Fresha Fees in 2026: What Salons Actually Pay (With Worked Math)

"Free" was the brand. The fees are the business.

For years, Fresha's pitch to salons was the simplest in the industry: completely free booking software. That era is over — and the pricing model that replaced it is genuinely confusing, partly because it has three separate components, and partly because Fresha's own pages don't pin all of them down.

This post is the fee breakdown we'd want as a salon owner: every Fresha cost component, what Fresha's own pricing page confirms, what it doesn't, and worked math you can rerun with your own numbers. Everything verified below was read from fresha.com/pricing on June 11, 2026 — and where their pages conflict or go quiet, we say so instead of quoting a number we can't trace. (That standard isn't a flourish; it's the same one behind our entire free booking plan limits audit.)

The disclosure up front: we make RZRV, a booking system whose only plan is $0. We have a horse in this race — which is exactly why every claim here is dated and sourced.

What Fresha's own pricing page confirms (June 11, 2026)

Four things are stated plainly on Fresha's pricing page:

1. There is no free plan. Fresha today is a paid subscription with a 7-day free trial. The famous free tier is gone.
2. The subscription is priced per bookable team member. In Fresha's own words, "the price of your Fresha plan subscription is calculated based on the number of bookable team members." Solo professionals pay for one; a Team plan pays per member.
3. Client messaging is metered. Plans include 20 free messages a month (per team member on the Team plan), after which texts and WhatsApp messages bill at per-message rates. Marketing texts are always billed per text, on top.
4. Prices are geo-served. Fresha shows subscription prices and message rates in your local currency, and the numbers differ by country. The page we could verify served prices in a non-USD currency — so unlike most "Fresha pricing" articles, we won't quote you a universal dollar figure that their own page doesn't show everyone. Check the page from your own location for your rates.

Now let's turn each component into math.

Fee 1: the subscription — it multiplies with your team

Because the subscription is calculated per bookable team member, the structure matters more than any single price: whatever the per-member rate is in your country, your subscription is that rate times every person who takes bookings.

A three-chair salon doesn't pay one subscription; it pays for three bookable team members. Hire a fourth stylist, and the software bill rises before they've taken their first client. That's not unusual in this category — most salon platforms price per staff member or per calendar — but it's the first line of the monthly math, and it scales in exactly one direction.

The contrast to hold in mind: a per-account or flat-free model doesn't move when you hire. (RZRV's only plan is $0 with unlimited staff; on the paid side, several general schedulers price per account rather than per seat — our small-business scheduling guide maps which is which.)

Fee 2: the message meter — 20 free, then per message

SMS reminders are a salon's no-show defense, and this is where Fresha's metering deserves a worked example. The verified facts: 20 free messages per month, then per-message rates (shown in your local currency), with marketing texts always billed per text.

Run a modest salon month through that meter:

• 150 appointments
• 2 messages each — a confirmation when they book, a reminder the day before
• 300 messages

The first 20 are free. The remaining 280 bill at your country's per-message rate — every month, growing with your booking volume. Add any promotional campaign ("quiet Tuesday — 20% off blowouts") and each of those texts bills on top, always.

The point isn't that per-message rates are scandalous — it's that a meter turns your best no-show tool into a variable cost that punishes exactly the behavior (more reminders, more bookings) you want more of. For the same salon month on RZRV, the SMS line is $0 — reminders are unlimited and free on the only plan. That's not a teaser cap; it's the entire pricing model.

Fee 3: the marketplace new-client fee — the one Fresha's own pages won't pin down

Here's the fee everyone asks about, and where this post has to be more honest than the average roundup.

You've likely heard that Fresha charges a commission on new clients who find you through its marketplace — the figure most widely repeated by salon owners and older coverage is 20% of the new client's first sale, with a minimum fee. So we went to verify it on Fresha's own pages, and hit a genuine contradiction:

• The pricing page served to us lists marketplace new clients as "Free."
• Fresha's own help center refers to a "Marketplace new client fee rate and minimum fee" — and defers the actual rate back to the pricing page.

Two Fresha surfaces, two answers. So we won't assert what Fresha's current marketplace fee is in your country — check what your own account and your country's pricing page show. What we can do is show you why the answer matters so much. (Fresha didn't invent this model, by the way — Booksy's Boost program prices new-client acquisition the same way, and its rate is on its pricing page; see the free Booksy alternative breakdown.)

The worked math (scenario — rerun it with your own rate)

Take the widely-reported figure as the scenario rate, applied to a salon doing decent marketplace volume:

• 20 new marketplace clients a month, at a $75 average first service
• That's $1,500 of first-visit revenue from the marketplace
• At a 20% new-client rate: $300 that month in marketplace fees alone — before the subscription, before the messages

Scale it down and it still bites: 10 new clients at $60 average is $120/mo at that rate. And remember the help-center wording about a minimum fee — on cheap first bookings, a flat minimum can take a larger percentage slice than the headline rate.

Two honest framings of the same math:

• As advertising spend, it can be defensible. $300 for 20 brand-new clients is $15 per acquired client — if those clients rebook with you directly, that may beat what you'd pay for ads. This is the strongest honest case for Fresha, and it's real: the marketplace genuinely puts salons in front of people searching for appointments.
• As a fee on growth, it compounds against you. It's a cut of exactly the revenue you most need (new clients), at a rate you should verify per booking, in a model where your subscription and your message bill are also rising as you grow.

The verifiable contrast: RZRV's commission is 0% — on everything, forever — because there's no marketplace taking a cut. Clients book on your page or your website; your profile is never listed next to your competitors'. (The flip side, honestly: no marketplace also means no marketplace discovery. If browsing strangers are your growth engine, that's Fresha's genuine value — weigh it against the math above.)

Putting it together: a 3-chair salon's monthly Fresha bill

The formula, with the unknowns left explicit because they're geo-served:

1. Subscription: your country's per-member rate × 3 bookable team members
2. Messages: (your monthly appointment count × messages per appointment − the free 20) × your per-message rate, plus every marketing text
3. Marketplace new clients: your country's new-client fee rate (verify it — see above) × first-visit revenue from marketplace bookings

Three lines, each one scaling with success: more staff, more bookings, more new clients — each raises the bill. None of this is hidden, exactly. But none of it is "free," either, and the brand still trades on the word.

The same salon's RZRV bill is one line: $0 — unlimited staff, unlimited bookings, unlimited SMS and email reminders, 0% commission, with the honest trade-offs that RZRV has no consumer marketplace and doesn't process payments (keep your current card machine; there are no processing fees because there's no processing). The full side-by-side, including what Fresha does better, is on our free Fresha alternative page, and the salon-specific picture — staff, SMS volume, no-show math — is in the salon scheduling guide.

If you're staying on Fresha: three fee-control moves

This post isn't a demand that you switch. If the marketplace earns its keep for you, three ways to keep the fees honest:

1. Verify your marketplace fee rate in your own account — given that Fresha's public surfaces conflict, your account's billing area and your country's pricing page are the only answers that count. Note the minimum fee, not just the rate.
2. Watch the message meter against your booking volume — 20 free messages covers about 10 appointments' worth of confirm-plus-remind. Everything above that is a per-message line item that you should see priced in your currency before you rely on it.
3. Convert marketplace clients to direct rebookings — the new-client fee (whatever your rate is) applies to marketplace acquisition; a client who rebooks through your own link is a client whose revenue isn't shared. Make rebooking-at-checkout a habit and the commission line shrinks as your base grows.

And if the three-line bill has stopped earning its keep: switching costs you an afternoon, not a migration project. Export your client list, recreate your service menu, run the new booking link in parallel for a couple of weeks, then point your Instagram bio and Google Business Profile at it. (Weighing the other big small-business option while you're at it? Our Square Appointments alternatives roundup applies this same verified-fees treatment to Square's ecosystem.)

FAQ

Is Fresha still free in 2026?

No. As of June 11, 2026, Fresha's own pricing page describes a paid subscription calculated per bookable team member, with a 7-day free trial. Client messaging is metered (20 free messages a month, then per-message fees), and prices are shown in your local currency. The free-forever Fresha that built the brand no longer exists.

How much is Fresha's new-client marketplace fee?

Fresha's own pages give conflicting answers: the pricing page served to us lists marketplace new clients as "Free," while Fresha's help center refers to a "Marketplace new client fee rate and minimum fee." The figure most widely reported by salon owners is 20% of a new client's first sale with a minimum fee, but we could not verify that on Fresha's live pricing page — check the rate your own account and country's pricing page show before building it into your math.

Does Fresha charge for appointment reminders?

Plans include 20 free messages per month (per team member on the Team plan, per their pricing page as of June 11, 2026); beyond that, text and WhatsApp messages bill at per-message rates in your local currency, and marketing texts are always billed per text. A salon sending a confirmation plus a reminder per appointment crosses the free allowance at roughly 10 appointments a month.

What does a free alternative to Fresha actually include?

RZRV's only plan is $0 and uncapped: unlimited bookings, unlimited staff, unlimited SMS and email reminders, a hosted booking page, an embeddable widget, Google Calendar sync, and a REST API — with 0% commission because there's no marketplace. The honest trade-offs: no payment processing and no consumer marketplace. The full comparison is on the free Fresha alternative page.

When is Fresha worth its fees?

When the marketplace genuinely drives your growth. If browsing consumers in your city regularly become long-term clients, the acquisition value can exceed the subscription, message, and new-client costs — that's a real trade, and for discovery-hungry salons it can be the right one. If most of your bookings already come from your own Instagram, Google profile, or regulars, you're paying marketplace-era fees for software your own channels could feed for free.