Booksy alternatives for Irish hair salons: prices compared in 2026

Fair play where it is due: Booksy treats Ireland as a real market. It runs a dedicated Irish business site, publishes its euro prices openly, charges no commission on bookings and includes appointment reminders and a healthy marketing text allowance in the one plan. If you are typing "Booksy alternatives" into Google, it is rarely because the software is bad. It is usually because your salon pays for a full package, marketplace, payments, marketing texts and all, and uses a third of it.

This article lives on the blog of ViteUneCoupe, a free online booking system for hair salons with 0% commission, so we are an interested party and we say so. We compensate with method: every price below was checked on each vendor's own website in October 2026, with the source linked, and we start by giving Booksy full credit for what it does well. For the complete tour of the Irish market, our guide to hair salon booking software in Ireland compares every major option side by side.

What Booksy really costs an Irish hair salon in 2026

Everything in this section comes from Booksy's official Irish pricing page, checked in October 2026:

• Subscription: 44 € per month, with VAT added on top ("all services are subject to VAT, which will be added to the final price").
• 5 € per month for each additional team member.
• No commission on bookings. The page states that Booksy does not charge commissions or fees for any new clients or bookings, and that bookings made by new clients through the Booksy Marketplace are free.
• 500 free SMS marketing messages per month, then 5c per additional message. Automatic appointment reminders are included without limit.
• Payment processing is separate: 2.6% plus VAT per mobile payment transaction, and a 1.5% fee if you want payouts within 30 minutes.
• No-show protection is included: deposits at booking time and cancellation fees for no-shows, available today.
• 7-day free trial, no card required, no commitment: cancel anytime.

There is no free plan: after the trial, every Booksy salon pays the subscription. One plan, one public euro price, everything included. On transparency alone, Booksy does better than much of the Irish market: Phorest publishes no prices at all on its pricing page, where all four salon plans end in a quote request, and Treatwell's Irish partner page shows no subscription figure either (both checked in October 2026).

The maths by salon size

The annual subscription cost, excluding VAT, for a few deliberately simplified salon profiles (worked examples, not market averages):

Roughly 530 € to 770 € a year before VAT. Remember that Ireland's standard VAT rate is 23%, so a salon that is not VAT-registered should budget the gross figure: about 650 € a year for a solo stylist, closer to 950 € for a five-person salon. Whether that is money well spent depends entirely on how much of the package you open. A salon that fills quiet chairs through the marketplace, sends its 500 monthly texts and takes payments through the app gets real value. A salon that only uses the calendar and the booking page is paying for features it never touches. Our breakdown of the real cost of salon software in Ireland runs that arithmetic across every vendor.

Is Booksy free in Ireland?

No, and it never pretends to be. There is a 7-day free trial with no card required, then the subscription starts at 44 € plus VAT per month. What is free is the marketplace listing and the bookings that come through it: unlike Treatwell's 35% new-client commission or Fresha's marketplace new-client fee, Booksy's Irish pricing page states plainly that marketplace bookings carry no commission with the subscription. That is a genuinely different model, and an honest point in Booksy's favour.

What about Booksy Boost in Ireland?

Boost is Booksy's optional paid acquisition programme: in markets where its terms are published, Booksy takes a one-time fee on the first visit of a new client who books while Boost is active. On Booksy's UK pricing page, checked in October 2026, that fee is 30% of the first visit with a £5 minimum.

Here is what we can and cannot tell you about Ireland. Boost appears by name on Booksy's Irish features page, but when we checked in October 2026, the Irish pricing page published no Boost terms: no percentage, no minimum, no euro figures. Not documented is not the same thing as not available, so if paid acquisition through Booksy interests you, ask Booksy in writing for the current Irish Boost conditions before enabling anything, and keep the answer. The good news is that Boost is opt-in: leave it off and, per the Irish pricing page, your bookings carry no commission at all.

What Booksy does well

Before the alternatives, the credit column, because it is substantial:

• A public euro price and a single plan. No sales call to learn what it costs, no tier grid where the feature you need sits one level up.
• Included reminders and a generous text allowance. Unlimited automatic appointment reminders plus 500 marketing texts a month is more than most rivals include at any price, and Irish clients are used to appointment texts.
• No-show protection available today. Deposits and cancellation fees are built in. That matters in a country of hard-won Saturday colour slots.
• A consumer marketplace with no commission. People browse and book in the Booksy app, and those bookings cost you nothing beyond the subscription. For a salon with gaps to fill, that is real acquisition at a predictable price.
• No commitment. Cancel anytime, and the trial needs no card.

If your salon actively uses the marketplace, the texts and the integrated payments, Booksy is a good buy and you can stop reading here. The rest of this page is for everyone else.

Why Irish salons look for an alternative

Three situations come up again and again:

• The marketplace brings you nothing. The Booksy consumer app's audience varies a lot by town and by specialism, and a hair salon with a full book, strong Google reviews and loyal regulars can see very few marketplace bookings. In that case a large part of the 44 € pays for an acquisition channel that does not produce. The trade-off between direct bookings and marketplace visibility for an Irish salon deserves a deliberate decision, not a default.
• You only need the essentials: online booking, a calendar, a client database. Paying for marketing tools, gift cards and integrated payments you never open makes the per-feature price steep, especially once VAT at 23% lands on top.
• Your clients book you, not a platform. Clients who build the habit of booking through a marketplace app attach part of the relationship to the app's brand. If what you are building is your own salon's name, a booking page under that name serves you better long term.

Booksy alternatives for Irish hair salons, compared

Every figure below was checked in October 2026 on each vendor's own site. Where a vendor publishes no Irish price, we say "not published" rather than guess.

ViteUneCoupe: the booking essentials, free and commission-free

Our own tool, so judge it on the facts. The free plan includes unlimited online bookings with 0% commission forever, a personalised booking page under your salon's name, your service catalogue, staff schedules, your client database and your calendar. No trial countdown, no card at sign-up, no marketplace between you and your clients: the booking link is yours, on your Google Business Profile, your Instagram and your voicemail.

The Standard plan, from 29 € excluding VAT per month with no commitment, adds automatic emails (confirmation, reminder, thank-you) and calendar sync in ICS format with Apple, Google or Outlook. Bank-card no-show protection is coming soon in a Standard + Anti No-Show plan at 49 € excluding VAT per month. The subscription is billed in euros, your own currency, so there is no exchange rate on your statement.

The honest limits against Booksy, stated plainly: reminders go by email, not text, and Booksy's included SMS is a genuine advantage on this point (our guide to appointment reminders for Irish hair salons weighs the two channels honestly); there is no consumer marketplace, no integrated payments, no point of sale; and Booksy's deposits and cancellation fees exist today while our bank-card protection is still in preparation. If what you want is a reliable online calendar under your own name with a bill of exactly zero and no cut of your work, that is precisely what it is built for.

Square Appointments: free single-location plan with texts and payments

Square publishes real Irish numbers. Checked in October 2026 on Square's Irish pricing page: the free plan covers one location with online booking and automated text and email reminders included; Plus costs 19 € plus VAT per month per location and Premium 49 € plus VAT, and no-show protection (card on file, cancellation fees) sits on the paid plans. The business model is card processing: 1.75% plus VAT in person, 1.4% plus 25c plus VAT for online payments on EEA cards. For a salon that already wants Square as its card machine, it is a very credible all-in-one; the booking side is generalist rather than built around hair salon workflows like colour processing gaps. We look at it from the other direction in our guide to Square Appointments alternatives for Irish hair salons.

Fresha: per-member pricing and a marketplace with a new-client fee

Fresha dropped its famous free plan and now charges a subscription per bookable team member after a 7-day trial, plus metered messages and payment fees, and its marketplace charges a one-time fee on brand-new clients with fine print worth reading twice. Its pricing page localises by country, so open it from your salon and note the euro figures on your own screen. The full breakdown, fee mechanics included, is in our guide to Fresha alternatives for Irish hair salons.

Phorest: the Dublin heavyweight, at an unpublished price

Phorest is the local incumbent, salon-specialist software built in Dublin with depth the generalists lack: stock, rostering, marketing automation, loyalty, reporting. The honest reserve is pricing transparency, the exact thing Booksy gets right: checked in October 2026, Phorest publishes no prices, offers no free trial, and bills SMS at per-message rates with a free monthly allowance only on its top Elite tier. If you are leaving Booksy to escape a 44 € line, ask Phorest for the full written quote, SMS rates included, before you commit. Our dedicated guide to Phorest alternatives for Irish hair salons looks at it from the other direction.

Treatwell: the marketplace model with a 35% new-client fee

Treatwell's Irish partner page is upfront about its model, which is the mirror image of Booksy's: checked in October 2026 on treatwell.ie's partner pricing page, it charges 0% on repeat and direct bookings but 35% commission on a new marketplace client's first booking, plus a 2.5% plus VAT processing fee on online prepayments, with no subscription figure published on that page. Where Booksy charges a flat subscription and gives marketplace bookings away, Treatwell charges per new head. Which model wins depends entirely on how many new marketplace clients you actually receive; our guide to Treatwell alternatives for Irish hair salons does that arithmetic.

Which salon profile suits which tool?

• You use the marketplace, the texts and the payments: stay with Booksy. At 44 € plus VAT all-in with no commission and no commitment, nothing above offers exactly that package at that price in Ireland.
• You want booking and card payments in one, without a marketplace: Square Appointments, starting free, is the natural fit if its processing rates suit your volumes.
• You want marketplace visibility above all: compare Booksy's flat subscription against Fresha's and Treatwell's per-new-client fees for your average first-visit value; for a 60 € first visit, Treatwell's 35% is 21 € per new client while Booksy charges nothing beyond the subscription.
• You run an established multi-staff salon and want deep retention tools: ask Phorest for a written quote with every line on it.
• You only need booking, calendar and client records: a lighter tool wins, and our guide to booking software for solo hairdressers in Ireland compares the lightweight options for a stylist working alone. ViteUneCoupe does it free with 0% commission, and the Standard plan at 29 € excluding VAT per month adds automatic email reminders, one of the simplest levers against no-shows.

Before you switch: export your client list first

Whatever you choose, do not cancel anything until your data is out and the new booking link is live. Export your client database and appointment history while your Booksy account still works, open the new booking page, update the link on your Google Business Profile, Instagram and website, then tell clients once, clearly, with the new link. The advantage of an alternative with a real free plan is that you can run it alongside Booksy for a few weeks in live conditions and only cancel once you are sure, without ever paying two subscriptions. The full step-by-step, timing included, is in our guide to switching salon booking software in Ireland.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Booksy cost per month in Ireland?

44 € per month plus VAT for the account holder, plus 5 € per month for each additional team member (checked in October 2026 on Booksy's Irish pricing page). There is a 7-day free trial with no card required and no commitment. Payment processing, at 2.6% plus VAT per mobile transaction, is charged separately if you take payments through Booksy.

Is Booksy free for salons in Ireland?

No. There is no free plan: after the 7-day trial, every salon pays the subscription. What is free is the marketplace side: your listing and the bookings new clients make through the Booksy Marketplace carry no commission with the subscription, per the Irish pricing page checked in October 2026.

Does Booksy take a commission on bookings in Ireland?

Not on ordinary bookings: the Irish pricing page states Booksy charges no commissions or fees for any new clients or bookings, marketplace included. The optional Boost acquisition programme works differently where it operates, charging a one-time fee on a new client's first visit, but Booksy's Irish pricing page published no Boost terms when we checked in October 2026. Ask Booksy in writing for the Irish conditions before enabling it.

What is the best free alternative to Booksy for an Irish hair salon?

Two credible ones. ViteUneCoupe's free plan offers unlimited online bookings with 0% commission always, a personalised booking page, client database and calendar, billed in euros, with automatic email reminders on its Standard plan from 29 € excluding VAT per month. Square Appointments has a free single-location plan that includes text reminders, funded by its card processing fees. Neither replaces Booksy's consumer marketplace or its included SMS allowance.

Can I cancel Booksy at any time?

Yes. Booksy's Irish pricing page states there is no commitment and you can cancel anytime (checked in October 2026). Export your client list and appointment history before you cancel, while your account is still active.

Does Booksy charge for reminder texts in Ireland?

Automatic appointment reminders are included without limit, and the subscription adds 500 free SMS marketing messages per month, then 5c per extra message (checked in October 2026). That allowance is one of Booksy's genuine strengths against alternatives that meter every message or, like ViteUneCoupe, send reminders by email only.