Last Updated on September 17, 2026
Every Fresha and Booksy figure on this page was read on their own UK pages on 15 September 2026. Fresha’s pricing page appears to change by location, so we read it from a UK connection. Treatwell figures come from our Treatwell cost breakdown, checked on 28 July 2026. Where a vendor does not publish a number, we say so. No affiliate links on this page. How Whito makes money.
Most salon owners compare booking software on the monthly fee. Fresha’s starts at £14.95. That is the smallest number on the bill.
The bigger cost is the fee Fresha charges when its marketplace brings you a new client: 20% of their first appointment, with a £4 minimum, plus VAT. Some of the people it counts as new were already yours. This page prices the whole thing, shows where the fee catches salons out, and compares it with Booksy and Treatwell on the same £50 booking.
What Fresha costs at a glance (checked 15 September 2026)
| Cost | Fresha | Booksy | Treatwell (checked 28 July 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subscription | £14.95 a month on Independent (one bookable person), or £9.95 a month per bookable team member on Team | £40 a month, plus £5 a month per extra user | Not published for the UK |
| New client from the marketplace | 20% of the first appointment, one time, minimum £4 | Nothing, unless you switch on Boost: then 30% of the first visit, one time, minimum £5 | 35% of the first marketplace booking |
| Returning clients | Free | Free | 0% |
| Card payment in the salon | 1.19% + 20p, plus 7p per Tap to Pay authorisation | Tap to Pay 0.99% + 20p; mobile payments 1.29% + 20p | Your own card machine |
| Online payment | 1.40% + 25p | See mobile payments | 2.5% on prepayments |
| VAT | “Rates are exclusive of 20.0% sales tax” | “All services are subject to VAT”, including transaction fees | Commission and fees plus VAT |
| Contract | No minimum commitment, cancel any time | No commitment, cancel any time | See the Treatwell page |
Fresha’s Enterprise pricing for businesses with more than 20 team members is custom and not published.
The 20% new client fee, and who Fresha counts as new
Fresha’s help centre sets out the rules. The fee applies when all three of these are true:
- the client is not already in your Fresha client list when they book
- they first found your business on the Fresha marketplace and then booked online
- when booking, they confirmed they had not visited your business before
It is charged once, on the value of the first appointment as booked online. Extras added at checkout, tips, and memberships, gift cards or products bought online are not included. Fresha says there is a cap for higher-value services and a minimum for low-value ones. The £4 minimum is on its pricing page. The cap is not, so we cannot tell you what it is.
Three rules catch salons out:
- Your own link, their fee. The fee also applies when a client looks at your Fresha marketplace profile and then books through your website or social media link.
- Your regulars can count as new. A long-standing client who is not in your Fresha client list, and who does not confirm a previous visit, is treated as a new marketplace client. Fresha’s own advice is to import every existing client before you list.
- Cancellations you process still cost. If you or your team cancel the appointment for the client, or leave it unmanaged in the calendar, the fee still applies. If the client cancels online, the fee moves to their next booking. If they do not show and you mark it as a no-show on the same day, there is no fee. The fee is non-refundable.
The £50 booking, worked through
A new client finds you on each platform’s marketplace and books a £50 treatment. They pay by card in the salon. Figures assume a salon that is not VAT registered, so VAT on the platform’s charges is a real cost. A VAT-registered salon can usually reclaim it.
| Platform | Commission | VAT on commission | Card fee | Platform takes | You keep |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fresha | £10.00 | £2.00 | about 80p | about £12.80 | about £37.20 |
| Booksy, Boost off | £0 | £0 | about 83p (Tap to Pay, with VAT) | about 83p | about £49.17 |
| Booksy, Boost on | £15.00 | £3.00 | about 83p | about £18.83 | about £31.17 |
| Treatwell | £17.50 | £3.50 | your own machine | £21.00, or £22.50 if prepaid online | £29.00, or £27.50 |
The same client’s second visit costs no commission on any of the three. The fee is a one-off marketing cost, so judge it the way you would judge an advert: by whether the client comes back.
One thing the table cannot show is how many new clients each marketplace actually sends. Booksy with Boost off costs nothing per client, but Booksy sells Boost as the way to get more visibility. We have not measured the difference, so we do not claim one.
The £4 minimum on cheap services
Twenty per cent of a £20 service is £4, so the minimum bites on any first booking below £20.
On a £15 brow tint, the fee is £4, which is 27% of the ticket. With VAT it is £4.80, or 32%. If your menu is built on quick, low-price services, the “20%” headline understates what a new marketplace client costs you.
Subscription, texts and add-ons on top
The subscription depends on how many people take bookings.
| Bookable people | Fresha a month | Booksy a month |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | £14.95 (£17.94 with VAT) | £40.00 (£48.00 with VAT) |
| 4 | £39.80 (£47.76 with VAT) | £55.00 (£66.00 with VAT) |
| 8 | £79.60 (£95.52 with VAT) | £75.00 (£90.00 with VAT) |
On subscription alone, Booksy becomes cheaper than Fresha’s Team plan from eight bookable people. Commission changes that. A solo therapist whose average first booking is £40 pays Fresha £8 plus VAT per marketplace client, so from the fourth marketplace client in a month, Fresha costs more than Booksy with Boost off. For a team of four, it is from the second.
Other charges on Fresha’s pricing page:
- Texts and WhatsApp: 20 free automated texts a month (per team member on Team), then 6p a text or 5p to 10p per WhatsApp. Marketing emails: 50 free, then 2p each. Marketing texts: 8p each. Booksy includes 500 marketing texts a month, then 5p, and appointment reminders are always free.
- Add-ons priced per location, per month: AI Concierge £79.95, Client Loyalty £49.95, Google Rating Boost £12.95, Xero connection £7.95 and Data Connector £190. A second salon pays each of these twice.
- Add-ons priced per team member, per month: Team Connect £2.49 and Insights £7.95.
- Other: Smart website £12.95 a month. Premium phone and chat support on Independent £14.95 a month (included on Team).
- Other payment rates: manual card entry 2.20% + 20p; Klarna pay-later 4.49% + 50p.
- Card terminals: from £99 per device on Independent; on Team, free subject to processing volumes.
When your money arrives
If you take payments through Fresha, the money goes into a Fresha business wallet first, then to your bank. By default, payouts are daily: funds collected before midnight are sent by the next business day, as long as that day’s balance is over 50 (Fresha’s help page does not name the currency). Smaller balances are paid the following Monday. You can switch to weekly or monthly payouts, or move settled funds by hand, which takes around 24 hours. Money taken at weekends or on bank holidays is released the next business day.
Booksy offers Fast Payouts within 30 minutes for a 1.5% fee.
Can you keep Fresha and avoid the marketplace fee?
Not completely. Fresha says your profile must be listed on its marketplace to take online bookings through your website and social pages. Unlisting the profile switches off all your Fresha online booking channels.
What you can do is reduce the fee:
- Import every client before you list. Existing clients in your list do not trigger the fee.
- Merge duplicate client profiles, so a regular does not look new.
- Put a booking QR code on your door and desk, as Fresha suggests, so walk-past customers book through your link.
- Ask clients to cancel online, and mark no-shows on the day. Both change whether the fee is charged.
Do not try to dodge the fee by listing services at the wrong price or cancelling and rebooking. Fresha’s partner terms allow it to withhold payments due to you if it suspects a partner is trying to avoid its fees.
Fresha vs Booksy vs Treatwell vs booking direct
- Fresha suits a salon that wants cheap software for a small team and is happy to pay a one-off 20% for new clients.
- Booksy suits a salon that wants one flat, predictable monthly bill and does not need marketplace promotion, or one with a large team.
- Treatwell costs the most per new client, 35% plus VAT on our last check, and has a 365-day reset that can charge you again for a lapsed regular. See our Treatwell cost breakdown.
- Booking direct means no commission at all. A booking tool without a marketplace, such as SumUp Bookings, charges only a card fee (2.5% on payments when we checked). See our SumUp review and our booking systems comparison.
Which salons Fresha suits, and which should look elsewhere
Fresha suits small teams that want low software costs, salons that need new clients and will rebook them, and owners willing to import and tidy their client list before listing.
Look elsewhere if your diary is already full of regulars, your core services are under about £20, you want a fixed monthly bill, or you run several locations and want per-location add-ons.
The Whito stage check
Start. One chair. Fix rebooking first: book visit two in the chair. Claim your free Google Business Profile. If you use Fresha, import every client before you list and skip the add-ons.
Build. A small team. The Team plan is priced per bookable person. Track each marketplace client’s fee against whether they return. Commission is a marketing cost; budget it like one.
Scale. Several sites or more than 20 team members. Enterprise pricing is custom, and most add-ons are charged per location, so price the whole group before you sign.
Before paying any marketplace for new clients, check whether people can find you without one. Our free Visibility Check shows how findable and trusted your salon looks on Google and in AI search. For free ways to fill the diary, see free marketing for hairdressers, and our research on what a typical UK salon loses every year.
How we checked this
On 15 September 2026 we read Fresha’s pricing page from a UK connection, its help articles on marketplace new client fees and automatic payouts, and its partner terms. We read Booksy’s UK pricing page the same day. We could not open Booksy’s help article on who counts as a new Boost client, so we do not describe that rule. Treatwell figures are from our own page, checked on 28 July 2026. The worked examples are our arithmetic on those published rates. Our full approach is on the review methodology page. Spotted something out of date? Email hello@whito.co.uk.
Common questions
How much does Fresha cost in the UK?
Fresha costs £14.95 a month for one bookable person on its Independent plan, or £9.95 a month per bookable team member on its Team plan, plus VAT. On top of that it charges a one-time fee of 20% of the first appointment, minimum £4, for new clients who find you through its marketplace. In-salon card payments cost 1.19% plus 20p and online payments 1.40% plus 25p.
What is Fresha’s new client fee?
Fresha charges a one-time fee of 20% of the first appointment, with a £4 minimum, plus VAT, when a client who is not already in your client list finds your business on the Fresha marketplace and books online. Returning clients are free. Fresha says the fee is capped for higher-value services but does not publish the cap on its pricing page.
Does Fresha charge the fee if a client books through my own website?
It can. Fresha’s help centre says the fee applies to new clients who viewed your Fresha marketplace profile and then booked through another online channel, including your website or social media pages. Importing your existing clients before you list stops regulars being charged as new.
Can I use Fresha without the marketplace?
Not if you want online booking. Fresha says your profile must be listed on its marketplace to take online bookings through your website and social pages, and unlisting it switches off all Fresha online booking channels.
Is Fresha cheaper than Booksy or Treatwell?
On a £50 first booking from a marketplace client, Fresha takes about £12 including VAT, Treatwell about £21, and Booksy nothing unless Boost is switched on, when it takes about £18. On subscription, Fresha is cheaper than Booksy’s £40 a month for teams of up to seven bookable people, but each marketplace client adds to Fresha’s bill.
When does Fresha pay out?
By default Fresha pays out daily: funds collected before midnight are sent to your bank by the next business day if that day’s balance is over 50, otherwise the following Monday. Weekend and bank holiday takings are released the next business day. Weekly and monthly schedules are also available.
The sharp takeaway
Fresha’s software is cheap. Its new clients are not free. Import every client before you list, check what the £4 minimum does to your cheapest service, and treat every marketplace booking as an advert that only pays if the client comes back.
