Last updated 20 October 2026
Fresha vs Booksy vs Treatwell.
Short version: all three take a cut of a new client who finds you on their marketplace, and nothing on your regulars. Fresha is the cheapest to run, from £14.95 a month, and takes 20% of a new client's first visit. Booksy is £40 a month and takes 30%, but only while you have its Boost switched on. Treatwell takes 35% plus VAT and does not publish its monthly price.
The sticker price is not what decides your bill. What decides it is where each booking came from: their marketplace, your own link, or the Book button on Google. The three treat those very differently, and that is the part every other comparison skips.
Everything here about Fresha's contract comes from its own published terms and conditions, last read on 20 October 2026. Booksy's and Treatwell's terms, pricing pages and help centres were read the same day. Terms get revised, so check yours against the current version before you act on anything.
The 30-second version
The three of them at a glance.
UK prices from each company's own pricing page. All three add VAT.
| Platform | Monthly fee | New marketplace client | Can you switch the marketplace off? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fresha | £14.95 solo, or £9.95 per team member | 20% of the first visit, min £4 | No, not without losing online booking |
| Booksy | £40, plus £5 per extra team member | 30% of the first visit, min £5, only with Boost on | Yes. Boost off costs nothing |
| Treatwell | Not published, set in your agreement | 35% of first bookings | Not published |
All three charge nothing on a returning client, and nothing on a booking you take by phone, text or WhatsApp and add yourself. Card fees differ too: Fresha 1.40% plus 25p online, Booksy 1.29% plus 20p, Treatwell 2.5% when a client prepays online.
The number nobody works out
Same £50 booking, four different bills.
Take one new client booking a £50 treatment. What you hand over depends entirely on the door they came in through. Commission before VAT:
| Where the booking came from | Fresha | Booksy | Treatwell |
|---|---|---|---|
| Their marketplace or app | £10 | £15 with Boost on, £0 with it off | £17.50 |
| The Book button on Google | Fresha does not say | £0 | £17.50, charged as a marketplace booking |
| Your own website, Instagram or link | £0, unless they looked at your Fresha profile first | £0 | £0 |
| A regular coming back | £0 | £0 | £0, unless it has been over a year |
Booksy and Treatwell add VAT to the commission, so Booksy's £15 is £18 and Treatwell's £17.50 is £21. Treatwell charges that VAT even if your business is not VAT registered, which means you pay it and cannot claim it back.
The minimums bite on small jobs. On a £15 brow tidy, Fresha's £4 floor is 27% of the price and Booksy's £5 floor is a third of it. The lower your average ticket, the more the minimum, not the percentage, is what you pay.
Read the small print
Who counts as a "new client"?
This is where owners get caught. Each platform defines it differently, and the definition decides whether a client you think of as yours costs you a cut.
Fresha
Anyone who saw your Fresha profile first.
The fee applies to a client who finds your profile on the marketplace, even if they then book through your own website or Instagram. Fresha tracks their online activity to decide. They stay "new" until their first appointment is completed. If you cancel for them, you are still charged.
Booksy
A first booking through the app while Boost is on.
The narrowest of the three. Google, your own link, Instagram and QR codes are free even with Boost on. The catch is attribution: a regular who is not on your client list can be billed as a Boost client, and you have to claim them back before the billing period ends, plus seven days.
Treatwell
Anyone you have not seen in a year.
A client with no completed visit in the last 365 days is new again, so your once-a-year regular is charged 35% every time. Booking with a different email or phone also counts as new, and so does every marketplace booking a new client makes before their first visit. Disputes are decided at Treatwell's sole discretion.
The fix is the same on all three: get every client you already have onto the platform's client list before they book, walk-ins included. A client already on the list is not new.
The leak most salons never check
The Book button on Google.
Somebody searches your salon's name, finds you on Google Maps and taps Book. They were looking for you. Whether that costs you a cut depends on which platform is behind the button.
On Booksy it is free: Google Search and Google Maps are on its list of commission-free channels, even with Boost on. On Treatwell, a Google booking lands on your Treatwell page and carries the same conditions and fees as a marketplace booking, so a new client who searched your name costs you 35%. Fresha's Google booking needs your marketplace profile published and Fresha does not say how it is charged.
So check what your Google Business Profile actually links to. If the booking button runs through a marketplace that charges for it, put your own booking link there instead. We cover setting the profile up properly in getting found on Google Maps.
What you sign up to
The clauses that tie you in.
None of the three ties you to a twelve-month contract by default. All three have rules about how you run your own diary while you are with them.
Fresha
- Unlisting kills all online booking
- Wrong booking link, no refund
- No steering clients to book direct
- 30 days' written notice to leave
Booksy
- Notice 7 days before the cycle ends
- Cancel through support, not a button
- Boost licenses your social photos
- Wrong Boost charges: claim in time
Treatwell
- Match your best website price
- No other booking software
- No steering clients to book direct
- Rate can change on 30 days' notice
Before you need it
What you keep when you leave.
| Platform | Notice | Your client list | What you lose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fresha | 30 days in writing | Excel or CSV export, up to 30 days after you leave | Stored client card details |
| Booksy | 7 days before the billing cycle ends | Ask support for a copy | Everything, 3 months after you leave |
| Treatwell | 30 days | Download it before you go | Your reviews and treatment history |
Export your client list before you give notice, every time. And notice the pattern: the reviews and the marketplace profile were never yours, so the day you leave, the place new clients were finding you goes with it.
Straight from the chair
What owners actually say.
Not client reviews: UK salon owners, on forums and in business reviews. The gripes line up with the small print above.
Fresha
- Charged on clients from Google
- Charged when the salon cancelled
- Disputes over who was new refused
- Praised: fee only the first time
Booksy
- Boost charged on existing clients
- Regulars wrongly tagged as Boost
Treatwell
- £45 commission on a £110 booking
- Passed to retention when leaving
- Good for new faces, if they rebook
The honest verdict
So which one should you pick?
| If you are… | Best fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Solo, just starting, diary empty | Fresha | £14.95 a month and the lowest cut on the new clients you need |
| Solo with a full book of regulars | Booksy, Boost off | The only one you can run with the marketplace switched off and pay no commission at all |
| A team of five | Fresha | £49.75 a month against Booksy's £60, before VAT |
| Busy some months, quiet others | Booksy | Boost on when the diary is thin, off when it is full |
| High-ticket treatments, mostly new faces | Treatwell, with care | The 35% hurts less on a big ticket, but get the price in writing and watch the year-long lapse rule |
Whichever you pick, the marketplace is a way to meet clients, not to keep them. The cheapest booking on all three is the one that came through your own link. If you are a therapist rather than a salon, the same sums play out in physio leads and tattoo artist leads.
The bigger picture
Renting clients, or owning them.
Keep the app for the calendar, the reminders and the deposits. All three do that job well. The money is in which door your new clients walk through. Through the marketplace, the platform introduced them and charges you for it, and the profile that found them stays behind when you leave. Through your own website, your own Google listing and your own Instagram, the booking is commission-free on all three and the client was always yours.
One thing not to do: do not ask clients who booked through Fresha or Treatwell to cancel and rebook you direct. Both contracts forbid it. The legitimate route is to be found first, somewhere you own, so the platform never introduced them in the first place.
It is the same argument we make to trades about lead sites in Checkatrade vs MyBuilder vs Bark: a booking should be yours alone. The full case is in the shared-lead trap.
Why us
Why take our word for it?
Fair question. We build websites and run ads that send bookings to a business's own link, so we have a horse in this race. But we do not sell booking software and make nothing from which of these three you use. Every figure on this page comes from Fresha's, Booksy's and Treatwell's own UK pricing pages, terms and help centres, not from a blog. If the marketplace is filling your diary at a cut you are happy with, stay on it.
Straight answers
Questions owners actually ask.
- Does it cost to use Fresha?
- Yes. Fresha's UK plans are paid. The Independent plan is £14.95 a month for one bookable team member, and the Team plan is £9.95 a month per team member, both before VAT. On top of that, Fresha takes a one-time 20% commission, minimum £4, on any brand new client it decides found you through its marketplace. Returning clients carry no fee.
- How do I avoid the new client fee on Fresha?
- Get every existing client onto your Fresha client list before they book, including walk-ins and anyone you imported, because a client already on the list is never charged. Share only the Book Now links generated inside your own Online Partner Profile, since Fresha's contract says other links apply the fee and it will not refund you for using the wrong one. What you cannot do is switch the marketplace off: unlisting your profile disables every online booking channel, and a client who looked at your Fresha profile before booking on your own website can still be charged.
- How much does Treatwell charge per month?
- Treatwell does not publish it. Its UK pricing page names two plans, Freelancer and Advanced, without a price, and its terms say the price is set in each salon's own agreement. What it does publish is the commission: 35% on a new client's first booking from the marketplace, plus VAT, and 0% on repeat bookings. There is also a free Freemium account with limited software.
- What is better, Fresha or Booksy?
- Fresha is cheaper to run and cheaper per new client: £14.95 a month for one person against Booksy's £40, and 20% commission against Booksy Boost's 30%. Booksy wins on control. Boost is optional and Booksy charges nothing for marketplace clients while it is off, and you can hide your marketplace listing and keep online booking. On Fresha the marketplace and its fee come with online booking whether you want them or not. If you have a full book of regulars, that difference matters more than the subscription.
- How much does Booksy cost a month?
- Booksy is £40 a month plus VAT with every feature included, plus £5 a month for each extra team member. Boost, its marketplace promotion, has no monthly fee: it takes a one-time 30% of a new client's first visit, minimum £5, plus VAT, and only while you have it switched on. Card payments cost 1.29% plus 20p online and 0.99% plus 20p with Tap to Pay, plus VAT.
- Why is Booksy charging me a fee?
- Usually because Boost was on when a client booked you for the first time through the Booksy marketplace or app, which costs 30% of that visit. Booksy's own advice is to add walk-ins to your client list, share your Booksy profile link, and point your Instagram and Facebook Book Now buttons at it. If a client you found yourself is billed as a Boost client, claim it in the app before the end of the billing period plus seven days and Booksy refunds the commission.
- Does Booksy charge clients to book?
- No. Booksy's customer terms say it charges customers nothing for using it. Any money a client pays at booking is your own deposit or cancellation fee, which you set.
- Can I take my clients with me if I leave?
- Mostly, but each one makes it a different job. Fresha gives you up to 30 days after you leave to export your client list as Excel or CSV. Booksy has you email support for a copy, and deletes your data three months after the agreement ends. Treatwell lets you download your data before you go, but not your reviews, which stay with Treatwell, and its client export leaves out treatment history. Export before you give notice, not after.
Keep reading
More straight answers for trades.
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