Reddit's verdict flipped in March 2025.
Reddit's verdict on Fresha changed in March 2025. Before that, the recurring line was "it seems too good to be true": free software, funded by a 20% commission on new clients from the marketplace. In March 2025 Fresha made a monthly per-team-member subscription effectively mandatory, and the tone flipped. The words that repeat across the 2025 and 2026 threads are "greedy" and "deceptively expensive."
Three complaints come up again and again. The new per-bookable-member fees, announced with little warning. The 20% new-client commission, tolerated by some, calculated into hundreds a month by others. And, mostly in the UK threads, payouts held with no phone number to call and emails unanswered for weeks.
But here is the honest bit the takedown videos skip: plenty of working owners still rate it. The interface is genuinely good. Deposits and no-show protection work well. For a lean solo operator avoiding the add-ons, it can still be cheap. Reddit's real verdict is not "Fresha bad." It is "know exactly what you are signing up for, and do not let it be the only place clients can find you."
The Fresha reviews on Reddit, thread by thread.
Six threads that cover the whole argument, complaints and defence both. Every link goes to the original discussion so you can judge for yourself.
The thread that captures the turn. An owner describes being cornered: accept the new per-staff fees or lose calendar access, booking notifications and marketplace visibility. A UAE salon that paid a large onboarding fee on an unlimited-staff deal calls the per-member switch "thievery." A UK owner: "they've become greedy, and support is getting worse."
Read the thread on Reddit →The thread's top answer, from a working esthetician: "Fresha is deceptively very expensive, they just use 'it's free to get started' to lure you in." The maths behind it: monthly per-member fee, plus the 20% new-client commission, plus paid add-ons.
Read the thread on Reddit →A UK owner asks which to pick and the thread becomes a support horror story. One business spent nine weeks chasing a held payout with no reply. Another closed their account and never received their final payout, £140 stuck, no phone number to ring. If cashflow matters, read this one before deciding.
Read the thread on Reddit →A salon manager watching the free product become a ~$220-a-month product. In the comments, a two-branch business with 60 staff heading toward $1,000 a month decides to build their own booking instead. Several owners in the thread had no idea the change was coming.
Read the thread on Reddit →Balance matters. In the highest-voted thread we found, a licensed esthetician says Fresha is "still the cheapest and best option for my business" even after the price rises, and specifically praises the no-show deposit handling. A May 2026 r/hairstylist thread agrees: Fresha is one of the favourites out of five platforms tried, the objection is budget, not quality.
Read the thread on Reddit → Read the May 2026 r/hairstylist thread →A new lash tech, invisible in Fresha's marketplace search despite five-star reviews. The fix turned out to be checking out bookings to look "active." The rules for who gets seen on the marketplace are opaque, and they are Fresha's rules, not yours. That is the quiet cost nobody prices in.
Read the thread on Reddit →The thing the threads miss.
Almost every thread argues about fees. Almost nobody asks the bigger question: who owns the front door to your business?
When your only online presence is a Fresha profile, three things are true:
One honest caveat, because Reddit would call us out otherwise: booking platforms do get one genuine perk, the native blue "Book Online" button on Google Business Profiles, which an independent booking page doesn't always get. We factor that in. It is not worth surrendering your entire search presence for.
Keep the calendar. Own the front door.
We are not going to tell you to rage-quit Fresha. Some of our clients keep a booking platform for the calendar and deposits, and it works. What we fix is the dependence: your own website that ranks for your treatments in your town, feeds Google and AI search, and turns referrals into bookings whether or not you ever pay for marketplace visibility again.
Keep the calendar if you like it. Own the front door.
Book a free callMore Reddit, read for you: do I need a website? and is SEO worth it?
Questions, answered.
Is Fresha legit?+
Yes. It is a real, widely used booking platform with a genuinely good interface. The Reddit complaints are not about it being a scam. They are about pricing that changed sharply in March 2025, a 20% commission on new marketplace clients, and slow support, especially on held payouts in the UK.
What do salon owners on Reddit say about Fresha?+
The recurring 2025 and 2026 words are "greedy" and "deceptively expensive," driven by the switch from free software to mandatory per-team-member subscriptions. But working owners also still defend it as the cheapest good option for solo operators, and the deposit and no-show handling is consistently praised.
What is the Fresha 20% fee?+
Fresha charges a one-off commission, around 20%, on the first booking of a new client who finds you through their marketplace. Existing clients you bring yourself are not commissioned, which is why owners are told to import their client list on day one. Whether it stings depends on volume: some owners treat it as cheap customer acquisition, others count hundreds a month.
Should I leave Fresha?+
Not necessarily. If the calendar, deposits and reminders work for you, the subscription may be worth it. The mistake is letting a platform profile be your only online presence. Then your Google visibility, your new-client flow and your prices are all controlled by someone else's settings.
Do I need a website if I have a Fresha profile?+
If you want to be found by people who have never heard of you, yes. Your Fresha page competes with every other salon on the marketplace, and AI tools like ChatGPT recommend businesses with a real web presence, not thin booking profiles. A site and a booking platform are not either-or. The site gets you found, the platform runs the diary.
What is the best Fresha alternative?+
Depends what you are replacing. For the calendar: owners in the threads rate Square, GlossGenius, Jane and Mangomint, each with trade-offs. For the visibility, which is the half most people forget, the alternative is your own website that ranks in your town. That is the part we build.
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