7 Best Fresha alternatives for salons and med spas (2026)

Key takeaways

Fresha alternatives fall into two camps, marketplace platforms that charge a one-time fee on a new client and flat-fee platforms that do not.

Vagaro, Mindbody, Booksy, Square Appointments, Zenoti, Timely and GlossGenius are the seven picks, each matched to a practice type.

The Fresha fee break-even rule divides a flat monthly subscription by 20% of your average first-visit ticket.

Vagaro’s own pricing page charges a one-time 20% fee on a marketplace client’s first appointment, so moving to Vagaro does not escape the commission.

A med spa should confirm consent form storage, treatment notes and photo handling before switching, not just the booking calendar.

Fresha alternatives fall into two camps, and the split decides your monthly bill more than any feature list does. Booksy and Vagaro run the same marketplace model Fresha runs, and both charge a one-time fee on a new client’s first visit. Square Appointments, GlossGenius, Timely, Mindbody and Zenoti charge a subscription and take no cut of a new client.

Fresha is salon scheduling software with a consumer marketplace attached, and that marketplace is where the fee comes from. Fresha’s own help center describes how the fee works but never publishes the rate. The pricing page loads its figures in the browser instead.

We checked every price on this page against the vendor’s own pricing page on September 1, 2026. Three figures that competing lists repeat turned out to be wrong or gone. Below the table sits the Fresha fee break-even rule. That arithmetic tells you whether a commission or a subscription is cheaper at your volume.

Fresha alternatives at a glance

Square Appointments is the strongest free Fresha alternative, Vagaro the closest feature-for-feature swap, and GlossGenius the only pick with a med spa tier. Every figure below came from the vendor’s own site.

Two rows deserve a second look. Vagaro carries the same 20% new-client fee Fresha is criticized for. Mindbody and Zenoti publish no price at all, which is why the figures in competing lists disagree with each other.

Why practices are leaving Fresha

Practices leave Fresha over the marketplace new client fee, a one-time charge on every brand-new client the Fresha marketplace introduces. Fresha calculates that charge on the client’s first booking.

Fresha’s own help center sets out how the fee works. The charge is a percentage of the value of the first booking, with a minimum fee on low-value appointments and a cap on higher-value ones. Fresha states the fee is non-refundable.

Two details in that documentation are the ones owners tend to discover late.

• You cannot keep online booking and drop the marketplace. Fresha’s help center states that taking bookings through your own website and social pages requires a marketplace listing. Unlisting your profile “will disable all your online booking channels.”
• A client who only browsed the marketplace still counts. Fresha charges the fee for clients who view your marketplace profile first and then book through your own website or social pages.

The second complaint is that nobody can agree what Fresha costs. One competing roundup says Fresha charges no subscription at all. Another describes a free Independent plan plus a $9.95 Team plan. A third says there is no free plan and quotes $19.95 and $14.95.

None of the three matches what fresha.com documents in text. Fresha’s help center describes two plan types, set by the number of bookable team members. Independent covers one bookable team member and Team covers several. Both are described as a paid subscription that stops renewing when you cancel.

The prices themselves are not in the page. Fresha’s pricing page renders its figures in the browser and localizes them to your detected country, so the numbers never appear in the page source. That is why roundups quote four different Fresha prices. Our Fresha pricing breakdown tracks the plan structure in more detail.

The Fresha fee break-even point

The Fresha fee break-even rule is simple arithmetic. Divide a flat-fee competitor’s monthly subscription by 20% of your average first-visit ticket. That answer is the number of marketplace new clients per month where the commission stops being the cheaper option.

Work it through with one stated assumption. Assume a $120 average first-visit ticket, which is our assumption and not a published figure. A 20% one-time fee then costs $24 per new client, using the rate Vagaro publishes on its own pricing page.

At that rate, two marketplace new clients a month already cost more than GlossGenius Standard at $28. Three cost more than Square Appointments Plus at $49 per location. The chart below runs the same rule against seven verified monthly prices.

Read the rule in both directions. A solo stylist who gets one marketplace client a month is genuinely better off on a commission model than on almost any subscription. A busy med spa on a $168 clinical tier needs seven marketplace clients a month before the flat fee wins.

Swap in your own numbers before you decide. Pull last quarter’s new-client count and your average first-visit ticket, then run the division. In practices we onboard, the count is usually lower than owners guess and the ticket is higher.

1. Vagaro, best overall Fresha alternative

Vagaro is the closest feature-for-feature replacement for Fresha, which is why it tops this list. Anyone running a Vagaro vs Fresha comparison finds the same shape twice. Both platforms sell a subscription, run a consumer marketplace, and charge a one-time fee on the new clients that marketplace brings.

Vagaro’s pricing page is unusually clear about what you are buying. A bookable calendar is a calendar for one person performing services, and admin staff like the front desk do not need one. Vagaro prices one location differently from several, and the ladder runs from a single “Just Me” calendar up to seven or more.

Vagaro’s own pricing FAQ is where the marketplace fee gets spelled out. A new client who discovers and books you through the Vagaro Marketplace triggers a one-time 20% fee on the first appointment. Switching from Fresha to Vagaro does not escape a marketplace commission. Our Fresha vs Vagaro comparison takes the two apart in more depth.

One thing to test during the trial is calendar sync direction. A one-way sync pushes bookings onto your personal calendar but does not let your own events block availability, which is how double-bookings happen.

Pricing

Vagaro’s pricing page renders the figure in your country’s currency, so read the number on vagaro.com rather than trusting a roundup’s dollar amount.

2. Mindbody, best for multi-location studios

Mindbody is the pick for a multi-location studio or spa group, and it is also the pick with no published price. Three of the four ranking pages we read put Mindbody at $99 per month per location. Mindbody’s own pricing page shows “Let’s talk” on all three tiers.

What Mindbody does publish is the shape of each tier. Starter covers booking, integrated payments, branded booking widgets and basic reporting. Accelerate adds analytics plus room and resource management. Ultimate adds automated email and text campaigns, a sales pipeline and 24/7 AI front desk support.

Two structural details matter for a growing group. Mindbody prices per location rather than per seat, and every tier includes unlimited users. Adding a receptionist or a junior therapist therefore does not push you up a tier. Booksy and Vagaro bill the opposite way.

Pricing

Mindbody publishes no figure on any tier, so budget from a written quote rather than the $99 per location that roundups still repeat.

3. Booksy, best marketplace alternative

Booksy is the closest structural peer to Fresha, and the difference between them is consent. Booksy’s marketplace listing comes free with the subscription. The Boost feature that pushes you up the marketplace is free to turn on. Booksy then charges a one-time 30% fee on a Boost client’s first visit.

That percentage is higher than Fresha’s reported rate, but you choose when it applies. Turn Boost off and Booksy costs $29.99 a month plus tax with no commission. Fresha’s help center gives you no equivalent switch, because unlisting the marketplace profile disables online booking entirely.

Booksy’s billing is per seat rather than per location. One user is $29.99 a month and each extra team member adds $20 a month, so a five-chair salon lands near $110 before processing. Our Fresha vs Booksy comparison walks through the two marketplaces side by side.

Pricing

Card processing runs 2.69% plus 30 cents on mobile and keyed entry. Booksy’s card reader charges 2.49% plus 10 cents, and Tap to Pay charges 2.49% plus 20 cents.

4. Square Appointments, best free plan and built-in POS

Square Appointments is the answer for anyone who wants a Fresha alternative with no subscription. Square’s Free plan covers one location at $0 a month and includes an online booking site, appointment reminders and unlimited staff calendars.

You pay through card processing instead. In-person rates fall as you move up the plans. Free charges 2.6% plus 15 cents, Plus charges 2.5%, and Premium charges 2.4%. Online payments run 3.3% plus 30 cents on Free and 2.9% plus 30 cents on the paid plans.

Square is also the pick if you sell retail. Most salon POS setups bolt a terminal onto a separate booking tool, and the two never reconcile cleanly. Square runs the appointment, the checkout, the retail line and the card reader from one account. That is the practical reason solo stylists stay.

Pricing

Plus and Premium each come with a 30-day free trial, and the subscription partly buys a better card rate rather than only extra features.

5. Zenoti, best for spa and med spa chains

Zenoti is built for multi-location spa and med spa groups, and Zenoti prices accordingly. The pricing page asks you to pick a business type first, with separate tracks for salon and spa, medspa, fitness and barbershop. Every route ends in a quote request rather than a number.

That matters because one competing roundup states Zenoti starts at $400 a month. Zenoti’s own pricing page carries no figure at all, and Zenoti says multi-location pricing is customized to your footprint and goals. Treat any Zenoti dollar amount you read elsewhere as unverified.

What Zenoti sells is consolidation across sites. Zenoti positions the platform as a replacement for eight to twelve separate subscriptions, covering scheduling, POS, payroll, marketing and reporting in one system. For a chain standardizing team scheduling across ten locations, that is the argument that lands.

Pricing

Zenoti publishes no pricing and offers no free plan or trial. A demo and a written quote are the only way to see the cost.

6. Timely, best for flat pricing with payments included

Timely is the low-friction switch, with flat pricing and no cut of a new client. Timely’s own pricing page lists three US plans. Build is $26 a month, Elevate is $39, and Innovate is $47.

Timely’s pricing FAQ states that payments are included in all three plans, at no extra cost beyond processing fees. Payments cover Australia, New Zealand, the US, the UK and the EU.

One warning while you research. The salon Timely lives at gettimely.com, and timelyapp.com is an unrelated time-tracking product. Our Fresha vs Timely comparison covers the two in full.

Pricing

Timely’s pricing page localizes each figure to your country. The three prices above are the US rates Timely publishes on gettimely.com.

7. GlossGenius, best for small salons

GlossGenius is the best pick here for a small salon team, mostly because the entry plan is not a stripped-down tier. Standard costs $28 a month billed monthly and already includes a booking website, email and text marketing, inventory, packages and memberships.

One figure travels around unchallenged. Competing roundups list GlossGenius at $24, $48 and $148, which are the annual-billing rates. Billed monthly the same three plans are $28, $56 and $168. Standard caps at two team members and Gold caps at nine staff.

GlossGenius also runs a separate med spa track, which no other pick on this list does. Practice Essentials is $168 a month and includes core EMR tools for compliance. Practice Advanced is $298 a month and adds a full AI clinical suite with unlimited providers.

Pricing

Card processing is a flat 2.6% on every plan, and the payroll add-on costs $40 a month plus $6 per seat.

What to check before you switch spa and salon software

Before you switch, check consent form storage, treatment and photo records, card processing costs, and how the price scales.

• Consent forms. Ask whether a signed form attaches to the client record automatically, or whether someone scans a PDF and uploads it by hand. The second answer costs you minutes on every appointment.
• Treatment notes and photos. Ask where before-and-after images are stored. Photos on a practitioner’s phone camera roll are the most common compliance problem we see in aesthetic practices.
• Card processing. Compare the in-person rate, not the headline subscription. A 0.2% difference on $30,000 a month is $60, which outweighs several of the subscriptions above.
• How the price scales. Per-location billing punishes a second site. Per-seat billing punishes hiring. Pick the model that matches your next two years, not this month.

The four ranking pages we mined for this article are salon-generalist, and none of them raises consent, charting or photo handling. That is fine for a hair salon. For a med spa injecting botulinum toxin, the records are the part a regulator asks about. Our Pabau alternatives index lines the same platforms up on those criteria.

Run one migration question past every shortlisted vendor too. Ask whether they import consent history and custom fields, or only names, emails and appointment dates. The second answer means your client history restarts on day one.

How Pabau keeps consent forms, notes and photos with the booking

Most of the platforms above were built for a hair salon and later stretched toward aesthetics. Practice management software like Pabau starts from the other end, with the client record at the center and booking attached to it.

Here is the difference in a working day. On a salon-first tool, a med spa books the appointment in one system and emails a consent form from another. Before-and-after photos end up on a phone.

With Pabau, the medical questionnaire and consent form are signed before the visit. The photos attach to the treatment note. The injector opens one screen mid-appointment and the whole timeline is there.

Pabau’s pricing works the way the break-even rule rewards. Pabau costs from $62 a month for one user with the full platform, and no feature is locked behind a higher tier. Pabau takes no commission on a new client, so growing your new-client count does not raise your bill.

Pabau has no free trial, and that is deliberate. A practice moving off Fresha gets structured onboarding instead. A dedicated client coordinator handles the data migration, so client records and appointment history arrive intact.

Keep consent, notes and photos with the booking

Pabau brings online booking, consent forms, treatment notes and before-and-after photos into one client record, so a med spa stops stitching three tools together. Every subscription includes every feature, with no commission on new clients.

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Conclusion

There is no single best Fresha alternative, and any list that names one without asking your new-client volume is guessing. Run the break-even rule first. Below roughly two marketplace clients a month, a commission model is usually cheaper than the subscriptions here.

Then ask the second question, which decides more than price. If your practice only takes bookings and payments, Square Appointments, Booksy or GlossGenius will all do the job. If your practice injects, lasers or prescribes, the records are the product and a salon calendar will not hold them.

The trade-off worth remembering is that a marketplace buys you clients and rents you your own brand. Fresha’s own documentation makes that explicit, because dropping the listing switches off online booking. Book a demo to see how Pabau handles consent, charting and photos alongside booking for an aesthetic practice.

Continue your research

Want the full verdict on Fresha itself? Fresha review works through what the platform does well and where practices outgrow it.

Still trying to pin down what Fresha costs? Fresha pricing breaks the plan types and fees down line by line.

Weighing the closest feature-for-feature swap? Fresha vs Vagaro compares two platforms that both run a marketplace and both charge for new clients.

Choosing between two marketplaces? Fresha vs Booksy sets Fresha’s mandatory listing against Booksy’s opt-in Boost fee.

Wondering how Timely stacks up? Fresha vs Timely compares flat pricing with payments included against Fresha’s commission model.

Frequently asked questions