Fresha alternatives for New Zealand hair salons: what it really costs in 2026

Fresha has a real footprint in New Zealand: hair salons from Auckland CBD and Parnell to the North Shore and out to Pukekohe take bookings through its marketplace, and for years its pitch was simple, completely free salon software. If you are weighing up booking systems for your salon, Fresha is almost certainly on your list, next to a stack of comparison articles still describing the old free model. Two things deserve a careful read before you commit: Fresha now charges a subscription with usage fees on top, and its marketplace new-client fee has precise rules that are much better understood before you list your salon than after.

Full disclosure: this article lives on the blog of ViteUneCoupe, a free online booking system for hair salons with zero commission. We are an interested party, so we compensate with method: every claim below was checked on the vendor's own pages with the date of the check, we flag what we could not verify from outside New Zealand, and we say openly where Fresha beats us. For the wider local picture, our guide to hair salon booking software in New Zealand compares every major option side by side.

Is Fresha still free in 2026?

No. Checked in October 2026, Fresha's official pricing page lists two subscription plans, each after a 7-day trial:

• Independent, for a one-person business with a single calendar column;
• Team, priced per bookable team member per month;
• above that, a custom-priced Enterprise tier.

Now the caveat almost no comparison page makes. Fresha's pricing page detects where you are browsing from and shows that country's rates, and there is no public New Zealand dollar price list you can consult from abroad. Our check was made from Europe, where the page displayed 14.95 euros per month for Independent, 9.95 euros per bookable team member for Team, 1.29% plus a fixed fee per online payment, and about 0.10 per text beyond the free allowance. Those are not your numbers. Open fresha.com/pricing from your salon in New Zealand, write down the NZ dollar amount on every line (subscription, online payment, in-person payment, text message, terminal), and keep a dated screenshot. The version we saw also stated that displayed rates exclude sales tax, so budget for GST at 15% on top of whatever your screen shows, as with most business software quoted in New Zealand.

If an article tells you "Fresha is completely free", it was written under the old model. Comparison content ages fast, which is exactly why every figure in this one carries a source and a date.

The usage fees on top of the subscription

The subscription is only the first line of the bill. From the same pricing page, checked in October 2026 (amounts in the currency shown to us; your New Zealand rates may differ):

• online payments: 1.29% plus a small fixed fee per transaction when a client prepays through Fresha;
• in-person payments: 0.59% plus a fixed fee per transaction through Fresha's card solution, an extra charge per tap-to-pay authorisation, and card terminals sold from about 119 per device;
• texts and WhatsApp: 20 free messages per month, then roughly 0.10 per text and 0.09 to 0.23 per WhatsApp message;
• marketing emails: 50 free per month, then about 0.02 per email.

None of these lines is outrageous on its own. The point is the shape of the bill: it grows with your bookings. A salon sending a confirmation plus a reminder for 300 appointments a month exhausts a 20-message allowance before morning tea on day one, and every prepayment, terminal tap and marketing send adds its own line. Our breakdown of the real cost of salon software in New Zealand runs that arithmetic across vendors.

One question the public page does not answer for New Zealand: how card payments are routed. Kiwi clients pay by EFTPOS and contactless debit all day long, and whether a tap goes through a cheaper domestic route or an international scheme changes your effective cost per transaction. If you plan to run payments through Fresha, ask in writing for the New Zealand processing grid, including how debit and EFTPOS-style transactions are treated, before you sign anything.

The marketplace new-client fee, explained properly

This is the part most blogs get wrong, usually by quoting a percentage with no source. The rules below come from Fresha's official help centre article on marketplace new-client fees, checked in October 2026.

The reassuring part first: the fee does not apply to every appointment. It targets only the first completed booking of a brand-new client who discovered your salon through the Fresha marketplace. Returning clients and clients already saved in your list are never charged for.

But the fine print matters, from the same official article:

• the fee is calculated on the value of the client's first completed appointment, with a minimum fee for free or low-value services and a maximum cap for expensive ones;
• it applies even if you or your team cancel the appointment on the client's behalf;
• it is deferred, not cancelled, if the client cancels online through their own account or you mark a no-show the same day: it will be charged on the value of their next booking;
• it can apply to a booking made from your own website or social media pages if the client first viewed your profile on the Fresha marketplace;
• it is non-refundable, and the only way out of the exposure is to unlist your marketplace profile, which, per the same article, disables all your Fresha online booking channels, including the booking buttons on your own site and social pages;
• the exact rate, minimum and cap are not stated in the help article: Fresha points to its pricing page, which localises by country. We could not view the New Zealand figures from Europe, so check fresha.com/pricing from your salon, or ask Fresha in writing for the current NZ dollar rate, minimum and cap, and keep the answer.

Two practical consequences. First, import your full client list before your profile goes live, otherwise a regular from down the road who happens to find you on Fresha counts as a new client. Second, notice the structural point: on Fresha, online booking and the marketplace come as a package. If your chairs already fill through your own booking link and Google, you cannot keep the calendar and simply switch the acquisition machine off. That trade-off between direct bookings and marketplace acquisition for a New Zealand salon deserves a deliberate decision before any signature.

What Fresha genuinely does well

Fresha did not become one of the biggest names in salon software by accident, and pretending otherwise would be silly.

• A very polished product. Calendar, client records, point of sale, inventory, marketing: the interface is modern, fast and pleasant on a phone. Few competitors match the finish.
• A real marketplace presence in New Zealand. Checked in October 2026, Fresha lists hair salons across Auckland (CBD, Parnell, North Shore, Te Atatu South and beyond) and in other centres, and a client hunting for a last-minute opening can genuinely find you there. A one-time fee for real acquisition is a healthier model than a commission on every visit.
• No-show protection, available today. Fresha supports upfront payments and cancellation fees at booking time. That is an honest concession from us: ViteUneCoupe's bank-card no-show protection is still in preparation. If empty chairs at 2 pm are your main problem, a clear cancellation policy and automatic reminders already remove a large share of the risk, with or without card details.

Two New Zealand questions to ask before signing

Where do your clients' personal details go?

Fresha is an international company headquartered in London. Here is the detail that makes New Zealand different from its neighbour: the Privacy Act 2020 sets principles for how organisations and businesses collect, store, use and share personal information, and it applies to businesses of every size. There is no small-business turnover exemption of the kind Australian salons rely on. Your client records, colour formulas and contact details are personal information under the Act, whichever software holds them, so before signing with any vendor in this article, confirm in writing where the data is stored, how you export it, and what happens to it when you leave.

What will reminders really cost you?

The version of the pricing page we saw shows 20 free texts or WhatsApp messages per month, then per-message billing. Check the NZ dollar amounts from your own account: with 150 appointments a month and one text reminder each, the "messages" line becomes a standing budget item, not a rounding error. And remember that appointment reminders are transactional messages, while promotional texts fall under New Zealand's Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007, which requires consent and an unsubscribe option: whichever software sends your marketing, the obligation stays yours.

Fresha alternatives for New Zealand hair salons, compared

Everything below was checked in October 2026 on each vendor's own site. Where a page localises prices by country or does not label its currency, we say so rather than guess. New Zealand is unusually well served here: two of the biggest names in salon software, Timely and Kitomba, were built in Dunedin and Wellington respectively.

ViteUneCoupe: the free plan that actually stays free

Since Fresha vacated the free ground, we may as well say it plainly: ViteUneCoupe occupies it. The free plan includes unlimited online bookings with 0% commission forever, a personalised booking page for your salon, your service catalogue with photos, staff schedules, your client database and your calendar. No trial countdown, no credit 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. New Zealand mobile numbers in +64 format work normally in the client database, and the interface is available in English and French.

The Standard plan, from 29 € excluding tax 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 tax per month.

The honest limits for a Kiwi salon: the subscription is billed in euros, not New Zealand dollars, so the amount on your statement moves with the exchange rate and your bank may add a foreign-transaction fee (small stakes at 29 € a month, but it is your call); reminders go by email, not text; and there is no point of sale, no EFTPOS integration, no card capture and no marketplace. If what you want is a reliable online calendar with a bill of exactly zero and no cut of your work, that is precisely what it is built for.

Timely: the Dunedin-born favourite

Timely was founded in Dunedin and is probably the most natural like-for-like move from Fresha for a New Zealand salon: salon-specific features, a polished calendar, payments, and its site states it charges no new-client fees. Pricing is per bookable staff member across tiered plans (Build, Elevate and Innovate) with an SMS allowance built into each tier and a free trial. One transparency note from our side: Timely's pricing page would not display its figures from our location when we checked in October 2026, so we will not quote you a number secondhand; open gettimely.com's pricing page from New Zealand, where it shows NZ dollar rates, and note that every bookable staff member adds a full plan fee, part-timers included. The structural trade-off versus Fresha is simply that nothing is free, and versus ViteUneCoupe that the bill scales with your team. Our dedicated guide to Timely alternatives for New Zealand hair salons looks at it from the other direction.

Kitomba: the Wellington hair specialist, priced by quote

Kitomba was born in Wellington and has deep roots in New Zealand hair salons, with features generalists lack: salon benchmarking reports, staff targets, loyalty programmes, Xero integration on higher tiers and point of sale with integrated EFTPOS. The honest reserve is transparency: Kitomba publishes no price list. Checked in October 2026 on kitomba.com's pricing page, it lists four packages (Lite, Grow, Pro and Enterprise), states that the price depends on package, features and staff count with a quote after a demo, offers 20% off software fees to Kitomba Pay subscribers, and notes that complimentary SMS is a limited-time promotion based on user numbers. If unpredictable bills are why you are leaving Fresha, ask Kitomba for the full quote in writing, including SMS rates after any promotion ends, before you commit. Our guide to Kitomba alternatives for New Zealand hair salons covers the comparison in depth.

Simple Salon and Ovatu: self-serve options, check the currency on your screen

Two more self-serve names a New Zealand owner will meet, both Australian-built and both sold in New Zealand. Simple Salon publishes three tiers from $20 to $41 per month that scale with operator count and cap at the 7-operator rate, with SMS allowances of 0, 200 or 300 messages per operator depending on the plan, pay-as-you-go texts beyond that, a 14-day trial and no contracts; the page listed New Zealand as a supported region but showed us US dollars from Europe, so confirm the NZ dollar amounts on your own screen (checked in October 2026 on simplesalon.com's pricing page). Ovatu offers a Neat plan at $25 per month plus $7 per additional staff member and a Loaded plan at $38 plus $10, SMS around 4 cents per message and a generous 30-day free trial; same caveat, the page displayed US dollars from our location (checked in October 2026 on ovatu.com's pricing page). Neither runs a consumer marketplace: bookings arrive through your own link, which is exactly the structural difference from Fresha.

Leaving Fresha without losing your client list

If the maths points to a move, do not cancel anything until your data is out and the new booking link is live. Export your client list and appointment history first (Fresha's help centre documents client import and export), open your new booking page, then update the link on your Google Business Profile, Instagram and website before closing the old account. Send clients one clear message with the new link, and keep both systems running through one full colour cycle so nobody falls between calendars. Remember the structural detail verified above: unlisting your Fresha marketplace profile disables all Fresha online booking channels at once, so have the replacement link ready the same day. The full step-by-step, including timing the switch around a quiet week rather than the pre-Christmas rush, lives in our guide to switching salon booking software in New Zealand.

Frequently asked questions

Is Fresha free or paid in New Zealand?

Paid. Fresha runs on subscriptions: an Independent plan for one person and a Team plan priced per bookable team member, each after a 7-day trial, plus usage fees for payments and messages and a one-time fee on new marketplace clients (checked in October 2026 on fresha.com). The NZ dollar amounts display on fresha.com/pricing when consulted from New Zealand; the page is geo-localised, so dated screenshots from your own screen are the only figures worth budgeting with.

Does Fresha charge commission on my existing clients?

No. Returning clients and clients already in your list never trigger the marketplace fee. It applies only to the first completed booking of a brand-new client who found you on the Fresha marketplace, with a minimum and a cap. Note the fine print from the official help centre (checked in October 2026): the fee also applies if you cancel the appointment yourself, and can apply to a booking made from your own website if the client first viewed your marketplace profile.

How much is Fresha's new-client fee in New Zealand?

Fresha's help centre does not state the rate, minimum or cap; it points to the pricing page, which shows each country its own figures. We could not view the New Zealand numbers from abroad. Check fresha.com/pricing from your salon, or ask Fresha in writing for the current NZ dollar rate, minimum and cap before listing your salon on the marketplace.

What is the best free alternative to Fresha for a New Zealand hair salon?

ViteUneCoupe's free plan is the most direct one: unlimited online bookings, 0% commission always, a personalised booking page, client database and calendar, with no trial clock and no marketplace between you and your clients. The honest trade-offs are email rather than text reminders, no payments or EFTPOS integration, and an optional paid plan billed in euros rather than NZ dollars. If text reminders and payments matter more to you than a zero bill, the paid NZ-built options above are the better fit.

Does Fresha protect against no-shows?

Yes, and it is a real strength: Fresha supports upfront payments and cancellation fees when clients book. ViteUneCoupe's equivalent, bank-card no-show protection, is coming soon in the Standard + Anti No-Show plan at 49 € excluding tax per month. Until then, automatic reminders and a clear written cancellation policy already remove a large share of missed appointments.

Can I use Fresha's online booking without the marketplace?

Not according to Fresha's own help centre (checked in October 2026): taking bookings online through Fresha from your website and social pages requires your profile to be listed on the marketplace, and unlisting it disables all your online booking channels. If you want a booking link with no marketplace attached, that is a structural reason to choose one of the alternatives above rather than a setting you can toggle.