A Fresha alternative that never takes a commission

What Fresha actually is

Fresha is a booking and business-management platform for beauty and wellness businesses, with a consumer-facing marketplace app where clients discover and book nearby providers directly, alongside tools a business uses to run its calendar, staff and payments (fresha.com, checked 2026-09-02). Gaplessly is also an Australian booking platform, but the pricing model is where the two genuinely diverge.

How a booking on Fresha actually works

The mechanics behind a Fresha booking, in the order they happen:

• A business lists its services, staff and availability on Fresha.
• A client finds the business through the Fresha marketplace, a direct booking link, or a social integration, and books an open slot instantly.
• The appointment is held on the business's calendar like any other booking.
• Payment happens after the appointment, through the app, with a one-time commission on a client the marketplace brought in for the first time (the next section covers exactly when that applies).

Where the two models actually diverge

The commission gets talked about most, but for a salon with staff it is rarely the biggest number. Fresha prices its Team plan per bookable team member, so the subscription itself is multiplied by how many people you employ. Our plans include a team and charge a flat rate, with a straightforward per-seat price only once you pass the included count.

Using Fresha's published Team rate of A$29.95 per team member per month, and our published ladder: at five bookable staff, Fresha is A$149.75 a month and our Growth plan is A$83, because Growth includes 3 people and 2 extra seats are A$12 each. At ten, Fresha is A$299.50 and our Pro plan is A$149 with 10 people included. Both figures exclude tax on both sides, and neither includes card processing, which you pay somewhere no matter who you are with.

Every hire raises one of those bills and not the other. That is the comparison, and it does not depend on the commission at all.

What the commission really is, stated fairly

It is worth being accurate about this, because the loose version of the claim is easy to catch. Fresha does not take a cut of every client and it does not take a cut forever. Their help centre states the marketplace new client fee is one-time, and applies only when a client who is not already on your client list first discovers your business on the Fresha marketplace and books from there.

• A client who books from your own website, Google or Instagram is not charged.
• A client already in your client list is not charged.
• A client you imported before their first booking is not charged.
• A client who confirms they have visited you before is not charged.

So the fee is the price of the marketplace bringing you someone new. That is a real service, and if you need discovery it can be worth paying for. The question is whether you need it. If your clients come from your own following, you are paying a per-team-member subscription for a marketplace you are not using, and the commission is beside the point.

The line most people miss: metered email

Fresha's pricing page lists 50 free emails a month per team member, then 3c each, and 20 free text messages, then 6c to 25c each. Confirmations and reminders are emails. A busy week can pass 50.

We do not meter confirmation or reminder emails on any plan, and we never will, because a booking nobody confirmed is not a booking. Texts are A$0.09 per text on Growth and Pro, because the mobile carrier charges us for each one. That cost is shown per text rather than folded into the plan price.

What you get here that you do not get there

• A booking page carrying your name, your colours and your fonts, not a marketplace listing next to your competitors.
• No booking cap on any appointment plan, and no limit on client records.
• Payment independence. You are not required to process cards through us to use the scheduling.
• The same platform runs table reservations, if you also run a venue.