The best salon software UK independents can run on comes down to one decision. Do you want a marketplace bringing you new clients? Or do you want to keep your own list and pay a flat fee? Fresha, Treatwell and Booksy do the first, and they charge commission for it. Phorest and SalonIQ suit multi-chair salons. Aasure, Timely, Square and Setmore all work on flat fees.
We are one of the nine. Aasure appears below alongside eight competitors, so read this knowing who wrote it. We have said plainly where the others beat us. A comparison that only flatters its author is worth nothing. Also, every price links to the page it came from. Where a platform publishes no price, we say so instead of guessing.
How we chose these nine
We started from the shape of the business, rather than the feature list. Most comparison pages rank salon software as though every salon were the same size. But a single-chair colourist and a six-stylist high-street salon have almost nothing in common commercially. So software that serves one badly often serves the other well.
Instead, we sorted on three questions that genuinely change the answer.
Do you need new clients, or do you have too many?
This is the marketplace question, and it matters more than every feature comparison put together. Marketplaces charge commission on the new clients they introduce, so the cost scales with growth. If you need those clients, that commission is a fair price. However, if your diary already fills on word of mouth, you are paying for something you have.
How many people are on the rota?
Almost every platform here charges per bookable team member. In practice, the gap between a solo price and a three-chair price is often the wider one. So count your chairs before you compare headline rates.
What happens when someone does not turn up?
Industry reporting puts the average missed appointment at around £39. Across UK salons that reaches roughly £1.6bn a year. Professional Beauty reported millions lost across a single summer. Therefore whether a platform can hold a deposit automatically is not a nice-to-have. Our no-show cost calculator puts your own numbers through it.
We excluded enterprise platforms priced for chains. Prices below exclude VAT unless stated, which matters because several platforms advertise ex-VAT and then bill inc-VAT.
What is the best salon software UK salons can choose in 2026?
Nine platforms follow, in the order we would shortlist them. Overall, each entry says who it suits and where it loses.
Aasure — one flat fee, from one chair to a full team
£29, £59 or £89 a month, including VAT. Every plan includes every feature. The plans differ only by staff seats. Solo covers up to 2, Growth up to 7, and Scale up to 20. No commission on any booking. Every plan starts with a 30-day free trial, so you can sign up today with no card.
So Aasure puts booking, client records, email reminders and your waitlist in one place. Clients can cancel or reschedule online themselves, and Aasure offers a freed slot to your waitlist automatically. Win-back, review and birthday emails also send by themselves. However, Aasure does not take card payments or deposits yet. Both are on the way, so for now you record payments by hand.
We built it after surveying 217 UK service business owners. Of those, 65% said their tools either do not connect or connect only manually. Most salon owners are not short of software, then. Instead, they are short of software that talks to itself.
Where it does not win. Aasure has no marketplace, so it will not bring you a single new client. If discovery is your problem, Fresha or Treatwell solve something we do not. We also lack Phorest's loyalty scheme and branded salon app. Finally, we are newer than everyone here, which matters when you move a whole diary.
Fresha — marketplace reach, if you can live with the new-client fee
Fresha's own pricing page geolocates, so a UK reader and a reader elsewhere see different figures. We could not read a UK rate from it directly. Independent reporting by The Salon Business puts the UK Independent plan at £14.95 a month. Team costs £9.95 per bookable member.
The important correction first. Fresha is no longer free. It withdrew its UK free plan on 1 November 2025, so guides published before then still describe it wrongly. A one-off 20% fee, minimum £4, then applies to the first booking of a genuinely new marketplace client.
That fee is more defensible than its reputation suggests. It applies once, and only when Fresha's tracking says the person found you there. Consequently a regular rebooking carries nothing, and neither does anyone using your own link.
Run the arithmetic on your own numbers. At a £55 average first visit, Fresha costs £11 per new marketplace client. So the subscription plus two such clients already passes Aasure's flat £29. For a new salon with gaps, those clients are genuinely incremental. For an established one, though, they often are not.
Where it beats everyone here: reach. After all, no flat-fee platform can manufacture a marketplace that size. See our full Fresha alternative comparison if you are weighing a move.
Treatwell — the biggest UK marketplace, and the highest commission
Treatwell's partner pricing publishes 35% on first bookings from new marketplace clients. With VAT that reaches roughly 42% of the booking. Online prepayments carry a 2.5% processing fee. A monthly software fee exists, but Treatwell quotes it at signup rather than publishing it.
0% commission for repeat bookings
That commitment matters, so read it carefully. Treatwell has the largest beauty marketplace in Europe. For a salon in a competitive city with empty midweek slots, it will fill them. Still, 42% of a first visit is the highest acquisition cost here by some distance.
Still, the maths only works if those clients come back. Because we could not verify Treatwell's monthly fee publicly, ask for it in writing first. Our Treatwell alternative page and the Fresha versus Treatwell head-to-head go deeper.
Booksy — the cleanest marketplace deal, because commission is optional
Booksy publishes £40 a month plus VAT for one person, and £5 plus VAT per extra team member. Card processing runs 0.99% to 1.29% plus 20p. Crucially, the marketplace commission is opt-in. Switch Boost on, and Booksy takes 30%, minimum £5, of a new client's first visit.
That opt-in structure is the most sensible design of the three marketplaces, and Booksy deserves credit for it. In practice you can run flat-fee for nine months. Then turn Boost on when January goes quiet, and turn it off in March.
The catch is the base price. At £40 before anyone books, Booksy costs nearly three times Fresha's solo subscription. Yet the per-head cost is gentle, so a three-chair salon reaches only £50. Compare it properly on our Booksy alternative page.
Phorest — best for multi-chair salons that live on retention
Quote only. Phorest's pricing page names four tiers, Starter, Grow, Ultimate and Elite, but publishes no figures at all. We are not going to invent one. Ask for a written quote instead, and treat any number you read online as an estimate.
Phorest is the strongest product here for salons whose problem is retention rather than acquisition. Loyalty, a branded salon app, automated win-backs and consultation forms with digital signatures all run deeper than anything else listed. There is no marketplace, so there is no commission.
Where Phorest beats Aasure, plainly. Say clients drift away after two visits. Their retention machinery then beats ours, and it is not close. Both of us carry a salon with staff, so that is not the difference. We send automatic win-back emails too, but their loyalty tooling is simply deeper than ours.
SalonIQ — UK-built, and it does publish a price
The draft of this article said SalonIQ keeps its rates private. That was wrong, so here is the correction. SalonIQ publishes £47 a month for a solo stylist, with £10 per additional bookable team member. In addition, a one-off setup fee starts from £175 plus VAT. It covers installation, training and data migration.
It is built in Tunbridge Wells with a UK support team. That matters more than it sounds when something breaks on a Saturday. Otherwise it sits in Phorest's bracket. If you are shortlisting one, get a quote for the other at the same time.
Timely — the best per-staff product, if that model suits you
Timely bills per staff member. Current UK rates put Build at £22 per staff member, Elevate at £34 and Innovate at £39. Each tier includes SMS credits. There are no new-client fees on any plan.
Timely is genuinely well made, and the per-staff model is honest, since you pay for what you use. The problem arrives at three or four chairs. So at £22 each, a four-person salon reaches £88 on the entry tier. Per-staff pricing is fair right up until it is not.
Square Appointments — the best free option, if you already use Square
Square publishes £0 for a single location, with no cap on team members. Plus costs £29 a month per location, and Premium £69. Note that Square charges per location rather than per staff member. In practice that makes it unusually cheap for a busy single site.
Square earns its money on payment processing, so the free plan is genuinely free rather than a trial. For a stylist starting out with no budget, that is the honest answer. We would rather say so than pretend £29 is the only way to take a booking.
However, what you do not get is anything built for salons specifically. Square is a payments company with scheduling attached. Our Square Appointments comparison sets out the trade properly.
Setmore — cheapest paid option, best for mobile and home-based
Setmore is free for up to four users, with unlimited appointments. Pro then costs $12 per user monthly, or about $5 per user on annual billing. Because Setmore prices in US dollars, your sterling cost moves with the exchange rate and your card issuer's fees.
For a mobile beautician who needs a booking page, reminders and calendar sync, it does the job cheaply. However, it is not salon software. So there is no deposit-against-cancellation logic, no retail stock and no colour history.
What does the best salon software UK-wide actually cost?
We checked every figure on 7 September 2026, and each one links to its source above. Prices change, so verify before you sign.
| Platform | Solo, per month | Three-chair salon | New-client commission | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aasure | £29 inc. VAT (up to 2 staff) | £59 inc. VAT (up to 7 staff) | None | Plans differ only by staff seats |
| Fresha | £14.95 | £29.85 (£9.95 × 3) | 20% first visit, min £4 | Free plan withdrawn Nov 2025 |
| Treatwell | Not published | Not published | 35% + VAT (≈42%) | Fee quoted at signup |
| Booksy | £40 | £50 (£40 + £5 × 2) | Optional 30%, min £5 | Commission is opt-in |
| Phorest | Quote only | Quote only | None | Four tiers, no published rate |
| SalonIQ | £47 | £67 (£47 + £10 × 2) | None | Setup from £175 + VAT |
| Timely | £22 (Build) | £66 (Build) | None | Per staff member |
| Square Appointments | Free / £29 Plus | £29 Plus per location | None | Per location, not per staff |
| Setmore | Free / ≈£4 (Pro, annual) | Free up to 4 users | None | Priced in USD |
Two things this table hides, and both matter more than the headline.
Card processing. Every platform handling your payments takes a percentage. At 1.40% plus 25p across a £3,000 month, that is roughly £50. In other words, processing can cost more than the subscription above it.
Messaging. SMS reminders are metered almost everywhere. A salon sending two reminders to 200 appointments sends 400 texts, so check the allowance. Our real bill calculator adds these back in.
How do you pick in five minutes?
- Diary has gaps you cannot fill yourself → Fresha first, since it charges the lowest commission of the three. Choose Booksy if you want that commission on a switch.
- Diary is full, and you want the admin to stop → a flat fee. Aasure holds up to 20 staff on one bill, so compare it against Timely and Phorest.
- One chair, no budget yet → Square Appointments free, or Setmore free.
- Three or more chairs, clients drifting → Phorest for the retention depth, with a SalonIQ quote beside it. Aasure Scale carries the team, but not that tooling.
- Mobile or home-based, needs a booking link → Setmore.
Before committing, put your own numbers through the no-show cost calculator. Commission feels small per booking, yet large per year, so the arithmetic settles it.
One last thing on deposits, because it decides more than the software. If you charge a cancellation fee, it must be a genuine estimate of your loss. The Competition and Markets Authority has been explicit on that point, and the Consumer Contracts Regulations sit behind it. Citizens Advice explains the client's side. The National Hair & Beauty Federation publishes sector guidance for members. And if you are near the VAT registration threshold, remember that ex-VAT headline pricing costs you a fifth more.
Common questions
What is the best salon software UK independents can buy?
It depends on whether you need new clients. If your diary has gaps, a marketplace like Fresha earns its commission. If your diary is full, a flat fee costs less. Square and Setmore offer free tiers.
Is Fresha still free for UK salons?
No. Fresha withdrew its UK free plan on 1 November 2025. Independent professionals now pay around £14.95 a month, and teams pay £9.95 per bookable member. A 20% new-client fee applies on top. Older guides predate that change.
How much commission does Treatwell take?
Treatwell publishes 35% on a new marketplace client's first booking, and states 0% on repeat bookings. With VAT that reaches roughly 42%. Direct bookings carry nothing at all. Treatwell quotes its monthly software fee at signup.
What is the cheapest salon software in the UK?
Square Appointments is free for a single location, and Setmore is free for up to four users. Among paid options Setmore Pro is lowest, at roughly £4 per user monthly on annual billing. Free tiers lack deposit logic, though.
Do I need a marketplace to get new clients?
No, but you need something in its place. A marketplace buys discovery with commission. The alternatives are your Google Business Profile, Instagram with a booking link, and rebooking before clients leave the chair. Those cost time instead.
How much do UK salons lose to no-shows?
Industry reporting puts the average missed appointment at around £39, and the annual cost across UK salons at roughly £1.6bn. So a deposit taken at booking is the most effective single fix. Reminders alone move it far less.
Keep your clients, and your commission.
Aasure is booking, email reminders, client records and automatic follow-ups on one flat monthly fee. It is built for UK salons, from one chair to a team of 20. No commission on any booking, ever. Every plan starts with a 30-day free trial, and no card is needed.
Sign up Work out your real annual bill →