Fresha & Treatwell vs Your Own Website: What Salons Lose to Marketplaces
If you run a salon on Fresha, Booksy or Treatwell, you've probably wondered whether you still need your own website. Here's the honest answer: the marketplaces are genuinely useful, and bookings made through your own booking link cost you nothing. What costs you is the new clients their marketplace sends — Fresha charges around 20%, Booksy 30%, and Treatwell 35% plus VAT (roughly 42%) on that client's first visit. But the fee isn't even the real cost. The bigger one is ownership: on a marketplace, the client, the discovery and the rebooking belong to the platform, not to you. Your own website flips that.
I build salon websites on Squarespace, and I regularly help salons that started marketplace-only build something they actually own. So I'll be straight about where the apps genuinely help, and where they quietly cost more than the commission line suggests.
What Fresha, Booksy and Treatwell actually cost in 2026
The word "free" does a lot of work in marketplace marketing, so let's be precise about what each one charges. None of them takes a cut of every booking — the fee is a one-off charge for introducing a brand-new client. That distinction matters, and most write-ups get it wrong.
Fresha. The core booking software is free to use. You pay a one-time "new client fee" of about 20% (with a small minimum) only when Fresha's marketplace introduces a brand-new client, charged on their first appointment. Returning clients are free, and so is anything booked through your own Fresha link or button. There's a separate card-processing rate, as there is everywhere. As a way to get discovered, that's a fair deal.
Booksy. Around £40/month for the subscription, plus roughly £5/month per extra team member. Its optional marketplace tool, Booksy Boost, charges 30% of a new client's first visit — and nothing from the second visit onward. If you leave Boost switched off, there's no marketplace commission at all, only the subscription. Card processing is separate again.
Treatwell. A monthly subscription, plus 35% plus VAT on a new client's first booking through the marketplace — at 20% UK VAT, that's about 42% of that first appointment. Repeat bookings are 0% commission. Two details worth knowing: since April 2025, if you cancel a marketplace new-customer booking the commission can still apply, and a client can be counted as "new" again if they haven't had an appointment with you in 365 days.
So the honest read is this: for finding people who'd never otherwise have heard of you, a one-time introduction fee can be money well spent. The trouble starts when the marketplace is your only front door — because then every new client you'll ever get arrives with a fee attached, forever.
But the commission isn't the real cost
Here's what the fee table hides: who owns the client.
When someone books you through Treatwell or Fresha, they aren't really your client — they're a Treatwell user who happened to sit in your chair. The platform holds their email. The platform sends them the reminders, the offers, and the part owners always miss: suggestions for other salons. The lovely review they leave builds the marketplace's authority on Google, not yours. And when they want to rebook, they open the app — where three of your competitors are one tap away.
So even though repeat bookings are commission-free, you're still renting the relationship. You don't hold the client list. You can't quietly email everyone a Tuesday-afternoon offer when the diary's thin. And if the platform raises its fees, changes a rule the way Treatwell did in 2025, or simply ranks a flashier salon above you, you've got nothing of your own to fall back on.
That's the real cost. Not the 20-to-35% — the dependence.
What your own website gives you that a marketplace can't
A website you own changes the relationship in a few concrete ways:
The client is yours. Their details, their booking history and their loyalty sit with you, not inside someone else's app.
New clients arrive with no introduction fee. When your site ranks for "[your town] hair salon" and converts, those bookings cost you nothing per client.
Your reviews and content build your name on Google, not the marketplace's.
Your brand, not a listing. You're not a row in a directory next to your competitors, wrapped in someone else's design.
You can still book however you like — a proper appointment tool built into the site, or even your existing marketplace link embedded on your own page.
Here's a salon site I designed — Maison Hair Studio — built the way I build for salons: a clear hero, named stylists with photos, a service-and-price menu, and a Book button reachable from every page. When someone finds a site like that by searching for a salon in their town and books, that client is yours from the first appointment — no introduction fee, and their rebooking sits with you.
Isn't it cheaper to just use the free app?
It looks free until you add up a year of new-client fees. Run the numbers for your own salon — they're usually more revealing than any sales pitch.
Say a marketplace sends you eight new clients a month at an average £45 first visit. On Treatwell, at 35% plus VAT, that's roughly £19 a client — about £150 a month, or near £1,800 a year. On Fresha at 20%, the same eight clients cost around £9 each, closer to £70 a month. And that cost never falls: every new client, every year, carries the same fee.
Now the owned side. A specialist Squarespace build is a one-off — I charge £800 to £1,400 depending on whether you need simple pages, integrated booking or a product shop. On top of that sits the platform subscription (Squarespace runs roughly £12-£29/month on UK annual billing, depending on plan) and a domain at about £15-£20/year. A site that pulls in even two or three new clients a month directly — for no per-client fee — has usually paid for itself inside a year, and then keeps earning.
The point isn't "website instead of marketplace." It's that an owned channel has a fixed cost that drops per client as you grow, while a marketplace's cost per new client stays the same forever. I broke the full build-and-running-cost picture down separately in my guide to what a hair salon website costs in the UK — and if you're weighing which builder to put that owned site on, Squarespace vs Wix for salons is my honest take.
Do you have to choose between them?
No — and I'd be suspicious of anyone who tells you to bin the marketplace on day one. If you're brand new with no search presence, Fresha or Treatwell is one of the fastest ways to get those first clients through the door, and the introduction fee is a reasonable price for reach you don't have yet.
The setup I actually recommend is both, with a clear job for each. Use the marketplace for what it's good at — paid discovery while you're getting established. Build your own website as the hub you own, so that over time a growing share of new clients find you directly and every regular rebooks on your site. You don't even have to change how clients book: you can run Acuity (Squarespace's built-in booking) inside the site, or embed the booking system you already use. The goal isn't to be anti-marketplace. It's to stop being dependent on one.
How to move new clients off the marketplace and onto your own books
Once the website exists, shifting clients across to the channel you own is mostly habit and a few deliberate nudges:
Get found for your own name and town. Fill in your Google Business Profile completely and link it to your site; write your town and services naturally into your pages. This is what makes you show up when someone nearby searches — more on the foundations on the salon websites page.
Make your own booking the easiest path. A Book button two taps from the homepage, working cleanly on a phone, where most people find you.
Ask for the direct rebook at the chair. "Next time, book straight on our site — it's quicker." A card with your URL does a lot of work.
Own the follow-up. Your own client list plus a quiet-period offer beats waiting for the app to decide who hears from you.
None of this happens overnight, but every client who moves across is one you stop paying to keep.
So is a website worth it if you're already on Fresha or Treatwell?
Yes — not to replace the marketplace, but to stop renting your future to it. Keep the app as long as it's sending you clients worth the fee; just make sure it isn't the only thing standing between you and your next booking.
For most independent UK salons, budget £800-£1,400 for a specialist Squarespace build, plus the platform subscription and optional care from £35/month if you'd rather updates and backups were handled for you. You can see the kind of work that produces in the portfolio, and what's included on the Squarespace website services page.
If you want a straight answer for your specific salon — whether a website would genuinely pull new clients out of the marketplace, and what it would cost — I'm happy to give you one on a short free consultation. No obligation, and you'll leave knowing where you actually stand.
Frequently asked questions
Is Fresha really free for salons?
The booking software itself is free. You pay a one-time "new client fee" of about 20% (with a small minimum) only when Fresha's marketplace brings you a brand-new client, charged on their first visit — plus the usual card-processing rate. Returning clients, and anyone who books through your own Fresha link, cost you nothing. So "free" is accurate for the software, but the marketplace introductions carry a fee.
How much commission does Treatwell take in the UK?
As of June 2026, Treatwell charges 35% plus VAT — about 42% — on a new client's first booking made through its marketplace, on top of a monthly subscription. Repeat bookings are 0% commission. Note that a client can count as "new" again if they haven't booked with you in 365 days, and since April 2025 the new-customer commission can still apply even if the booking is cancelled.
Do I still need a website if I'm on Fresha or Booksy?
You don't need one to take bookings — the apps handle that. But without your own site, the marketplace owns your discovery, your client list and your reviews, and every new client arrives with a fee. A website is how you get found directly, win new clients with no per-client commission, and keep the relationship instead of renting it.
Can I use my Fresha or Treatwell booking on my own website?
Often, yes. You can link or embed your existing marketplace booking on your own pages, or switch to Acuity — Squarespace's built-in booking tool — built straight into the site. Owning a website doesn't force you to change how clients actually book — it just gives them a front door that belongs to you.
Will my own website rank above my Fresha or Treatwell listing on Google?
It can — for your salon's name and local searches like "[your town] hair salon" — with a proper local-SEO setup and a complete Google Business Profile. And a booking that comes from your own ranking costs you no introduction fee, which is the whole point of owning the channel.
Gediminas Vengrauskas is the founder of UOGAweb, a Squarespace Circle Gold studio building mobile-first, SEO-first websites for hair & beauty businesses across the UK and Europe. See live work on the portfolio or book a free consultation.
