An honest side-by-side for independent salons and beauty pros weighing marketplace booking against running their own client list.
Fresha is one of the largest beauty marketplaces in the world. Aasure isn't a marketplace at all. The right tool depends on what you're trying to build — a listing alongside other salons, or your own brand with your own client list. Here's how they line up.
| How they compare | Fresha | Aasure |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Commission on bookings, with a paid subscription tier available | Flat monthly fee, no commission per appointment |
| Best fit | Salons that want exposure through a high-traffic marketplace | Independent salons and beauty pros driving their own clients |
| Client ownership | Clients book through the Fresha brand; data stays inside the platform | Your booking page, your URL, your client list — exportable any time |
| Booking experience | Fresha-branded marketplace listing plus a standalone page | Fully branded booking page with your name on every screen |
| Reminders & messages | Sent under the Fresha brand by default | Sent under your business name and tone |
| New-client discovery | Built-in marketplace traffic and search | You drive traffic from Instagram, Google, referrals |
| Beyond bookings | Strong scheduling, payments, and inventory tools | Bookings plus client records, follow-ups, retention signals, and admin built around the relationship |
Fresha is a real product, used by real salons, and the right pick in a few specific situations:
Aasure is built for the next stage — once a salon has its own client base and wants to keep it:
Most salons we see aren't choosing between Fresha and Aasure on day one — they start on Fresha for the discovery, build a client base, and at some point notice the maths. A 20% cut on £8,000 a month in bookings is £1,600 a month, every month. For a single-chair salon, that's often more than rent.
That's the moment Aasure starts to make sense. Not as a Fresha replacement on day one, but as the platform you grow into when your client list becomes the thing your business actually runs on. Read the full breakdown of marketplace commission costs.
Yes — for independent salons and beauty pros who want their own booking page, their own client list, and a flat monthly fee instead of a commission on every appointment. Fresha is built around marketplace discovery; Aasure is built around running an independent practice.
The most common reasons we hear are: the commission adds up to thousands a year for a busy salon, the booking experience feels like it belongs to the marketplace rather than your business, and the client list is harder to use outside the platform. None of those make Fresha a bad product — they just make a different shape of tool the right fit once you have your own client base.
You'll lose the marketplace traffic. For salons whose bookings come mostly from regulars and word of mouth, that's a small trade for keeping 100% of every appointment. For salons that genuinely depend on marketplace discovery, the right move is often to keep a Fresha listing for new clients only and run regulars through Aasure.
The free Real Bill Calculator shows your full annual bill — subscription, marketplace commission and card processing — using Fresha's own published 2026 UK pricing.
Open the calculator → Or read: The Hidden Cost of Marketplace Booking Apps →See how Aasure stacks up against Square (retail-first POS) or Vagaro (multi-location chain platform). Or browse all comparisons.