Fresha was, for years, the easiest salon software to say yes to: a free subscription, a good-looking booking page, and you were live in an afternoon. That changed in 2025, when Fresha moved to paid subscription plans. The fees it always charged now sit on top of a monthly bill.
So the reason people look for Fresha alternatives has only sharpened. Before we get to them, it helps to be clear about what you are actually paying for, because that is what a replacement has to fix.
What Fresha actually costs
Fresha used to be free. As of 2025 it is a paid subscription (around $19.95/mo for a solo plan, or about $14.95 per team member for a team), and the fees it always charged still apply on top:
- A 20% fee on new clients who find you through the Fresha marketplace, with a minimum of about $6. It is a one-time charge per new marketplace client, not a recurring cut. But if your own marketing is what brings people in, you can still end up paying it on a discovery you made yourself.
- Payment processing on every card transaction (roughly 2.19% + $0.20 at the time of writing).
- Add-on fees for pieces other tools bundle in: marketing texts and emails past a small free allowance, loyalty, and so on.
- Support behind a paywall. Priority support sits on a paid add-on, which stings most on the day something has gone wrong with a charge.
None of this is a scandal. It is a business model. But it means your real monthly cost is a moving number, and it now includes a subscription it did not used to. That is the itch that sends salon owners looking.
What to look for in a Fresha alternative
Five questions sort the field fast:
- Is the price flat and predictable? A fixed monthly number beats a percentage of your success.
- Is there a marketplace cut? No commission on your own clients should be the floor, not a feature.
- Does it track inventory the way a salon actually uses product? Most tools count retail stock. Few handle product consumed during a service.
- Will the books come out clean, without hiring an accountant? If month-end still means a spreadsheet, or a QuickBooks subscription you need help driving, the tool only solved half the job.
- What does it cost as you grow? Per-staff and per-location fees are where a cheap plan quietly becomes an expensive one.
The best Fresha alternatives in 2026
Here is the honest shortlist, with who each one is actually for.
| Tool | Pricing model | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| GlossGenius | Flat, from ~$24/mo | US solo-to-small salons that want the most polished all-in-one | Built for the US market; advanced reporting and 10+ staff sit on the $148/mo Platinum tier |
| Vagaro | ~$30/mo + ~$10 per extra calendar | Salons that want a huge feature surface (payroll, marketing, classes) | The bill grows with each staff calendar you add |
| Square Appointments | Free tier, then flat | Owners already on Square hardware who want simple scheduling | General-purpose scheduler; lighter on salon-specific operations |
| Mangomint | From ~$165/mo | Larger, established salons and medspas that want a premium suite | The starting price is hard to justify for a small or growing team |
| Flowesce | Flat $29 or $79/mo | Solo or growing salons that want a polished all-in-one, with books they can run without an accountant | Newer, so a shorter third-party integration list and smaller community |
GlossGenius
The most polished tool on this list, and a genuine all-in-one: booking, payments, retail inventory, expense tracking, reporting, even payroll. It is built primarily for the US market and shines for solo-to-small teams. This is a close competitor, not a thin one, so be honest with yourself about the differences. Flowesce's edges against it are specific rather than sweeping: inventory that deducts product used during a service (not only retail you ring up) with batch-expiry tracking, multi-currency expense tracking for salons that buy abroad, and a lower price once you need 10-plus staff or advanced reporting, which GlossGenius puts on its $148-a-month Platinum tier. For a US solo stylist who wants the most polished app, GlossGenius is excellent and worth a close look.
Vagaro
The widest toolkit on this list. Booking, payments, payroll, marketing, even fitness classes. The tradeoff is that the pricing is built around per-calendar add-ons, so a three-person team costs more than the headline number, and the breadth can feel like a lot if you just want to run a salon.
Square Appointments
If your front desk already runs on Square, this is the path of least resistance, and the free tier is real. It is a scheduler with payments attached rather than a salon operations tool, so the inventory and bookkeeping side stays basic.
Mangomint
Genuinely good software aimed at the premium end. If you are an established multi-chair salon or medspa with the revenue to match, it earns its keep. For a solo owner or a small team, the floor of around $165 a month is the reason "Mangomint alternatives" is its own search.
Flowesce
Full disclosure: this is our tool, so weigh the rest accordingly.
Flowesce is a complete all-in-one for running the whole salon in one place, whether you are solo or a growing team. Booking, calendar, inventory, packages and gift cards, promotions, a waitlist, team logins, marketing, and an owner's profit and loss all live together and are built to work as one system, not a booking app with add-ons.
The piece it leans into hardest is the one most tools leave to you: the books. When you are solo or a small team without an accountant, the usual options are QuickBooks (overkill, and you still need someone to drive it) or a spreadsheet you reconcile every weekend. Flowesce keeps the books sized for an owner running the place themselves. The same service completion that deducts your stock posts the cost to your P&L, so the month-end numbers are mostly already done.
Where it sits next to the others:
- GlossGenius is the closest competitor: a polished all-in-one too, built mainly for the US market and for solo-to-small teams.
- Simpler tools like Square and Acuity are built around booking and payments, so inventory and the books are still on you.
- The tools genuinely built for a large team (Mangomint, Boulevard) start at $165 to $250 a month.
- Flowesce gives you the full operations surface, books included, at a flat $29 or $79 a month, with no commission on your bookings and no per-staff fee.
A few things Flowesce leans into:
- Books you can run without an accountant. Inventory cost, expenses, tips, and tax flow into an owner's P&L you can actually read. Month-end is an export, not a reconciliation.
- Inventory that behaves like a salon's. Product used during a service deducts automatically at checkout, with batch expiry and low-stock alerts, not just the retail you ring up.
- Multi-currency expenses. Buy product in KRW, pay rent in USD, settle a contractor in EUR, each in its own currency with an FX-aware net column. Handy if you buy product abroad.
It is newer than the names above, so the third-party integration list is shorter and the community is smaller. The flip side: it is being built right now with the salon owners on the waitlist, and every feature request is read by the person writing the code.
So which one should you pick?
- US solo stylist who wants the most polished all-in-one: GlossGenius.
- You want every feature under one roof and do not mind add-on pricing: Vagaro.
- Already living in Square: Square Appointments.
- Established and premium, with the budget to match: Mangomint.
- Solo or growing, and you want the whole salon (including books you can run yourself) in one fairly-priced place: Flowesce.
The honest takeaway: Fresha is fine until the fees stop being fine. When they do, the question is not just what is cheapest. It is what gives you the whole picture in one place, your bookings and your books, and still fits when you add a stylist or a location. Pick the tool that grows with you instead of the one you will be replacing in a year.
Flowesce is built to be that tool: a polished all-in-one for solo and growing salons, with bookkeeping you can run yourself, at a price that does not punish you for growing. See how it works or join the waitlist for founding-member pricing.