Last updated 20 October 2026
Nail technician leads: what Fresha, Booksy, Treatwell and a Google click cost per regular.
A stranger who books your gel or BIAB through an app costs you a cut of that first visit only: 20% on Fresha's marketplace, 30% with Booksy's Boost switched on, 35% on Treatwell. Their infills after that carry no commission on any of the three. Buy the click yourself and a nail search costs £0.85 to £2.15 at Keyword Planner's top-of-page bid.
Every month 246,000 people in the UK type "nail salon near me" into Google. A BIAB client back every 3 to 4 weeks sits in your chair 13 to 17 times a year, £338 to £765 at the infill prices UK techs publish. Booked from your own ad on that search, that client costs about £14, once, and every infill after goes through your own link. Below is that sum, the booking apps' terms in their own words, and the London licence that catches home studios out.
Straight from Fresha's help centre
The new client fee applies to clients who "view your Fresha marketplace profile first and then choose to book through another online channel including your website or social media pages".
Fresha's help centre puts it that way in its article on the marketplace new client fee, which we read on 20 October 2026. If your clients find you on Instagram, check your Fresha reviews and then tap the link in your bio, you can pay 20% on a client Fresha never sent.
Where we stand
We don't sell nail leads. We help you get your own.
This guide is the honest version of what buying nail leads costs, and who else gets them. What we do instead is build nail techs a website that turns visits into calls, and run Google Ads in an account in your own name, so every lead that comes in is a customer who found you, and nobody else was sold it.
What a client is worth
A BIAB regular is 13 to 17 appointments a year. Price the client on all of them.
On UK techs' own booking pages, gel polish on natural nails runs from £20 in Glasgow to £40 in Camberwell. A BIAB new set is £30 to £52, a BIAB infill £26 to £45, about £36 in the middle, and a full set of acrylics £35 to £48. The infill is the one that repeats: techs advise one every 3 to 4 weeks, which is 13 to 17 visits and £338 to £765 a year from one client.
Somebody who picks a 3pm BIAB slot on your booking page has already said yes. There is no quote to win, so the cost of a lead from your ad is the cost of a booked client: the click price divided by the 7.33% of clicks that turn into one. On "nail salon near me" at Keyword Planner's high top-of-page bid of £1.05, that is about £14. On "biab infill near me", somebody already on the infill cycle looking for a new tech, it is about £12. You pay it once. The table sets it against the year that client spends with you.
| A BIAB regular's year | What they spend with you | Booked from "nail salon near me", about £14 once | Booked from "biab infill near me", about £12 once |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13 infills at £26 | £338 | 4% of their year | 4% of their year |
| The middle of the range | £552 | 3% of their year | 2% of their year |
| 17 infills at £45 | £765 | 2% of their year | 2% of their year |
Infill prices are from booking pages in Bonnyrigg, Birmingham, Trowbridge and Manchester, read on 20 October 2026; the year is our arithmetic on them at the interval techs advise. The 7.33% is WordStream's figure for US home improvement advertisers, not for salons, and the click price is the dear end of what advertisers pay.
We reckon a client is fairly priced at 10 to 15 percent of the money they bring in. On a £552 year of infills that allows £55 to £83 to win one BIAB regular, and the ad on "nail salon near me" books them for £14. Their year covers that 38 times.
To see what a booking app takes from the same year, put in how many new nail clients it sends you a month, your infill price and how many times a client comes back. It opens on a £36 infill, 13 visits a year (one every four weeks) and £14 a booked client from your own ad on "nail salon near me". Fresha, Booksy's Boost and Treatwell each charge on a new client's first visit and nothing on the infills after, and Treatwell charges again once a client has gone 365 days without a visit, so the panel counts each app's cut once per client.
WHAT DO THE APPS TAKE FROM A NAIL TECH'S YEAR?
Put in your own numbers
Treatwell charges once, on a new client's first visit, with VAT added. Rebooks carry no commission.
Over a year, Treatwell takes
£726
from 48 new clients, £15 each
- Those clients spend with you
- £22,464
- Treatwell's share of it
- 3.2%
- Same clients from your own ads
- £672
- Share of what they spend
- 3.0%
The infill is where the year is made or lost
One Manchester salon charges a full-set price once a set is past four weeks' growth, and a Truro tech adds £5 past five weeks. A client who drifts loses you the infill rate and the slot. The rebook made at the chair, on your own booking link, is what turns one £14 booking into 13 to 17 visits.
What the apps do with your regular, in their own terms
Fresha charges its new client fee on a client who viewed your Fresha profile before booking on your own Instagram link. Treatwell counts a regular as new again after 365 days without a completed visit. Booksy lists nail salons by city and Treatwell has a Nails category, so the next time that client opens the app your listing sits beside every other salon near them. The detail, word for word, is in the next section.
Your numbers
What can you pay to book a client who comes back every few weeks?
It opens on a regular's year of BIAB infills, £552 in the middle of the range. Type in what one booked client costs you, £14 from an ad on "nail salon near me" or whatever your own account shows, and it tells you whether that price fits the year. The other buttons price a single gel manicure, infill, BIAB new set or acrylic full set if you would rather check one appointment.
WHAT CAN YOU PAY TO WIN A BIAB REGULAR?
Pick a job, or type in what yours are worth
You can pay up to about
£83
to win that client
- Healthy range, per new client
- £55 to £83
Put in what a booking costs you, from an app or your own ads, and this will tell you what each new client costs against their worth.
The 10 to 15 percent verdict in the panel is our own yardstick, used across this site; no study has tested it on salons or home studios. The year row is our arithmetic on the infill prices above, at the interval techs advise.
Who sends you clients
The apps charge once. The small print decides how often once comes round.
Fresha and Booksy both court nail techs, Treatwell has a nails category, and Bark sells quotes. Each price and quote below is from the firm's own website.
| Route | Price | When a regular is charged again | In their words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fresha | £14.95 a month solo; 20% of a new client's first visit, min £4 | Never, once they are on your client list | "20% one-time commission" |
| Booksy | £40 a month; Boost 30%, min £5, plus VAT | Never; nothing at all with Boost off | "2nd visit and beyond: 0% commission" |
| Treatwell | 35% of a new client's first booking, plus VAT; monthly price not published | After 365 days without a visit, or new contact details | "0% commission for repeat bookings" |
| Bark | Credits at £1.80, priced per lead | Every lead, shared with up to 5 professionals | "Compare free quotes from Nail Technicians now!" |
Fresha: a look at your profile counts as finding you
Fresha's pricing page lists bookings through your own website, Instagram and Facebook as free, and a client already on your client list is never charged. The help centre adds the rule in the box at the top: a client who views your marketplace profile first and then books on your own link still pays the fee. Fresha says it has a cap for higher-value services and does not publish it.
Two more lines matter to a nail tech. You cannot hide your marketplace profile and keep online booking, because unlisting it disables every online booking channel. And its partner terms say only Book Now links generated in your Online Partner Profile avoid the fee, and bar you from asking clients to book outside Fresha. So import every regular you already have before you switch it on.
Booksy: Google bookings are free even with Boost on
Booksy is £40 a month plus £5 for each extra team member, with VAT added, and takes nothing on new clients while Boost is off. Switch Boost on and a marketplace client's first visit costs 30%, at least £5, with your Instagram and Facebook button, your own link, QR codes and Google Search and Maps all left commission-free. Booksy's own advice is to add walk-ins to your client list so Boost never charges for them.
Treatwell: a regular who lapses a year is new again
Treatwell takes 35% of a new marketplace client's first booking, adds VAT even if you are not VAT registered, and charges nothing on repeat bookings or your own Book Now button. Its supplier terms count a client as new if they have had no completed visit in the last 365 days, or book with different contact details. The same terms ask for your marketplace prices to be the best on your website and bar other third-party booking software.
Bark sells a quote, not a booking
Bark has a nail technician page asking clients to compare free quotes, with no average price shown and no separate manicure category. Credits cost £1.80, up to 5 professionals can reply to one request, and Bark doesn't say how many credits a nail lead takes. A client who wants a quote for a £30 manicure is not the client a booking page wins. Bark's credits are taken apart in is Bark worth it.
All three apps side by side, by where the booking came from, are in Fresha vs Booksy vs Treatwell.
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 and pricing pages were read the same day. Terms get revised, so check yours against the current version before you act on anything.
Rather have nail leads that are yours alone?
That's what we do. We don't sell leads. We build the website and run the Google Ads that bring customers straight to you, in an ad account in your name that stays yours if you ever leave.
See pricingWant to know how many people near you search Google for what you do each month? Message us your town and we'll send you the real numbers.
Check my areaBuying the click yourself
Somebody searching for a nail salon near them costs up to £1.05 a click.
"how to get more nail clients" gets about 10 searches a month, with a top-of-page bid of £27.48. "nail tech booking app" gets 10 at £15.75: booking software firms bidding for the attention of techs like you. The people wanting their nails done search in far bigger numbers. For the last column, each click price is divided by 7.33%: a nail client who gets through your booking page has chosen a service and a time, so each of those is a booked client rather than a quote to chase. That share is WordStream's figure for US home improvement advertisers, not for salons, so lean on it to rank one search against another rather than to set a budget.
| Search | Searches a month | Per click, top bid | Per booked client |
|---|---|---|---|
| nail salon london | 4,400 | £2.15 | £29 |
| bridal nails | 3,600 | £1.90 | £26 |
| nail salon manchester | 1,900 | £1.86 | £25 |
| nail places near me | 12,100 | £1.70 | £23 |
| nails near me | 135,000 | £1.65 | £23 |
| nail salon leeds | 2,400 | £1.57 | £21 |
| manicure near me | 9,900 | £1.46 | £20 |
| nailbar near me | 12,100 | £1.37 | £19 |
| nail salon birmingham | 2,400 | £1.09 | £15 |
| nail salon near me | 246,000 | £1.05 | £14 |
| mobile nail technician near me | 1,000 | £1.04 | £14 |
| pedicure near me | 49,500 | £1.03 | £14 |
| biab near me | 3,600 | £1.03 | £14 |
| gel nails near me | 5,400 | £0.95 | £13 |
| nail technician near me | 1,600 | £0.93 | £13 |
| biab infill near me | 480 | £0.91 | £12 |
| biab nails near me | 9,900 | £0.86 | £12 |
| acrylic nails near me | 5,400 | £0.85 | £12 |
Search volumes and bids are UK figures from Google's Keyword Planner, taken on 20 October 2026. The click price is Keyword Planner's high top-of-page bid, the dear end of what advertisers pay, so most clicks will cost less. Keyword Planner reports close variants such as "nail parlour near me" with one figure, so the table carries each once.
City and occasion searches cost the most: "nail salon london" is £2.15 a click, about £29 a booked client, and "bridal nails" £1.90. The cheap rows are the ones that name a service: "biab infill near me" at £0.91 is somebody already on the infill cycle looking for a new tech, which is the client worth £338 to £765 a year. "mobile nail technician near me" at £1.04 is the search a mobile tech wants. Run down all 18 rows and a booked nail client works out between £12 and £29, paid once.
The nail searches that will never book you
Plenty of nail searches are somebody else. "press on nails" gets 18,100 a month at £1.26, and "gel nail kit" 5,400: people doing their nails at home. "nail courses" is 5,400 a month of people who want your job, at £1.73 a click. "christmas nail designs" is people looking for ideas. Block all five in the account on day one, so none of them ever eats into a nail budget.
| Search | Searches a month | Per click, top bid | Who is searching |
|---|---|---|---|
| christmas nail designs | 27,100 | £0.23 | Looking for ideas |
| press on nails | 18,100 | £1.26 | Buying a DIY product |
| nail courses | 5,400 | £1.73 | Wants to train as a tech |
| gel nail kit | 5,400 | £0.97 | Doing them at home |
| nail tech jobs | 880 | £0.54 | Looking for work |
Where a nail client from your own ad differs from an app booking:
- Your own booking page, no other salon on it
- Bids on BIAB, bridal and the towns you cover
- No fee when a lapsed regular comes back
- Your prices and photos on your own website
- Your card pays Google direct for each click
- An ad account that leaves with you
Keep the photos honest. The ASA treats before and after images as claims in their own right, and upheld a complaint against a nail buffer ad whose photos had been edited to brighten the nail and whiten the tip. Shoot your own work in good light and leave the filters off. Setting up the campaign itself is walked through in our Google Ads guide, and a sensible monthly budget for a one-chair studio starts from how much to spend on Google Ads.
Before you advertise
In London a home studio needs a licence. A mobile visit does not.
Section 4 of the London Local Authorities Act 1991 names manicure as a special treatment, alongside massage and tattooing, and premises used for it in a London borough need a special treatment licence. Westminster's list, drawn up with most London boroughs, counts manicures, nail extensions and pedicures. Outside London the picture is different.
A London home studio needs a licence
Hounslow says a licence is needed to work "from premises or from your home", and for 2025-26 charged £158 to apply plus £240 for a new manicure and nail extension licence. Tower Hamlets charges £732, renewed yearly.
Mobile in the client's home: no licence
Hounslow, Richmond and Wandsworth all say you do not need a licence "if you only carry out treatments in a client's own home provided the treatments are given only to the client". Set up a chair at your own address and that stops applying.
Outside London: nails are not on the list
A gel set in Leeds or Cardiff falls outside both council schemes. England's 1982 Act asks the council to register needles and skin work: acupuncture, tattooing, semi-permanent skin-colouring, cosmetic piercing, electrolysis. Wales has the same idea in its special procedures, with nails left off both.
Working from home: three permissions
gov.uk says you may need permission from your mortgage provider or landlord, that home insurance may not cover customers visiting, and that business rates can apply when you sell a service to people who visit. Small business rate relief starts at a rateable value of £15,000 or less.
Acrylic dust needs an extractor
The HSE's guidance for nail bars says acrylic liquids and powders can cause skin allergies and asthma and filing dust can cause wheezing, and asks for local exhaust ventilation as "a downdraught table or a movable hood", tested by a competent person at least once every 14 months. It says face coverings are not acceptable as a control measure.
The licence matters to your marketing as much as your chair. Tower Hamlets and Camden both say it is an offence to provide or advertise special treatments without one, and Camden puts the fine at up to £2,500. In London, get the licence before the first ad, the Instagram bio or the booking link goes up.
Once they book
A £10 deposit protects the client you paid to find.
A no-show costs you the slot and whatever you paid to win the client. Techs we read in Nottingham, Wolverhampton and Trowbridge take £10 non-refundable to secure a booking, and the mobile tech in Trowbridge takes it off the final bill. Notice is 48 or 24 hours. A Camberwell studio charges 50% of the appointment under 48 hours and 100% under 24 hours or for a no-show, with card details taken at booking, and a Truro tech charges £20 between 24 and 48 hours.
- Say in writing when the deposit is kept
- Keep it a small share of the price
- Take it off the final bill
- Send the 14-day cancellation information
Keeping the deposit is fine in the CMA's eyes when it holds a real slot for the client and you spelt out beforehand exactly when it is lost. Its unfair terms guidance also expects it to be a modest slice of the bill. £10 on a £30 gel manicure is 33%, so deducting it from the bill is the safer shape. A booking taken online or by message is a distance contract with a 14-day cancellation right, and under regulation 36 a client who asks you to start inside it and then cancels pays for what was done. Reminders, deposits and card-on-file fees, tool by tool, are in how to reduce no-shows.
Through the year
Nail salon searches nearly double from winter to summer.
Fresha, Booksy and Treatwell keep their booking calendars to themselves, so the seasonal picture comes from Google Keyword Planner. UK searches for "nail salon near me" were lowest in November, January and February at 165,000 a month and highest from June to August at 301,000, about 1.8 times the low. December broke the winter dip, rising from 165,000 in November to 201,000.
UK searches for "nail salon near me", by month
October 2025 to September 2026. Google Keyword Planner, rounded bands.
Pedicures swing about 4 times over
"pedicure near me" fell to 22,200 a month in November and December and reached 90,500 in July. Push pedicures from spring and let them rest in winter.
December: party nails and vouchers
"christmas nails" hit 673,000 searches in December with a top bid of £0.77, mostly people after ideas, so post the designs rather than bid on them. "nail gift voucher" reached 320 in December against 40 to 90 a month from February to September.
Bridal searches peak in the summer
"bridal nails" ran from 1,600 in December to 4,400 a month from May to August, at £1.90 a click. Give that search a bridal page of its own to land on.
Before you sign up
Find out when a regular counts as new again, before you pay.
Every app here publishes its headline rate. What decides the real cost to a nail tech is the rule for who counts as new, and what happens to your client list if you leave. Ask:
- Does a look at my profile count as a booking?
- Is the fee charged if I cancel for them?
- When does a regular count as new again?
- Is there a cap, and what is it?
- Can I use other booking software too?
- What client data can I take when I leave?
Import every client you already have on day one, and send regulars your own booking link rather than the marketplace listing. If the app is mainly your diary rather than your source of clients, compare it with the systems that charge no commission at all in booking systems for salons. Bark is the one route here that hands the same nail client to several techs at once, and the shared-lead trap shows what that does to the price you can charge.
Which way to go
Win the first set from your own ad. Rebook every infill on your link.
Read the app terms first if
- Instagram clients check your Fresha profile
- Regulars take a year off and come back
- You want other booking software
- Your Book button runs on Treatwell
Your own ad fits if
- Clients rebook every 3 to 4 weeks
- You sell BIAB and full sets
- You rebook at the chair on your own link
- You want the ad account in your name
A nail tech sells the same client the same hour every 3 to 4 weeks, so the figure to judge any channel on is £338 to £765 of infills, not one £41 new set. About £14 from your own ad on "nail salon near me" books that client once, and every infill after it goes through your own link with no listing of rival salons in between. A regular sat at your desk every three weeks is the easiest person you will ever ask for a Google review, and how to get more Google reviews has the wording and the timing. The same sum for another booking-app business is in tattoo artist leads and personal trainer leads. Builders, roofers and the rest of the trades sit in our guide to trade leads.
Our sources
Where every nail figure here came from.
TradeBlitz makes its money from websites and Google Ads. Every app fee on this page is quoted from the app's own pricing page, terms or help centre.
Fresha, Booksy, Treatwell and Bark were checked on their own pricing pages, terms and help centres (20 October 2026); the nail search figures were taken from Keyword Planner on that date too. Appointment prices come from techs' own booking pages, including The Nail Kitchen in Manchester, a group of techs in Cambuslang and a home studio in Nottingham. Licensing comes from legislation.gov.uk and the councils linked above, working from home from gov.uk, extraction from the HSE, deposits from the CMA and photos from the ASA.
Questions nail techs ask
Nail technician leads, answered.
- How do nail techs get more clients in the UK?
- Three ways, each with a price. A booking marketplace charges once on a new client's first appointment: Fresha 20%, at least £4, Booksy's Boost 30% and Treatwell 35%. Bark sells credits at £1.80 to quote. Your own Google ad costs £0.85 to £2.15 a click at Keyword Planner's top-of-page bid, and "nail salon near me" gets 246,000 searches a month. Somebody who books from that ad has picked a slot, so there is no quote to win: one booked client costs about £14, once, against the £338 to £765 a BIAB regular spends in a year of infills.
- What is the best booking app for nail techs?
- It depends where your clients come from. Fresha's Independent plan is £14.95 a month and charges 20% on a new marketplace client, including one who looked at your Fresha profile before booking through your Instagram. Booksy is £40 a month plus £5 for each extra team member, and treats Google Search and Maps bookings as commission-free even with Boost on. Treatwell charges 35% plus VAT on new marketplace clients and on bookings through Google's Book button, and its terms bar other booking software.
- Is Fresha or Booksy better for a nail tech?
- Fresha takes 20% of a new marketplace client's first visit, £8 on a £41 BIAB new set; Booksy's Boost takes 30%, £12, plus VAT. Booksy has two things Fresha does not: you can switch its marketplace off and keep online booking, and Google bookings carry no commission. Fresha's marketplace cannot be unlisted without disabling every online booking channel. Neither charges a returning client.
- Do you need a licence to do nails in the UK?
- In London, usually yes. The London Local Authorities Act 1991 names manicure as a special treatment, and boroughs such as Hounslow say you need a licence to work from premises or from your home; Hounslow charged £158 to apply plus £240 for a new licence in 2025-26. Hounslow, Wandsworth and Richmond say you do not need one if you only work in a client's own home. Outside London, the council registration under the 1982 Act and the Welsh special procedure licence do not list nails.
- How much deposit should a nail tech take?
- Techs we read in Nottingham, Wolverhampton and Trowbridge take £10, non-refundable, and keep it when a client cancels inside 48 or 24 hours. Some charge 50% of the price under 48 hours and the full price for a no-show. The CMA expects a kept deposit to be a modest share of the price, so take it off the final bill and say in writing when it is kept.
- How much is a regular nail client worth?
- Techs advise a BIAB infill every 3 to 4 weeks, which is 13 to 17 visits a year. At the infill prices UK techs publish, £26 to £45, that is £338 to £765 a year from one client. Booking that client from your own ad on "nail salon near me" costs about £14, once, which is 3% of the £552 in the middle of that range; every infill after it is booked on your own link.
- When is the quiet season for nail salons?
- Winter, apart from December. In the last 12 months UK searches for "nail salon near me" were lowest in November, January and February at 165,000 a month and highest from June to August at 301,000. December rose to 201,000. Pedicures swing hardest: "pedicure near me" went from 22,200 in November and December to 90,500 in July.
Keep reading
More straight answers for trades.
A diary of regulars who found you, not the app next to you.
We build your website and run Google Ads from an account in your own name, aimed at people searching your town for BIAB, gel and acrylics. The client who books from it books your chair and nobody else's. See what it costs, then tell us about your business and we'll aim the ads at the clients worth a year of appointments.