What Fresha Actually Costs Australian Salons in 2026

Fresha ended its free tier for Australian salons in 2025. If you've been on the platform for a while, you'll already know this. If you're evaluating Fresha now, the "free" reputation that follows it around no longer applies.

What replaced the free tier is a subscription model with per-seat pricing. But the subscription is only part of the cost. To understand what Fresha actually costs a salon, you need to look at the full picture: the subscription, the marketplace commission, the processing rate, and the add-ons that cover features other platforms include by default.

How Fresha's pricing works now#

Fresha's current AU pricing is structured around a per-bookable-team-member monthly fee. Each person on your team who takes appointments is a "bookable member" and each one adds to your monthly bill.

For a salon with four bookable staff, that's four seats at the monthly rate. The fee is recurring regardless of how many bookings those staff take through the platform.

That base subscription is just the starting point.

The 20% marketplace commission#

The part of Fresha's model that most operators don't fully account for until they run the numbers is the marketplace commission.

When a new client books your salon through the Fresha marketplace (meaning they discovered your venue through Fresha's search or listing and booked without a prior relationship with you), Fresha takes 20% of that booking value as a commission fee.

To be clear: this only applies to genuinely new clients via the marketplace. Returning clients and clients who book through your own booking link don't trigger the commission. But for salons that rely on Fresha's marketplace for new client acquisition, this becomes a significant ongoing cost.

Here's what it looks like in practice.

A salon with 10 new marketplace clients per month, each booking an average of $120 in services:

• Commission per new client: $24 (20% of $120)
• Monthly commission total: $240
• Annual commission total: $2,880

That $2,880 goes to Fresha. Every year. On top of the subscription. For clients who booked through the marketplace.

If your new client volume is higher or your average booking value is higher, the number scales up proportionally.

The processing rate#

Fresha's payment processing adds another layer. Their published processing rate for Australian merchants is higher than what you'd pay on a platform with integrated payments and a negotiated processing arrangement.

OpenChair Pro processes at 1.8% + 30¢ per transaction. On $15,000 of monthly card revenue, the difference between a higher processing rate and OpenChair's rate is a meaningful monthly figure. It comes off your revenue on every single transaction.

Add-ons for features that should be standard#

Beyond the subscription and commission, Fresha charges separately for features that other platforms include as part of the plan.

Client Loyalty tools (the kind of automation that keeps clients returning) are available on Fresha as a paid add-on. So is Client Insights, the analytics and client reporting layer. For most salons, understanding retention and rewarding loyal clients are core operations, not premium upgrades.

OpenChair includes equivalent capabilities: Reconnect automations, Intelligence analytics, campaign tools, all part of the Pro plan with no additional fee.

What the full cost looks like for a four-person salon#

A four-person salon on Fresha with moderate new client volume:

The same salon on OpenChair Pro:

The comparison shifts further in OpenChair's favour as team size and new client volume grow. OpenChair's hard cap of $199/month means your software costs don't scale with your success. Fresha's commission means they do.

The honest case for Fresha#

If Fresha's marketplace is genuinely your primary source of new clients (if you're a newer salon that relies on discovery via the Fresha search to build your client base) then the marketplace commission represents real value. You're paying for new clients you wouldn't otherwise have had. That's a different calculation.

This comparison is most relevant for established salons with an existing client base, where a significant portion of "new marketplace bookings" are actually returning clients who found your Fresha listing rather than your own booking page. In that scenario, you're paying 20% commission on clients who were always going to come back. That cost doesn't buy you anything.

If you can answer yes to both of these questions, the numbers tend to favour switching:

1. Does the majority of my repeat business come from clients who already know me, not from Fresha discovery?
2. Am I regularly hitting or exceeding the Fresha commission in a way that isn't tied to genuine new client acquisition?

What you keep when you switch#

Client data on OpenChair is yours. Full export at any time, no restrictions. You can take your client list, booking history, and contact details and use them however you choose: direct marketing, migration to another tool, whatever makes sense for your business.

You also keep your booking link, your storefront, and your communication history. Switching platforms doesn't mean starting from scratch. It means redirecting your clients to a new booking page and continuing from where you were.

Fresha's pricing has changed. The question worth asking is whether your costs have changed with it, and whether what you're getting in return still makes sense.

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