How Much Does a Salon Booking System Cost in the UK (2026)?

Salon booking system cost starts at about £10 a month in the UK for rented software, and the bigger bill is often commission: up to 35% of the first visit when an app brings someone new. One built into your own website is dearer to start. Our entry build is a £2,500 one-off plus £59 a month, before VAT.

For a three-person salon, the rented options below run from at least £208 (Timely's floor, which rises with bookings) to £1,410 a year. A team needs our Elite build, which comes to £4,448 for the first year, then £948 annually. So on software alone, renting usually wins at that size, and the sums below show when it stops winning.

What makes up a salon booking system cost?

Three charges do most of the damage. There's the monthly fee, which grows with either your team or your bookings. There's the cut of someone's first appointment, when the company's own app introduced them. And there's the card fee each time someone pays by card.

Here they are side by side, read from each company's UK page on 30 October 2026: Fresha, Booksy, Treatwell, Timely and Phorest. Fresha's, Booksy's and Treatwell's rates are before VAT, and so are ours. Timely's page doesn't say either way.

Phorest aims at teams of three or more and only gives prices by quote, so we haven't guessed at it. For a full walk through one platform's charges, our Fresha fees guide covers every line of that bill.

What does a three-person salon pay over 12 months?

Headline rates don't tell you much until you put an example diary through them. So picture three people, with five newcomers landing via the app each month and spending £45 each on that first visit. Card fees are left out, because you'd pay those to somebody on every route.

Two rows deserve a second look. Booksy with Boost off and Timely both assume those five clients found you some other way, so neither is a like-for-like saving. And £208 is Timely's starting price over 52 weeks, not a quote: its page says the price adjusts with bookings but doesn't print the rate, so a busy trio should expect more.

Team size pushes these numbers around too. Fresha adds £119.40 a year per person. Booksy adds £60. Treatwell's team plans and Timely include unlimited team members, and our builds have no per-person charge at all. How the first two compare at each size is in our Fresha vs Booksy guide.

How much does it cost if you work on your own?

Less, and here the gap gets wide. Picture a nail tech or lash artist with two new app clients a month, each spending £30 on a first visit. On these figures the first year looks like this.

Treatwell has the lowest monthly fee in this table and still isn't the lowest bill, because its 35% cut does more work than the subscription does. As in the team table, the Boost off and Timely rows assume those clients found you another way. Vagaro is another option at £20 a month for one calendar. Its pricing page doesn't state a marketplace fee or VAT, so ask before you sign. For one person with a modest diary, paying thousands up front rarely makes sense unless the website is the thing you're really buying.

Is owning a booking system cheaper than renting one?

Not on software alone, not at three chairs. We sell builds, so we'd rather show the sums than hide them. Booking Pro doesn't include multi-staff booking, so a team should price Elite. Once built, Elite costs about £50 a year more than the Fresha example, so on these numbers it never repays its £3,500 setup.

Two things change that answer.

You need a website anyway

Every build we do includes a whole website as well as the booking, so the fair comparison is rented software plus a website. Our Website plan is £1,500 and £39 a month. Add Fresha from the table and you're at £2,866.20 in year one and £1,366.20 every year after. Elite starts £1,581.80 dearer, saves £418.20 a year from then on, and goes ahead during year five.

Commission is doing the damage

Double the example to six people and ten app clients a month, and Fresha comes to £1,796.40 a year. Elite then repays its setup in a little over four years. Past that point, the saving is yours every year.

The sums assume those clients still reach you, and that's the honest catch. Someone browsing an app won't stumble on a salon that isn't listed there, so if the marketplace truly feeds your diary, you'd need Google and Instagram to replace it. For the wider market, including builds from other developers, see our custom booking price guide.

Which extra costs sit lower down the price page?

None of these are hidden. They're just easy to miss, so add them before you compare.

• Text messages. Timely's plans include some, Booksy doesn't charge for confirmations and reminders, and Treatwell Connect lists free reminders. Fresha gives each team member 20 free a month, then charges 6p each, and Phorest runs from 9.5p down to 7p by plan, with 500 free a month on its top plan. Ask any supplier, us included, how reminders go out and whether texts cost extra.
• Card terminals. Fresha's start from £99 each, and Timely adds the cost of a terminal unless you use Tap to Pay.
• Add-ons. Check that deposits, forms and reports are on the plan you're pricing, not one tier up.
• Moving. Fresha lets you download your client list, but saved cards can't come with it, so regulars will need to add one again wherever you go next.

What do you get with one of our builds?

Our booking systems are built for one business and sit on its own website, so a client books with you rather than through someone else's app. Booking Pro brings online booking with automatic reminders and confirmations, an automatic review ask once each visit is done, a single dashboard holding bookings and enquiries, plus pages for your services and towns. Elite adds multi-staff booking, payments and deposits, an admin panel and a CRM for client history.

One booking build we've done is for Fresh Face Aesthetics in Wath. A client on their phone taps a treatment on Rachel Boothroyd's price list, works through five steps and only ever sees days she's in. Her Google review opens: "Thanks so much to Bee Viral for the amazing new website, booking system and social media management."

Which route fits your salon?

• Working alone with a website you're happy with: rent. Most options here total a few hundred pounds a year.
• Most new clients come from a marketplace app: rent, and treat the commission as your advertising bill.
• No proper website yet, or one that's overdue a rebuild: price a build against software plus a site.
• A growing team paying commission on people who'd have found you anyway: run the six-person sum above with your own figures.

How do you work out your own figure?

You only need last month's statement. Work through these lines for each option you're weighing up:

• Take the monthly fee for your team size and multiply by 12.
• Count the new clients the app really sent you last month, multiply by their average first spend and the commission rate, then multiply by 12.
• Add any setup fee, plus card fees and texts if they differ between the options.
• Do it for year one, then keep adding a year until the totals cross. A setup fee only hurts once, while commission and per-person fees come back every month.

Frequently asked questions

Work out your own salon booking system cost

Those four lines will give you a truer salon booking system cost than any price page, because they use your diary rather than our example. If you'd like a second opinion, our free salon check starts with the taps between your Instagram bio and a confirmed booking.