Best Software for Beauty Salons and Therapists (2026)

Choosing Software for a Beauty or Aesthetics Business

Beauty business software has become a crowded market. Fresha dominates with its huge consumer marketplace, although it dropped its free plan through 2025. Timely has built a loyal following among hairdressers and salon owners. And newer platforms like Bizzly offer a different model entirely: flat monthly pricing with subscription billing built in.

This guide compares these three platforms for beauty professionals. But not every beauty business looks the same. A high street salon with walk-in traffic and a till has different needs to a mobile beautician, a small nail bar, or an aesthetics practitioner offering treatments like 3D liposuction, semi-permanent makeup, or dermal fillers. We cover who each tool actually suits, and what it really costs when you factor in transaction fees and commissions. All data was gathered from public pricing pages in March 2026.

What Matters for Beauty Businesses

Transparent pricing that scales

The headline price is rarely the whole story. Fresha charges per bookable team member, plus card processing and a commission on new marketplace clients. Timely charges per staff member plus transaction fees. Bizzly charges one flat monthly fee with no commission or booking fees of its own; card processing goes to Stripe. Think about your volume of bookings and team size, then calculate the total monthly cost for each option.

Online booking that reduces admin

Clients expect to book at 10pm from their phone. All three platforms handle this well. The difference is where clients find you: Fresha has a marketplace where consumers search for salons nearby. Timely and Bizzly rely on your own marketing to drive traffic to your booking page.

Client management and consultation forms

Storing client preferences, treatment history, patch test records, and consultation forms is essential for beauty businesses. This is where Timely excels. Fresha covers the basics. Bizzly handles client records, booking history, and registration forms that capture medical, consent, and emergency details, but does not ship beauty-specific consultation form templates or per-client treatment notes.

In-salon payments vs online-only

This is where beauty businesses split into two camps. A salon with a reception desk and walk-in traffic needs a POS system or card reader. Fresha and Timely both offer their own payment terminals. But a mobile beautician, a small nail bar that takes bookings in advance, or an aesthetics practitioner running a treatment room does not need a till. These businesses take payment online when the client books, or after the appointment via an invoice link. Bizzly handles online payments through Stripe and does not offer a physical card reader. That is a gap for salons, but irrelevant for appointment-only businesses.

A web presence

Bizzly includes a full website builder. Timely gives you a mini website. Fresha gives you a profile on its marketplace. If you want a standalone website with your own branding and domain, only Bizzly covers this without a separate tool.

Feature Comparison

Platform Reviews

Bizzly

Best for: Mobile beauticians, small nail bars, and aesthetics practitioners who work by appointment and do not need a POS system.

Bizzly is not salon management software. It does not have a POS system, a till integration, or walk-in management. If you run a busy high street salon with reception staff and a card machine on the counter, Fresha or Timely is a better fit.

Where Bizzly works well is for appointment-only beauty businesses. A mobile nail technician. A small studio offering 3D liposuction treatments. A semi-permanent makeup artist working from a home studio. An aesthetics practitioner offering dermal fillers and skin treatments. These businesses take bookings online, collect payment via Stripe when the client books or after the session, and do not need a till. For this type of business, the lack of POS is not a gap. It is simply not relevant.

The pricing model is flat: £19 to £49/month with no transaction fees on top and no per-booking commissions. You know exactly what you will pay each month regardless of how many bookings you take.

Subscription billing is a genuine differentiator. If you offer monthly treatment packages (say, “Monthly facial, £60/month” or “Lash fills, 3 sessions/month, £90”), Bizzly handles the recurring billing and booking quotas automatically. Prepaid packages sit alongside it: a course of six treatments sold upfront with an expiry date, or a one-off block that a late joiner pays a pro-rated price for. Because billing and booking are one system, a client can only book what their plan, package, or credits cover, and a lapsed payment stops new bookings on its own. Neither Fresha nor Timely offer this in the same way.

The website editor means you do not need a separate Wix or Squarespace subscription. It is drag-and-drop on every plan, with booking calendar, plans, store, and client portal components you drop straight onto a page, per-element styling, and per-page SEO controls. The Standard plan includes 3 calendars, which covers a small team or multiple treatment types. The WhatsApp AI assistant on Standard (500 messages/month) and Pro (2,000) books and cancels appointments, searches availability, handles waitlist claims, and answers account and invoice questions around the clock. Fully booked slots collect a waitlist on Standard and above, and a cancellation auto-offers the freed slot to the next client in the queue with a time-limited claim link.

The gaps: no retail stock control for the salon floor (the Pro plan's merch store tracks its own product stock, but it is not salon inventory), no beauty-specific consultation form templates, no per-client treatment notes, and no consumer marketplace to drive new client discovery. If stock tracking is central to how you work, Fresha or Timely are stronger on that specific feature.

• Pricing: £19 to £49/month flat. No transaction fees. 14-day free trial.
• Strengths: Predictable flat pricing, subscription and prepaid package billing, drag-and-drop website editor, WhatsApp AI, waitlists, review collection, HubSpot CRM integration, no POS needed for appointment-only businesses
• Limitations: No POS (not suitable for walk-in salons), no salon inventory, no beauty-specific consultation form templates, no per-client treatment notes, no consumer marketplace

Fresha

Best for: Salons and multi-staff businesses that want POS and exposure through a consumer marketplace.

Fresha is the most widely used salon booking platform globally. It is no longer free: as of July 2026 it costs around £14.95 a month for one person, or around £9.95 per bookable team member, with UK card processing at around 1.19% + 20p in person and a 20% commission on the first appointment from clients who discover you through the Fresha marketplace. Our Fresha pricing guide breaks down every line, and Fresha vs Booksy compares it with its closest marketplace rival.

The marketplace is Fresha's biggest advantage. Millions of consumers search for salons on Fresha. If you are in a competitive area, marketplace visibility can bring in clients you would never have reached through your own marketing. But that 20% commission on the first appointment adds up. If you get 20 new marketplace clients in a month averaging £50 per appointment, that is £200 in commission fees.

Beyond scheduling, Fresha includes client management, POS features, basic inventory tracking, and email marketing. The mobile app is well-designed and supports both salon owners and staff.

The trade-offs: limited customisation, no website builder (you get a Fresha profile page, not your own site), and limited subscription billing. Fresha works best as the centre of your booking workflow, but you are operating inside Fresha's ecosystem rather than building your own branded presence.

• Pricing: Around £14.95/month solo or £9.95 per team member (July 2026). Card processing around 1.19% + 20p in person in the UK. 20% one-off commission on new marketplace clients.
• Strengths: Free scheduling, large consumer marketplace, POS, mobile app, inventory tracking
• Limitations: Marketplace commission, limited branding, no website builder, limited subscription billing

Timely

Best for: Salons and therapists who want purpose-built salon software with strong client management.

Timely is designed for hair and beauty professionals. It shows in the details: consultation forms, client photos and documents, POS integration with Timely's own card reader, seniority-based pricing tiers for staff, and a waitlist feature to fill cancellations.

Pricing is per staff member per month, starting at £22/month for the Build plan. This is competitive for solo practitioners but gets expensive for teams. A salon with 4 staff on the Innovate plan pays £156/month (4 x £39), plus transaction fees on every card payment (1.59% + 5p in person, 1.95% + 20p online). That total can exceed £200/month when you include payment processing.

SMS is included in each plan (100 to 300 per month depending on tier), and the Elevate and Innovate plans add targeted SMS campaigns and automated follow-ups. The 14-day free trial lets you test the full feature set.

Timely does not include a full website builder (only a mini booking website), has no subscription billing for monthly packages, and has no consumer marketplace to drive new clients. You are paying for a specialist tool that excels at the day-to-day running of a salon.

• Pricing: Build £22/staff/month, Elevate £34/staff/month, Innovate £39/staff/month. Plus transaction fees. 14-day free trial.
• Strengths: Consultation forms, client photos, POS, seniority pricing, waitlist, salon-specific features
• Limitations: Per-staff pricing scales up quickly, transaction fees on top, no subscription billing, no full website builder

Pricing Comparison

Beauty salon software pricing is deceptive. The monthly fee is only part of the picture. Here is what each platform costs for a solo therapist taking 100 card payments averaging £40 each per month (£4,000 monthly card revenue):

• Bizzly Standard: £29/month flat + Stripe card processing (around 1.5% + 20p = £80/month on 100 payments). Total: approximately £109, with no commission.
• Fresha Independent: £14.95/month + card processing in person (around 1.19% + 20p = £67.60/month on 100 payments). Total: approximately £82.55, plus a 20% one-off commission on any new marketplace clients.
• Timely Build: £22/month + card processing (1.59% + 5p per in-person payment = £68.60/month on 100 payments). Total: approximately £90.60.

How to Choose

You are a mobile beautician or work from a home studio

You do not need a POS system. You need online booking, a professional website, and a way to take payment when clients book. Bizzly covers all three for £19 to £29/month with no commission or booking fees of its own (Stripe's card fees still apply). If you also want recurring subscription packages for regular clients, Bizzly is the only platform here that handles that natively. Fresha is worth considering if the marketplace would bring you new clients in your area.

You run a small nail bar or aesthetics studio

If clients book in advance and pay online or via invoice (not at a till), you do not need salon POS software. Bizzly fits this model well. Create your website, set up booking calendars for each treatment type, and let clients pay through Stripe. For businesses offering treatments like 3D liposuction, dermal fillers, or semi-permanent makeup, the subscription billing feature lets you package treatment courses into monthly plans.

You run a salon with a reception desk and walk-in traffic

You need POS. Fresha and Timely both provide it. Bizzly does not. For three staff, Timely's top plan comes to about £117/month and Fresha's Team plan about £29.85/month, both before transaction fees. Bizzly Standard at £29/month includes 3 calendars but has no POS. For a salon that needs walk-in payment handling, Fresha is usually the most cost-effective option.

New client acquisition is your priority

Fresha is the clear winner here. The marketplace puts your salon in front of millions of consumers searching for beauty services. No other platform in this comparison offers anything equivalent. The 20% commission on the first booking is the cost of that acquisition.

You want to sell monthly treatment packages

Bizzly is the only platform here with proper subscription billing and booking quotas. If your business model includes clients paying £80/month for a set number of treatments, Bizzly handles the billing and allocation automatically.

Summary

There is no single best beauty software. Fresha offers unmatched marketplace reach at no monthly cost and POS for salons. Timely is the most feature-complete specialist tool for daily salon operations. Bizzly is not salon software. It is for the growing number of beauty professionals who work by appointment only: mobile beauticians, small nail bars, aesthetics practitioners, and home studio operators. For these businesses, the combination of a website, flat monthly pricing, and subscription billing is more useful than a POS system they would never switch on.

To see how Bizzly works for beauty businesses, visit the beauty industry page or compare plans on the pricing page.