Fresha prints every price; Phorest asks you to request a quote. What each charges, what the four Phorest plans add, and what to ask on the demo.
If your team has grown and the per-head Fresha bill has grown with it, Phorest is probably one of the names on your list. It's the software that sells itself to salons ready for something bigger, and it won't put a price on its website: you have to request a quote.
Fresha vs Phorest in a nutshell: Fresha prints every price, Phorest prints none. Fresha charges per person, £9.95 a month each on its Team plan, plus a one-off 20% fee on each new client its marketplace sends you. Phorest publishes no prices at all. It sells four plans by quote, aimed at salons and clinics with three or more staff, with unlimited staff, set-up and data import included, and no free trial. The question to answer is whether Phorest's quote beats what Fresha costs your team today. We read both companies' UK pricing pages and help articles on 28 October 2026.
What Fresha costs, in public
Fresha puts everything on its pricing page. One person working alone pays £14.95 monthly. Teams pay £9.95 a month per person, and past 20 people it switches to a custom quote. There's a seven-day trial, no contract, and the rates are shown before VAT.
On top of the subscription sits the marketplace fee: a one-off 20%, with a £4 floor, on the first visit of anyone Fresha's marketplace found for you. Its help article on new-client fees adds a catch worth knowing. Your profile has to stay listed on the marketplace for online booking through your website and socials to work at all. Card payments cost 1.19% + 20p in person (7p more with Tap to Pay) and 1.40% + 25p online. The rest of the small print, texts and add-ons included, is in our breakdown of Fresha’s charges.
What Phorest costs: you have to ask
Phorest's UK pricing page lists four plans, Starter, Grow, Ultimate and Elite, and every one of them ends in a "Request a quote" button. There's no monthly figure, no card rate and no contract length anywhere on it. You'll see figures quoted on review sites and in other people's blog posts, but they aren't Phorest's own, so we've left them out.
What the page does tell you is useful, though. Every plan includes unlimited staff and unlimited devices, so hiring another stylist shouldn't change the price. Phorest sets the software up for you, adds your services, staff and products, and its migration team brings your client records across from your old system. The one thing it won't do is let you try it first: its FAQ says plainly that there's no free trial, only a full demo.
Phorest also describes its plans as "perfect for 3+ staff". If you work alone, that's a fair hint it isn't built with you in mind.
Fresha vs Phorest at a glance
Wherever Phorest's column has no figure, its pricing page simply doesn't give one, so put it on your list for the demo.
| Fresha | Phorest | |
|---|---|---|
| How you find the price | On the pricing page | Request a quote |
| Monthly fee | £9.95 a head for teams, £14.95 if you work alone | Four plans, no prices shown |
| Who it says it suits | Anyone from one chair to 20+ | Salons and clinics with 3+ staff |
| Extra staff | Each one adds £9.95 | Unlimited staff on every plan |
| Fee on new clients | 20% (minimum £4) from its marketplace | None listed on the pricing page |
| Card payments | 1.19% + 20p in person (Tap to Pay adds 7p), 1.40% + 25p online | Offered through PhorestPay, rate not published |
| Texts | 20 free a month per team member, then 6p | 9.5p, 8.2p or 7p each by plan; 500 free a month on Elite |
| Set-up and data import | Import tools; paid migration help for larger businesses | Done for you, on every plan |
| Free trial | 7 days | None, a demo instead |
| Contract | None, cancel any time | Not published |
The number to beat when Phorest quotes you
Because Phorest won't name a price, the useful thing to bring to the demo is your own Fresha bill. Here's the subscription alone at different team sizes, before VAT and before any marketplace fees or paid add-ons.
| Team size | Fresha subscription a month | Fresha a year |
|---|---|---|
| 3 people | £29.85 | £358.20 |
| 5 people | £49.75 | £597 |
| 8 people | £79.60 | £955.20 |
| 12 people | £119.40 | £1,432.80 |
| 20 people | £199 | £2,388 |
Then add what you paid Fresha in new-client fees over the last twelve months. Put the two together and you've got the yearly figure Phorest's quote has to beat, or justify with the extra tools it brings.
The four Phorest plans in plain English
This is how Phorest's own plan cards build up, each one including everything in the plan before it.
| Plan | What it adds | Text rate |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | Diary, online booking with deposits, reminders, till, stock, rotas, loyalty and memberships | 9.5p |
| Grow (its most popular) | Review requests, consultation forms sent before the visit, an online shop and gift vouchers, staff training | 8.2p |
| Ultimate | A booking app in your salon’s name on the App Store and Google Play, digital loyalty, referrals, Reserve with Google | 7p |
| Elite | Two-way texting, Phorest Ads Manager, lead tracking, premium consultations | 500 free a month |
Two things stand out. Booking straight from Google Maps doesn't arrive until Ultimate, so check which plan you're being quoted. And several extras, from the branded app to two-way texting, are marked as optional add-ons on the lower plans, with no price beside them.
What to ask on the Phorest demo
A demo is a sales call, so go in with a list. These are the gaps the pricing page leaves open.
- What's the monthly price for each plan, for our number of locations?
- What do card payments cost per transaction, and do we have to use your card machines?
- Do we sign up for a fixed period, and what's the charge for leaving early?
- Which of the add-ons we'd want are extra, and how much each?
- Is anything charged per online booking or per new client?
- If we leave one day, do we get our client records back in a spreadsheet?
Get the answers in writing before you sign.
Moving from Fresha: what comes with you
Your client details travel; your clients' saved cards don't. According to Fresha's export guide, you can download your clients as an Excel file or a CSV, though stored card details "cannot be exported or transferred". Phorest says its migration specialists will bring your client data across for you, so the list part should be the easy bit.
Anyone who paid by saved card on Fresha will need to give their card again once you've moved, and that's worth a friendly text before the switch so it doesn't land as a surprise at the till. Remember too that online booking on Fresha stops working once you unlist, so time the change for a quiet week and swap the booking link on your Instagram profile the same day.
A third route: booking on your own website
Here's where we declare an interest. We build booking systems that live on your own site, at a price you can see before any call. Booking Pro: £2,500 set-up, then £59 monthly. Elite, built for multi-staff teams who want a complete admin panel with a CRM: £3,500 set-up, then £79 monthly. Both are plus VAT, and neither takes anything per booking or per new client.
The trade-off is honest enough: you lose any app's directory of shoppers, so new clients have to find you through Google, social media and word of mouth. When regulars book nearly every slot anyway, that may be a fair swap.
At KAY Clinics in Wickersley, we built exactly that. In our case study's words: "Booking is a five-step flow that takes under a minute and runs at any hour, with the free consultation built in as the first appointment rather than an upsell." Shuaib Hanafi's Google review begins: "Absolutely brilliant experience from start to finish. I’m genuinely impressed with the work done on my website for KAY Clinics Ltd."
Weighing up more than these two? Our guide to the main Fresha alternatives covers the wider field.
Which one fits your salon?
| If this sounds like you | Lean towards |
|---|---|
| It is just you, or you and one other | Fresha (Phorest pitches its plans at 3+ staff) |
| You want every price in front of you and a week to try it | Fresha |
| Strangers find you through the Fresha marketplace every week | Fresha |
| Your team keeps growing and £9.95 a head every month has started to sting | Phorest, once you have the quote |
| Regulars fill most of your diary, so the marketplace does little for you while the per-head fee keeps rising | Phorest, or your own booking site |
| You would rather someone else set it all up and moved your clients across | Phorest |
Frequently asked questions
Does Phorest work for a salon with more than one location?
Yes. Phorest’s UK pricing page lists multi-location support among the features, alongside unlimited staff and devices on every plan. It does not say how the price changes with each extra site, so ask for the quote to be broken down per location before comparing it with what you pay Fresha.
Does Phorest take commission on bookings?
Its pricing page lists no commission on bookings or new clients. The only commission it mentions is a setting for paying your own staff, tiered or flat. As the page does not cover every possible fee, ask on the demo whether anything is charged per online booking before you sign up.
Is there a Phorest free trial?
No. Phorest’s own FAQ says it does not offer a free trial, because it sets the software up for you and trains your team instead. What it offers instead is a full demo, booked for whenever is convenient. Fresha, by comparison, gives you seven days to try it before you pay.
Can Phorest give my salon its own booking app?
Yes, on the higher plans. From Ultimate upwards, Phorest includes a booking app in your salon’s name on the Apple App Store and Google Play, where clients can book and see offers. On Starter and Grow the app is listed as an optional extra, with no price shown.
Making the call
Fresha vs Phorest comes down to how big your team is and how much of your diary the marketplace really fills. Not sure how easy you are to book? Our free 10-point check starts with the route people take to book you, from your Instagram bio to your Google profile, and you'll have the results in writing inside a working day.
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