Booksy charges £40 a month plus £5 per extra team member, and 30% when Boost finds you a client. Fresha charges per head and 20% on marketplace clients. Which costs your salon less, by team size.
If you're choosing between Fresha and Booksy, you're really choosing how you'd rather be charged. One bills you for every chair, the other a fixed monthly fee with a small charge per extra person. Both can take a cut of the first visit when a stranger books through their app: Fresha whenever its marketplace sends them, Booksy only if you've switched its Boost feature on.
Here's the quick answer on Fresha vs Booksy. Fresha comes out cheaper if you work alone or with a couple of others: £14.95 a month on your own, or £9.95 per team member, with 20% (minimum £4) on new clients from its marketplace. Booksy is £40 a month plus £5 for each extra team member, and takes 30% (minimum £5) of the first visit by a brand-new client, but only while you've switched its Boost feature on. Around eight people, Booksy's £40-plus-£5 pricing starts to work out cheaper. All prices below are before VAT, read from each company's own UK pages on 28 October 2026.
How Booksy charges
Booksy's UK pricing page offers one plan: £40 a month for everything, plus £5 a month for each additional team member. There's a 7-day free trial with no card needed, no commitment, and you can cancel whenever you like. VAT goes on top of the subscription and the card fees.
The commission comes from a feature called Boost. Booksy describes it as optional and free to switch on. While it's on, Booksy promotes you in its app, and when it brings you someone who has never booked with you, you pay a one-off 30% of that first visit, never less than £5. According to Booksy's Boost page, the second visit is yours in full, and clients who reach you through your Instagram or Facebook button, Google Search and Maps, your own booking link or a QR code cost nothing.
Booksy lists marketplace bookings as included in the plan, so you can still appear in its app with Boost turned off. You just won't get the extra visibility that Boost buys.
Fresha's per-head pricing
On Fresha's pricing page, a self-employed stylist pays £14.95 a month on the Independent plan. On the Team plan you pay £9.95 for each team member, and salons with more than 20 people get a custom quote. You get seven days to try it, you can leave whenever you want, and every rate is quoted before VAT.
The 20% marketplace fee is charged once, on the first booking of a client who found you through Fresha's marketplace, with a £4 floor. Regulars never trigger it. Bookings that come in through your own site or social pages are usually free of it too, unless the person looked at your Fresha marketplace profile first (more on that below). Every other Fresha charge, from texts to add-ons, is in our full guide to Fresha fees.
The rule that catches Fresha users out
Fresha's help article on new-client fees says your profile must be listed on its marketplace for online booking to work through your website and social media. Unlisting "will disable all your online booking channels". So on Fresha, being in the marketplace isn't really optional.
The same article says the fee can apply when someone looks at your marketplace profile first and then books on your own site. Anyone already saved in your Clients list is exempt, so get your existing clients into Fresha before you switch online booking on.
Booksy's set-up is the other way round. The commission sits behind a switch you control, and its Boost page names the channels that never cost you anything.
Fresha vs Booksy: the costs side by side
Everything here comes from each company's own UK pages. "Not published" means we couldn't find the figure on them, not that there's no charge.
| Fresha | Booksy | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee | Independent £14.95; Team £9.95 each | £40, plus £5 per additional team member |
| Commission on a new client | 20%, never under £4 | 30%, never under £5 |
| When commission applies | Clients who discover you on the Fresha marketplace | Only while Boost is switched on |
| Repeat visits | Free of commission | Free of commission |
| Card at the counter | 1.19% + 20p (Tap to Pay adds 7p) | Tap to Pay 0.99% + 20p |
| Other card payments | Online 1.40% + 25p | Mobile Payments 1.29% + 20p |
| Card machine | From £99 | Card Reader offered, price not published |
| Free texts | 20 a month (or 20 per team member), then 6p | 500 marketing texts a month, then 5p (reminders included separately) |
| VAT | Rates shown before VAT | VAT added to all services |
| Contract | None, cancel any time | None, cancel any time |
| Free trial | 7 days | 7 days, no card needed |
What the monthly fee comes to for your team
This is where the two pull apart. Fresha's price climbs with every person you add, while Booksy's barely moves. We've read Booksy's "each additional team member" as meaning the £40 covers the first person.
| Team size | Fresha a month | Booksy a month |
|---|---|---|
| Just you | £14.95 | £40 |
| 3 people | £29.85 | £50 |
| 6 people | £59.70 | £65 |
| 8 people | £79.60 | £75 |
On your own, Fresha costs well under half of Booksy's price. With six on the rota there's about £5 between them, and at eight Booksy is the cheaper subscription. A big barbershop with a full bench of chairs gains the most from Booksy's pricing.
What one new client from the app costs
Commission only lands when the app introduces someone new, but it's the biggest single charge either platform makes. Here's the cut on three first bookings, before VAT and leaving card fees out.
| First booking | Fresha takes | Booksy takes (Boost on) |
|---|---|---|
| £15 service | £4 | £5 |
| £40 service | £8 | £12 |
| £90 service | £18 | £27 |
On a £15 beard trim both minimums kick in, so the gap is only a pound. On a £90 colour it's £9 for a single client. The real difference, though, is control. With Booksy you choose whether to pay for Boost at all, and you can switch it off when the diary is full.
Card fees on a £40 appointment
Card fees land on every appointment paid by card, so a few pence each time adds up. Below is the cost of taking £40 on each, VAT not included.
| Payment method | Fresha | Booksy |
|---|---|---|
| Contactless on your own phone | £0.75 | £0.60 |
| Card machine or terminal | £0.68 | Card Reader rate not published |
| Pays in the app or online | £0.81 | £0.72 (Mobile Payments) |
Booksy is a few pence cheaper on Tap to Pay. Fresha publishes its terminal price and rate, while Booksy's card reader price isn't on its pricing page, so ask before you buy one.
What's included with each
Both cover the day-to-day: a diary, online booking, reminders, a till and reports. These are the differences that show up on their pricing pages.
| Feature | Fresha | Booksy |
|---|---|---|
| Waitlists | Included | Included |
| Memberships, packages and gift cards | Included | Included |
| Forms | Consultation forms and patch tests | Custom forms |
| Booking from Google | Not mentioned on the pricing page | Reserve with Google, included |
| No-show protection | No-show and cancellation fees, listed | Included (card fees apply) |
| Text marketing | 8p per marketing text | Inside the 500 free marketing texts |
| Retail and an online shop | Included | Not on the pricing page |
| Loyalty scheme | Paid extra at £49.95 per location monthly | Loyalty cards named on its site, not on the price list |
If you sell products or run patch tests for colour clients, Fresha's list is longer. If you want bookings straight from Google Maps and a bigger allowance of marketing texts in the base price, Booksy packs more into its single plan.
Fresha suits you if
- You work alone or with two or three others, where the per-head fee stays low.
- Your services are pricier, so a 20% cut beats 30% by more each time.
- You sell retail or need patch tests and consultation forms built in.
Booksy suits you if
- You run a bigger team, roughly eight or more, where £40 plus £5 a head comes in under £9.95 each.
- You want to choose when to pay for new clients, and switch it off when you're booked up.
- You run a barbershop. Barbers come first in Booksy's software menu, so check which app the barbershops near you are actually listed on.
Or skip the commission and own your booking
Fair warning, this is our bit. We build booking systems that sit on your own website, and they charge no commission at all, on new faces or regulars. Booking Pro is £2,500 to set up and £59 a month, plus VAT, and includes online booking that sends its own confirmations and reminders, an automatic ask for a review once each appointment is done, and one dashboard for bookings and enquiries.
What you give up is the app's shop window: nobody browsing Fresha or Booksy will stumble on you. If most of your diary is regulars and friends of regulars, that window is something you're paying for and barely using.
For Derma Aesthetics in South Hiendley, people pick a treatment and a slot over a few screens, the request goes into her real diary, and nothing is confirmed until Danielle approves it. What she wrote on Google, unedited: "Tahir has taken care of of my website and social media content for my aesthetic business, his work is amazing, communication is fantastic can’t wait to see my business grow, thank you"
Comparing Fresha with Treatwell too? Our Fresha and Treatwell comparison sets the two out side by side.
Frequently asked questions
Is Booksy free?
No. Booksy’s UK plan costs £40 a month, plus £5 for each extra team member and VAT, after a seven-day free trial that does not ask for a card. Appearing in its marketplace is part of that fee. The only commission is the optional Boost charge on brand-new clients it sends you.
Does Booksy charge commission?
Only if you turn on Boost. Booksy then takes a one-off 30% of the first appointment, at least £5, for each brand-new client that Boost sent you. After that they are yours in full, and bookings made through your personal link, Google Maps or your Instagram button carry no commission.
Can I leave Fresha or Booksy whenever I like?
Both say so. Fresha’s pricing page says you can cancel at any time with no contract to sit out, and Booksy’s says no commitment is required. Before you go, get your client list out and send regulars your new booking link so nobody is lost in the move.
Can I move my clients from Fresha to Booksy?
Your contacts can come with you, your saved cards cannot. Fresha’s help centre says the client list downloads in Excel or CSV format, but stored cards “cannot be exported or transferred”. Ask Booksy which file layout it accepts before you download, then ask regulars to add a card again at their first Booksy booking.
Still deciding?
So who wins Fresha vs Booksy? Whichever one fits the size of your team and the way new clients actually reach you. Not sure how clients reach you now? Our free 10-point check starts with how people book you, including where the link in your Instagram bio actually takes people, to a booking page of your own or to a marketplace, and it comes back in writing within one working day.
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