Fresha's fees, explained properly
Fresha is one of the most widely used booking platforms among UK hair and beauty businesses, and its pricing gets discussed a lot, not always accurately. The model itself is not complicated: a monthly subscription, plus a separate one-time fee when the marketplace brings you a new client, plus standard card processing on top. This guide sets out exactly what each part costs, with worked examples, so you can work out what it means for your own salon rather than relying on second-hand summaries.
The short version
- A monthly subscription: £14.95 on the Independent plan for a sole trader, or £9.95 per team member per month once you add staff.
- A one-time 20% fee, minimum £4, on the first booking from a new client who finds you through the Fresha marketplace. Returning clients carry no fee, however often they rebook.
- Card processing on top of both: 1.19% + 20p for payments taken in person, 1.40% + 25p for payments taken online.
Those three elements are the whole of it. There is no setup fee and no separate charge for the booking diary itself, the subscription covers that. The two costs that actually move up and down with how the business runs are the per-person subscription and the marketplace fee, which is why they are the two worth understanding properly before you compare Fresha with anything else.
The subscription: individual vs team
A sole trader with no staff pays the Independent plan, £14.95 a month. As soon as a business has more than one person taking bookings, it moves to the Team plan, which is charged per person at £9.95 a month. There is no cap, so the subscription rises in a straight line as a team grows, and it rises whether or not those staff members are fully booked.
This per-head structure means the subscription cost is really a function of headcount, not of how busy the salon is. A quiet Tuesday and a fully booked Saturday cost the same in subscription terms, because the charge is for having a team member on the platform at all, not for the bookings they take that month.
| Team members | Monthly subscription |
|---|---|
| 1 (Independent plan) | £14.95 |
| 2 | £19.90 |
| 4 | £39.80 |
| 6 | £59.70 |
For a solo stylist who rarely uses the marketplace, £14.95 a month is genuinely cheap for what it covers. For a growing team, the per-head structure means the subscription line keeps climbing every time someone new joins the rota.
The new-client marketplace fee
When someone finds your business through the Fresha marketplace and books with you for the first time, Fresha takes 20% of that booking's value, with a minimum charge of £4. It is a one-time fee tied to that client's first visit, not an ongoing charge. Two examples show how it works in practice.
A £20 cut. 20% of £20 is exactly £4, so the minimum and the percentage land on the same figure here. The salon pays £4.
A £60 colour. 20% of £60 is £12, comfortably above the £4 minimum. The salon pays £12.
The important fairness point is what happens next. The fee applies only to that client's first booking made through the marketplace. Every visit after that, whether they rebook in a week or come back in six months, is fee-free. A client who becomes a regular costs the salon nothing beyond that first £4 or £12. It is also worth being clear about what does not carry the fee: walk-ins, phone bookings, referrals from existing clients, and anyone who books through your own website or social profile rather than the marketplace itself.
Payment processing
Separately from the subscription and the marketplace fee, Fresha charges standard card processing: 1.19% + 20p for payments taken in person, and 1.40% + 25p for payments taken online. This is not a Fresha-specific cost. Every platform that takes card payments on your behalf charges something similar to cover the card networks and banks, including Revyfy. The difference between the in-person and online rates reflects the different fraud risk the payment processor is underwriting, a card present in the salon carries less risk than one entered remotely, and that pattern holds across the industry, not just at Fresha. It is worth checking that whatever rate you are quoted, wherever you go, is genuinely comparable, since this cost scales with your card turnover regardless of provider.
What a 3-chair salon pays in a typical month
Take a salon with three bookable staff, all on the Team plan, that gains 8 new clients a month through the marketplace at a £45 average booking value.
Subscriptions: 3 × £9.95 = £29.85.
New-client fees: 8 × £9 (20% of £45) = £72.
That comes to roughly £102 a month in subscription and marketplace fees, before card processing is added on top. Processing costs then depend on how much of the salon's turnover runs through cards that month, so they are not included in this figure. If the salon's new-client numbers or average booking value move, the marketplace-fee line moves with them, while the £29.85 subscription stays fixed regardless.
How to judge the model for your salon
The headline subscription is only the starting point; what the model really costs depends on where your clients come from. Every client who arrives through the marketplace carries the 20% fee, and the marketplace shows those same searchers your competitors on the same screen. The audience you build there belongs to the platform: if you ever leave, the profile, its reviews and its search placement stay behind. That applies to a solo stylist on the £14.95 plan just as much as to a large team, because the fee is charged per new client, not per chair.
The arithmetic also moves as a salon grows. Each new team member adds £9.95 a month, so four staff already means £39.80 before a single marketplace fee is paid. And once a diary fills mostly from returning regulars, referrals and a salon's own Instagram and Google presence, the 20% fee is being paid on clients many salons feel would have found them anyway. The question to ask is not "what is the monthly price?" but "what will my mix of new and returning clients cost me here, this year and next?"
The flat-price alternative
Revyfy takes a different approach: one flat price of £39.99 a month, covering unlimited staff, with zero commission on new clients, ever. There is no per-head subscription to watch as a team grows, and no percentage taken from any booking, new client or returning. Card processing still applies, as it does everywhere, but there is nothing else layered on top of the flat monthly price. Switching also comes with free data migration, so staff, clients, notes, services, future appointments, gift cards and stock all move across during the trial, and the two systems can run side by side until you are ready to go live.
For the wider picture across other platforms, see our guide to salon software costs in the UK. If you want a fuller side-by-side, our Fresha alternative page and the Revyfy vs Fresha comparison both go into more detail, and if switching feels like a big step, our guide on how to switch salon software without losing bookings walks through what actually happens.
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