What UK salon booking marketplaces charge (2026)

A writer who needs one number about salon booking platforms usually needs this one: what the marketplace takes when it introduces a salon to a new client. Every figure here was read off the platform’s own pricing page on 27 September 2026, and anything derived shows its arithmetic.

What each platform charges on a first booking

Treatwell charges 35% commission on first bookings made by new clients it brings from the marketplace, with 0% commission on repeat bookings, and states that all commissions and fees are subject to VAT (read 2026-09-27; the page’s own modified date is 10 June 2026).

Booksy charges nothing for marketplace bookings unless the optional Boost feature is switched on. With Boost on, it charges a one-time 30% fee, with a minimum of £5, based on the total cost of a Boost client’s first visit, and states that all services are subject to VAT (read 2026-09-27).

Fresha charges a 20% one-time commission on brand new clients who discover the business via the Fresha marketplace, with a minimum fee of $6 per client, and no fee ever on returning clients. Its rates are stated as exclusive of local sales taxes (read 2026-09-27; see the currency note below).

The same £60 first booking

The UK standard rate of VAT is 20%, in force since 4 January 2011. Applying each published rate to a £60 first appointment:

• Treatwell: £25.20. Derived from its published 35%: 35% of £60 = £21.00, plus VAT at 20% = £4.20. As a share of the booking, 35% x 1.20 = 42.0%.
• Booksy Boost: £21.60. Derived from its published 30%: 30% of £60 = £18.00, plus VAT at 20% = £3.60. As a share of the booking, 30% x 1.20 = 36.0%.
• Fresha: £12.00 before local sales tax. Derived from its published 20%: 20% of £60 = £12.00. The percentage applies to the booking value in whatever currency the account is billed; the minimum fee is published in dollars and is not stated in pounds on the page we read.

These are arithmetic on published rates, not measurements of what any salon actually paid.

What is not charged

Each platform publishes a list of what it does not take a commission on, and the lists are not the same shape.

Treatwell’s pricing page names bookings made directly with the salon, including calls, texts, WhatsApps and clients the salon adds itself, and the Book Now button on the salon’s social media and website. It also names a separate 2.5% processing fee, plus VAT, applied only when a client pays online in advance. Read as a closed list, it does not name a booking taken through a Google Business Profile.

Fresha’s page lists direct booking links, Facebook bookings and Instagram bookings as free, and returning marketplace clients as free.

Booksy’s page states that marketplace bookings are free when Boost is not enabled, that it does not charge commission on clients who find the salon through its own marketing, and that Reserve with Google is included in the subscription.

Where the minimum bites

A minimum fee is a percentage in disguise at low ticket prices, and it is the part of the model most often quoted wrongly.

Booksy’s £5 minimum exceeds 30% of the visit whenever the first visit costs less than £16.67 (derived: £5 / 0.30 = £16.67). Below that line the effective rate climbs: on a £12 service the £5 minimum is 41.7% (£5 / £12), and on a £10 service it is 50.0% (£5 / £10). Both figures exclude VAT.

Fresha’s minimum crosses its 20% rate at a first booking of $30 (derived: $6 / 0.20 = $30).

Treatwell’s pricing page publishes no minimum fee at all, so no crossover can be calculated for it. That is an absence on the page, not a statement that none exists.

The subscription underneath

The commission is not the whole bill, and only two of the three publish a monthly price.

Booksy publishes £40 per month, plus £5 per month for each additional team member, subject to VAT. Fresha publishes an Independent plan and a Team plan charged per bookable team member, in dollars (below). Treatwell’s page names two plans, Freelancer and Advanced, and shows a monthly price for neither, while its own commission answer refers to “your monthly fee”. A salon cannot read Treatwell’s subscription cost off Treatwell’s pricing page.

A note on currency, and why third-party summaries disagree

Fresha’s own en-GB pricing URL served US dollars when we read it on 27 September 2026: Independent at $19.95 per month, Team at $14.95 per bookable team member per month, and the marketplace minimum at $6 per client. We are recording what the page served, not converting it, because a converted figure would be ours rather than Fresha’s.

This matters for anyone citing a pound figure for that minimum. Third-party guides now in circulation state it as £4, £5 and £6, and they cannot all be right, while the page itself served $6 on the day we read it. The only safe citation is the rate, the currency and the date the page actually served.

Method

Every rate above was read on 27 September 2026 from the pages linked beside it, and each link points at the page the figure came from rather than at a company homepage.

Derived figures are marked as derived and carry their arithmetic inline. A VAT-inclusive share is the published commission multiplied by 1.20, using the UK standard rate of 20%. A worked example is the published rate applied to a stated £60 first booking. A minimum-fee crossover is the published minimum divided by the published commission rate.

Three limits are worth stating. The worked examples are arithmetic on published rates, not measurements: nobody’s invoice was read. The percentages are what each company publishes for its marketplace, and attribution rules decide which bookings those percentages land on, which is a separate question this page does not settle. And prices move, so the date beside each figure is part of the figure. When we have salon account statements of our own, we will publish measured effective rates beside these and replace the worked examples.

Sister page: what it costs a UK salon to get a new client (2026) sets these commissions against the cost of buying the same client through search advertising.