Fresha markets itself as free, and its core scheduling tools genuinely have no monthly subscription fee. The real cost shows up in two places: a 20% commission on new clients who book through the Fresha marketplace, and a 2.49% + $0.30 payment processing fee on every card transaction. Neither of those appears on the sign-up page — you find them in the fine print once you're already using the platform.
How Fresha's pricing actually works
Fresha's business model has three layers:
- No monthly subscription for the base plan — this is the number Fresha leads with.
- 20% marketplace commission on any new client who discovers and books you through the Fresha app or website. Clients you bring back yourself aren't subject to this fee.
- 2.49% + $0.30 payment processing on every transaction that runs through Fresha Payments, new client or not.
On top of that, optional extras — a custom booking-page domain, additional locations, and some marketing tools — are billed separately once you need them.
What it costs in practice
Take a salon doing 150 bookings a month at a $70 average price, where 30% of bookings (45) come from new clients through the marketplace:
- Marketplace commission: 45 × $70 × 20% = $630/month
- Payment processing on all 150 bookings: 150 × ($70 × 2.49% + $0.30) ≈ $307/month
- Total: ≈ $937/month, or over $11,000/year — without a single paid plan selected
The proportion of new-client marketplace bookings is what determines your real cost. A salon that relies heavily on the Fresha marketplace for growth pays substantially more than one that mostly rebooks existing clients.
Fresha vs BookrHub: pricing side by side
| Cost | Fresha | BookrHub |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly subscription | $0 on base plan | $0 on free plan |
| Commission on new clients | 20% via marketplace | 0% — always |
| Payment processing | 2.49% + $0.30 per transaction | Standard Stripe rates |
| Custom domain | Paid add-on | Included |
| Email reminders | Available | Included free |
| Cost scales with marketplace growth | Yes — the more new clients, the more commission | No — flat, predictable |
Should you budget for Fresha's fees or avoid them?
If most of your new business already comes from your own marketing — Instagram, Google Business Profile, word of mouth — Fresha's marketplace commission mostly doesn't apply to you, and its free tier can be genuinely inexpensive. If you're counting on the Fresha marketplace to bring you new clients, budget for the 20% commission as a real cost of that channel, not a rounding error.
Want to see your own numbers? Use our Fresha fee calculator to estimate what you'd actually pay based on your booking volume, or read the full BookrHub vs Fresha comparison if you're considering a switch.
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