Fresha Fees Explained: Is It Really Free?

So, is Fresha actually free?

Let's answer the headline first. No, Fresha is not free in the way it once was. For years it built its name on a simple promise: keep your calendar, your bookings and your client list at no monthly cost.

That is what pulled so many salons and barbershops onto it in the first place. The pricing has since moved on, and the word "free" now needs an asterisk roughly the size of a shopfront.

According to Fresha's own pricing, there are now several separate charges, and most of them are easy to overlook until they land on your statement.

None of them is truly hidden, but they are spread across your subscription, your card payments and your marketplace bookings, so the real cost only shows up once you add them together. Let's take each one in turn.

The fees that make up your Fresha bill

There are three charges that matter most, plus a couple of smaller ones. Here is what each one is and, just as importantly, when it actually applies.

1. The monthly subscription

Fresha now charges a flat monthly subscription for the software. If you are a one-person business, the Independent plan is £14.95 a month.

If you have a team, the Team plan is £9.95 per team member a month, so a three-person salon pays around £29.85, a five-person team roughly £49.75, and so on. It scales with your headcount, which is worth remembering before you add that part-time Saturday stylist.

This is the part that surprises long-time users, because the old Fresha did not charge it at all. It is a genuine fixed cost now, due whether you take a single booking that month or a hundred.

2. Card payment processing fees

If you use Fresha to take card payments, deposits or tips, you pay a processing fee on each one.

Fresha's published UK rates are 1.40% plus 25p for an online payment, 1.19% plus 20p for an in-person payment through its card terminal (plus 7p per tap-to-pay authorisation), and 2.20% plus 20p if a card is keyed in by hand.

On a £40 online payment that works out at roughly 81p. It feels trivial until you multiply it by every card transaction you take in a month.

One thing worth knowing: in the UK you are not allowed to add card processing fees onto your clients' bills as a surcharge, so this comes out of your margin, not theirs.

Card fees are normal for any payment provider, and they only apply if you choose to process payments through Fresha, but they are still a real part of the cost of running on it.

3. The marketplace new client fee

This is the fee that catches people out. When a brand new client discovers you through the Fresha marketplace, the consumer app and website where people search for salons near them, and then books online, Fresha charges a one-off 20% commission on that first appointment, with a minimum of £4.

Per Fresha's marketplace fee rules, it is charged once per new client rather than on every visit, and it does not apply to add-ons, memberships, gift cards, products or tips.

The important word is "new". The fee only applies when the person is not already on your clients list and they genuinely found you through the marketplace. If a regular rebooks, or someone books through your own Fresha link, your Google listing or your Instagram, there is no commission at all.

The sensible habit is to check each new client charge against your own records, because a familiar face booking through the app can occasionally be counted as a fresh marketplace discovery. Keep your client list tidy and glance at your invoices.

4. Text messages and the smaller extras

There are minor costs on top. Fresha includes 20 free text messages a month, then charges around 6p per SMS for reminders and marketing after that, with WhatsApp messages priced separately.

On their own these are pennies, but a busy salon firing out reminders to cut no-shows can quietly turn this into a line worth watching.

Fresha fees at a glance

Read down that last column and you can see the shape of it. One fee is fixed, and the rest are choices: they only bite if you take payment through Fresha or lean on the marketplace for new clients.

What Fresha might actually cost you: a worked example

Fees on a page never feel real until you run your own numbers, so here is a rough illustration. Treat it as an example built from Fresha's published rates, not a quote or an average, because your real figure depends entirely on your team size, how you take payment and how many clients arrive from the marketplace.

Picture a three-person salon. The subscription is 3 x £9.95, so £29.85 a month. Most payments go through Fresha: say 200 card transactions a month at an average of £35, mostly online, which at 1.40% plus 25p comes to roughly £98 in card fees.

And suppose five genuinely new clients find you through the marketplace that month, each spending about £45 on their first visit, adding another £45 or so at 20%. Put those together and you are near £173 for the month.

Now change the assumptions and watch it move. Take payments in cash or through your own separate card machine and the processing fees fall away. Win your own clients through Google and social rather than the marketplace, and the 20% commission all but vanishes.

Depend on the marketplace for most of your new business, and that line grows instead. The point is not the exact total, it is that "free" and "a couple of hundred pounds a month" can both be true on Fresha, depending entirely on how you use it.

So is Fresha free? The honest verdict

Here is the fair way to put it. Fresha is free to sign up for, free to set up and free for a client to browse. It is not free to run a business on. The software now carries a real monthly price, and the moment you take payments or accept clients from the marketplace, the percentages start ticking.

That does not make it a bad deal, just a normal one. Every booking platform has to earn its keep somehow, and Fresha simply leans heavily on payment and marketplace fees.

That is why it can look almost free to a quiet solo operator and surprisingly pricey to a busy team that lives off marketplace bookings. Working out which of those you are is the whole game.

Who Fresha's fees suit, and who they don't

In our work with salons, clinics and barbershops across South Yorkshire, the same pattern comes up again and again. Fresha's fee model tends to work well when:

• You are brand new and rely on the marketplace to get discovered. Paying 20% once to win a client you would never have found otherwise can be money well spent.
• You want built-in deposits and no-show protection, and you are happy to pay the card fees for the convenience.
• You are a solo operator with modest volume, where £14.95 a month and the odd fee barely register.

It tends to work far less well when:

• You already have a full book and win most of your clients yourself, through Google, Instagram and referrals. Paying commission on people who would have booked you anyway is money straight down the drain.
• You run a larger team, where per-person subscriptions and card fees stack up quickly.
• You would rather own your client relationships and your reputation outright, instead of leasing them from a marketplace that can rewrite its terms or lift its charges without warning.

If you recognise your salon in that second list, it is worth reading our honest rundown of Fresha alternatives for UK salons, along with our breakdown of what a booking system actually costs to build if you are weighing up renting versus owning.

How to keep your Fresha fees down

If you are staying on Fresha for now, a few simple habits keep the bill sensible:

• Share your own booking link everywhere. Put your direct Fresha link on your Google Business Profile, your Instagram bio and your website, so clients book through you and not the marketplace. Bookings through your own link avoid the 20% new client fee entirely.
• Keep your client list clean and current. The new client fee only applies to people who are not already on your list, so make sure regulars are saved and query any "new client" charge that looks like a familiar name.
• Decide deliberately whether to use Fresha for payments. Card fees are optional; you can run bookings through Fresha and still take payment however you like. Weigh the convenience of deposits and no-show protection against the percentage.
• Use deposits and reminders where they earn their keep. Deposits genuinely cut no-shows, which often justifies the card fee, and our guide to reducing no-show appointments shows how to set them up without scaring clients off.
• Watch your text usage. Twenty free messages disappear fast in a busy month, so lean on email reminders where you sensibly can.

The bigger lever, though, is ownership. Every fee on Fresha exists because you are booking through someone else's platform.

Build booking into your own website and the maths changes: no marketplace commission on your own clients, no per-person platform subscription, and a booking journey that looks and feels like your business rather than an app. It is exactly why a growing number of salons ask us to build booking straight into their own site.

That is exactly what happened for Classica Beauty, a South Yorkshire salon we built a site for. As their founder, Jade, told us: "Since the new site launched my diary has barely had a gap.

The ads and local SEO bring people in, and the site turns them into bookings before I've even picked up the phone." No marketplace, no per-booking cut, just her own site doing the work. You can see more of that in our portfolio.

Frequently asked questions

Is Fresha really free?

Not any more. Fresha is free to sign up for and free for clients to browse, but running a business on it now costs money.

You pay a monthly subscription from £14.95, card processing fees if you take payment through Fresha, and a one-off 20% fee on new clients who find you via the Fresha marketplace.

How much does Fresha cost per month in the UK?

The software alone is £14.95 a month if you work solo, or £9.95 per team member on the Team plan, so a three-person salon pays around £29.85 before any usage.

On top of that sit card processing fees and marketplace commission, so a busy team can reach a few hundred pounds a month once everything is added up.

What is Fresha's new client fee?

It is a one-off 20% commission, with a £4 minimum, charged when a brand new client discovers you through the Fresha marketplace and books online.

It applies once per new client, not on repeat visits, and never on people who book through your own link, Google or social. Existing clients on your list are not charged.

Can I use Fresha without paying any fees?

Almost, but not entirely. You still owe the monthly subscription. Card processing fees only apply if you take payment through Fresha, and the marketplace commission only applies to new clients from the marketplace.

Take payments your own way and share your own booking link, and you can avoid both of those, leaving just the subscription.

Are Fresha's fees worth it for a salon?

It depends where your clients come from. If the Fresha marketplace regularly brings you new faces, paying 20% once to win them can pay off.

If you already fill your book through Google, referrals and repeat custom, you are often paying fees on business you would have had anyway, and owning your own booking usually works out cheaper.

Worked out that Fresha's fees no longer add up for you? We help salons, clinics and barbershops move from renting a marketplace to owning their own booking, branded to their business and built to keep more of every payment.

Grab a free, no-obligation chat. We'll look at your real numbers together and say honestly whether Fresha still earns its keep in your business, or whether owning your booking would put you in a stronger spot.