and national expansion to follow. The platform is free for shops; barbers pay a 5% marketplace fee on rentals.
Barbershops and barbers can join today at chairup.io.
ChairUp is the marketplace for barbershop chair rentals, connecting licensed barbers, cosmetologists, and beauty professionals with barbershops, salons, and studios renting open chairs and stations. Founded by serial entrepreneur Adam Fineberg, ChairUp is headquartered in South Florida. Learn more at chairup.io