Fresha vs Booksy for salons: Booksy vs Fresha on team pricing, new client fees and which salon each fits

Short answer

Fresha and Booksy are both marketplace booking apps: each lists your salon in a consumer app and charges a one-time fee on brand new clients that marketplace sends you. Booksy is one subscription with every feature included, plus a monthly fee for each added team member with no cap. Fresha is a flat plan for a one-person business and a per-bookable-team-member plan for teams, with messaging and several extras billed separately. For a salon whose book is mostly regulars, a flat plan with no per-client fee, such as Hairdressers.io at $89 a month for up to eight stylists, usually costs less than either.

Fresha vs Booksy is a choice US salon owners usually make in a hurry, often because a stylist they just hired is already on one of them. The two look alike in a demo: a calendar, a booking page, a client app, card payments, reminders. The bills do not look alike, and the difference only shows up at month three, when the team has grown by one and the marketplace has started sending first-time clients.

So this compares Booksy vs Fresha on the three lines that decide what a salon actually pays: what happens when you add a stylist, what a brand new client from the marketplace costs, and what sits outside the subscription. It uses each company's own published model. Figures change and Fresha shows prices in local currency by region, so read both US pricing pages before you sign; the shapes below are what stay the same.

Is Fresha or Booksy better for a salon?

Booksy is better for a salon that wants every feature in one subscription and expects most of its growth to come from the Booksy app. Fresha is better for a one-person business that wants a flat plan, or a team that wants a register and marketplace together and is happy to pay for extras one by one. Neither is built for a salon whose chairs are already full of regulars: both charge on the new clients their marketplace sends, and that is the part you are paying for.

Which is cheaper, Fresha or Booksy?

For a single stylist, the two are close enough that the new-client fees decide it, not the subscription. For a team, it depends on headcount, because both bills rise with every bookable person you add. Booksy adds a fixed monthly fee per extra team member on top of one account subscription. Fresha prices the whole Team plan per bookable member. Write both out at the headcount you expect in a year, not the one you have today.

Then add the lines that do not appear in the headline. On Fresha that is messaging: a monthly allowance of texts and marketing emails, and a charge per message after it, which a busy salon sending reminders to every client will pass. Add any add-on you would actually switch on. On Booksy most of that is inside the subscription, so the extra lines are Boost commissions and card processing. The cheaper product is the one with the smaller total across twelve months, and in most four to six chair salons that total is driven by headcount and new-client fees together.

Does Fresha charge a fee for new clients?

Yes. Fresha charges a one-time fee on brand new clients who discover your business through the Fresha marketplace and book with you for the first time. Returning clients, and clients who book through your own link, carry no marketplace fee. Fresha does not publish that percentage on its pricing page, so ask for it in writing before you rely on the marketplace, and price it against your most expensive services.

Booksy's equivalent is Boost. It has no monthly fee and takes a one-time commission on the first visit of each new client it brings while you have it switched on. Switch it off and there is no charge, and no extra visibility either. The practical difference: Booksy's charge is optional and you control when it runs, while Fresha's applies to any brand new marketplace client.

On a $45 trim either fee is small. On a $280 balayage or a full color correction it lands on exactly the clients you most wanted to win. Pull last month's appointments, mark each new client and where they came from, and multiply. That number is what the marketplace really costs you.

Booksy vs Fresha for a salon with a growing team

This is where the two diverge most. A salon that goes from three stylists to six pays more on both, every month, for the same chairs and the same rent. Booksy's per-member fee has no ceiling. Fresha's Team plan grows with each bookable member until the custom tier. Neither is wrong, but a salon that is hiring should know the bill is tied to the hiring.

A banded plan behaves differently. On Hairdressers.io the Salon plan is $89 a month for up to eight stylists, each with a personal booking link and hours, and the number does not move when you add the fourth or the seventh. The worked comparison for two to six chairs, including GlossGenius and Square, is in best salon software for a small salon.

Is Booksy worth it for a salon full of regulars?

Usually not for the marketplace part, and that is the part Booksy is built around. A salon whose week is 80% rebooked regulars is paying a per-member subscription for a consumer app it barely uses, and Boost commissions on the few strangers it does send. The same goes for Fresha. If that describes your book, what you need is a clean booking link, a calendar that respects each stylist's hours and a way to be found locally that does not bill per client.

Clients also still phone and text, and neither app changes that. A salon that keeps its front desk on a stylist's personal mobile usually ends up with the book scattered across three threads. A separate business phone number that rings the desk and the owner keeps the calls in one place and the stylists' own numbers private.

What to check before you sign either one

• Headcount in twelve months. Price both at that number, not today's.
• The new-client fee, in writing. Ask Fresha for the rate and Booksy for the Boost commission on your market, and apply both to your top three services.
• Messages. Count the reminders and marketing emails you send a month and see which bill they land on.
• The export. Find the client export button in the trial. If you cannot find it, your list is not portable.
• Who owns the account. If stylists rent chairs, decide now whether each is on the salon account or their own.

The flat option, and what it leaves out

Hairdressers.io was built for the salon that wants both halves, a booking link and a way to be found, without the bill rising as either one works. Every stylist has a personal link and hours, every service shows its real length and price, requests arrive by email with the client as the reply address, and the salon is listed on its city directory page with no charge on the clients it sends. 0% commission on every booking, on every plan. The client list exports to a spreadsheet on any day.

What it does not do: there is no card reader or in-app payment, so deposits stay the way you take them now. There is no instant slot lock; clients request and you confirm. And the directory is a page on the open web, not a national consumer app. If your salon genuinely needs an app to fill its week, Booksy or Fresha will do that and charge for it. When the week is mostly regulars, the Fresha alternative and Booksy alternative pages show what moving saves, and solo stylists can start from the hair stylist scheduling app page.

The one-line version

One person who wants a flat plan and a marketplace: Fresha. A team that wants everything in one subscription and control over when it pays for new clients: Booksy, with Boost priced in. A salon of regulars that wants one number and a way to be found: a flat band with a directory, which is what we built. Whichever you pick, run the export before you need it.