Fresha Alternatives: Real Pricing, Fees and How to Leave

Published: 2026-07-15

Fresha stopped being the free option on 1 November 2025. A solo Individual plan now runs about $19.95 a month, team plans about $14.95 per bookable staff member, and both sit on top of a 20% commission on the first booking from any client the marketplace sends you. If that combination has turned your booking tool into one of your larger fixed costs, the realistic replacements are Vagaro, GlossGenius, Square Appointments, Booksy, Timely and — at the budget end — flat-rate, commission-free platforms such as Boona. Leaving is straightforward once you export your client list first; the order of operations matters more than the cancel button.

What does Fresha cost in 2026?

Roughly $19.95 per month solo, or $14.95 per month per bookable team member, before fees. The subscription is region-priced, so UK and EU salons see the local equivalent rather than a converted figure. Loyalty, advanced reporting, data export and priority support are sold as add-ons, which means the advertised number is a floor rather than a total.

The subscription is rarely what stings. Fresha's model monetises the client relationship, so the fees layered on top do the real work: 20% commission on the first booking from a new marketplace client, card processing around 2.79% + $0.20 online and 2.29% + $0.20 in person, plus charges attached to late cancellations and no-shows. Two salons on identical plans can pay very different amounts depending on how much of their book arrives through the marketplace.

Why the marketplace commission is hard to budget for

Because it scales with your growth rather than your usage. Consider a two-chair studio on the Team plan: $29.90 a month in subscription. In a quiet month with six new marketplace clients at an average $70 service, commission adds about $84 — the tool costs roughly $114. In a good month with twenty new marketplace clients, commission alone is $280 and the bill lands near $310. Nothing about the software changed; the busier month simply cost nearly three times more.

That is the calculation that pushes salons to leave. If your chairs are filled by your own regulars, referrals and social following, the marketplace cut buys you exposure you were not relying on. If the marketplace genuinely is your acquisition channel, 20% on a first booking may well be cheaper than the ads you would run instead — in which case staying put is the rational answer, and the rest of this page is academic.

Which alternative fits which kind of salon?

Match the tool to how you actually operate, not to the headline price. A solo pro with light admin needs a scheduler; a six-chair salon with retail needs POS, marketing and client records in one place; a multi-location group needs reporting that spans sites. Those are three different products, and the cheapest one is only cheapest if it fits.

Premium and larger multi-staff operations tend to end up on Boulevard or Zenoti, which are priced accordingly and quoted rather than listed. At the other end, the flat-rate options are the ones worth modelling if fee predictability is the whole reason you are moving: a per-location, per-staff price does not move when you have a good quarter.

Whatever your shortlist, price it against your real booking mix over the last three months rather than the advertised subscription. Pull your actual new-client count, multiply by your average first-service value, and compare totals. The ranking often reverses once commission enters the arithmetic.

How do you leave Fresha without losing your client list?

Export the data before you touch anything else — once a workspace is deleted, the client history goes with it. The account mechanics then depend on your role: a personal account is closed from personal settings; a team member leaves the workspace via workspace notifications, confirming with their registered email; a workspace owner must delete the workspace before the account can be deleted at all.

Work in this order:

• Export your client list, appointment history and any reports you would miss.
• Set up and test the new platform, importing that client data.
• Stop accepting new bookings on Fresha, but let existing ones run out.
• Tell clients where to book now — in person, by message, and in your bio.
• Remove Fresha booking links, buttons and embeds from your site and social profiles.
• Only then delete the workspace, and finally the account.

The step most often skipped is the fifth. A live Fresha button on an Instagram profile keeps sending clients to a dead calendar for months after the salon has moved on. Most competitors offer assisted migration of client data to smooth the handover, so ask what it covers before you pay for anything.

Frequently asked questions

Choosing a booking platform is one decision inside a larger set — reminders, deposits, client records and review requests all shape what your software has to do. Our salon and beauty booking software hub covers those pieces as the category grows.