Fresha vs Qualivo: Which Is Actually Cheaper for a Small Salon in 2026?

Qualivo Team · Wed Aug 26 2026

When you're running a small salon — whether you're a solo stylist or a team of three — software costs add up fast. Fresha and Qualivo both market themselves as free, both put your business in front of new customers, and both handle online booking. But "free" can mean very different things depending on how your salon actually works.

This is a straight, honest comparison of what each platform costs, what you get, and where the real differences lie for a small salon in 2026.

The Bottom Line Up Front

Fresha charges a 20% commission on every new client you receive through the Fresha marketplace, on top of a monthly subscription fee. Qualivo's free plan includes marketplace discovery with no monthly fee and no per-new-client commission. If you're actively trying to grow your client base through the platform, that difference compounds quickly.

Pricing Compared Side by Side

Feature	Fresha	Qualivo Free	Qualivo Pro
Monthly fee	$14.95–$19.95/mo	$0 forever	$19/mo
Free trial	Yes (varies)	No trial needed — free forever, no trial clock	Optional 30-day free trial
Credit card to start	Required	Not required	Required for trial/subscription
Marketplace listing	Yes	Yes	Yes
Commission on new marketplace clients	20%	$0	$0
Online payments	Yes (processing fees apply)	Not included	Yes, via Stripe (standard processing rates)
Unlimited services & staff scheduling	Yes	Yes	Yes
Google Calendar sync	Yes	Yes	Yes
Automated reminders	Yes (SMS fees apply)	No	Yes
Marketing campaigns	Yes	No	Up to 500 recipients/mo
Book the Look visual discovery	No	Yes	Yes

The Fresha Commission Math — What It Costs a Growing Salon

Fresha's headline pitch is "free booking software," and for managing your existing clients it largely is. But the moment a new customer finds you through the Fresha marketplace, that booking carries a 20% new-client commission. That's not a payment-processing fee — it's a cut of the service revenue itself.

Here's a straightforward example. Say your salon books 8 new clients per month through the marketplace, at an average service value of $70:

8 new clients × $70 = $560 in new-client revenue
20% commission = $112 paid to Fresha
Plus the $14.95–$19.95 monthly fee
Plus SMS reminder fees on top

That puts your true monthly Fresha cost well above $125 before you've touched processing fees. For a small salon actively trying to grow, this structure means the more the marketplace works for you, the more you pay.

Fresha's strengths are real and worth naming: it has a large, established consumer base, a polished client-facing app, solid automation features, and a mature product overall. If you already have a full, stable client roster and barely need new marketplace clients, the commission model hurts much less.

What Qualivo's Free Plan Actually Includes

Qualivo's Free Starter plan is genuinely free to keep — no credit card required, and no trial clock running in the background. This is important because many "free" software plans are actually time-limited trials dressed up as free tiers. Qualivo's free plan doesn't expire.

On the free plan you get:

A public booking page and business profile
Unlimited services and pricing
Staff and multi-provider scheduling
Bookings, calendar, and client list
Two-way Google Calendar sync
A listing in the Qualivo marketplace — with no per-new-client commission
Your own mini-site (useful for Google search visibility)

Because Qualivo doesn't process payments on the free plan, it takes no monthly fee and no commission on marketplace bookings. That's a meaningful structural difference from Fresha.

Where the free plan does have real limits: no online payments, no automated reminders, and no marketing tools. If those features matter to your workflow now, you're looking at Qualivo Pro at $19/month — which includes an optional 30-day free trial — or staying on free and using other tools for those functions.

If you're currently on Fresha and want to understand what a move actually looks like in practice, the step-by-step guide to switching from Fresha to free booking software is worth reading before you decide.

Book the Look: A Genuinely Different Discovery Model

One feature Qualivo has that Fresha doesn't is Book the Look — the idea being "book the look, not just an appointment." Instead of a client scrolling a text list of services, a salon posts real photos or short videos of actual work: a cut, a color, a blowout. That Look gets attached to a specific bookable service with a price and duration, appears in the marketplace, and a client can tap "Book this look" to book that exact result directly into your calendar.

For salons that rely heavily on visual inspiration — and most do — this turns discovery into something much closer to how clients actually choose where to go. It's worth testing whether your market responds to it.

Which Platform Is Actually Cheaper for a Small Salon?

The honest answer depends on how your salon works:

Qualivo is likely cheaper if:

You want to grow through marketplace discovery without paying per new client
You're just starting out and don't want to commit to a monthly fee or hand over a credit card
You're comfortable handling payments in-person for now and don't need software-processed deposits
You want a clean booking system free of commission risk as you scale

Fresha may be worth the cost if:

You have an established book and rarely need new marketplace clients — meaning commission exposure is low
You need strong automation, SMS reminders, and marketing tools built into one platform right now
Your team is already trained on Fresha's workflow and switching costs feel high

For most small salons actively trying to grow, the Qualivo free plan eliminates the largest cost: the commission on new clients. Even Qualivo Pro at $19/month is cheaper than a month where Fresha's marketplace delivers you eight new clients.

The most honest framing: Fresha is a mature, feature-rich platform. Qualivo is newer and smaller. But if the 20% new-client commission is what's eating into your margins, the maturity gap doesn't pay your rent.

If you're weighing multiple free-plan options beyond just these two, the full breakdown of what free booking software actually gets you (and what to watch out for) is a useful companion read. And if you're a solo professional making this decision for the first time, the 2026 roundup of free appointment scheduling apps for solo beauty professionals covers more options in the same price range.

Claim Your Free Qualivo Profile

If you want to test what Qualivo's free marketplace listing and booking page look like for your salon — with no credit card, no trial clock, and no commission on new clients — you can claim your profile at no cost. If you later decide Pro's payment tools and automations are worth $19/month, the upgrade is there. If not, the free plan stays free.

No pressure, no countdown. Just a bookable profile in a growing marketplace, at $0.

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