Fresha is one of the best-known beauty booking apps and markets itself as free. Below: what you pay for in practice and how it behaves in Serbia.
A note on prices: the amounts and percentages below come from memory and public information. Fresha changes its terms, so check every figure at fresha.com/pricing before you decide anything.
What Fresha is
Fresha is a global booking platform for beauty and wellness. It was founded in London and operates in roughly 110 countries. It has two sides: salon software (calendar, clients, point of sale) and a marketplace, a public app where customers search for salons and book.
The marketplace is what separates it from ordinary scheduling tools. Fresha also sends you clients, and it charges for that.
The free plan: what you actually get
The basic account has no subscription fee. It includes an online calendar for several staff members, a client database with visit history, a service list with prices and durations, a salon page on the marketplace, and automatic client reminders.
For a small salon with one or two chairs, that is usable. The calendar is clear, the mobile app works well, and setup takes an afternoon. The subscription is free, so the cost sits elsewhere.
How Fresha makes money
According to public information, revenue comes from three places.
The first is payment processing. When a client pays by card through Fresha (online or on a terminal Fresha supplies), a percentage plus a fixed amount is taken per transaction. From memory, in the UK that is 2.19% + 20p. Check this figure in the current version at fresha.com, since it differs by country and changes over time.
The second is a commission on new clients. If a customer finds you for the first time through the Fresha marketplace, Fresha charges a fee on that booking, from memory around 20% of the service price with a minimum amount. Check the exact percentage and minimum at fresha.com/pricing. Returning clients who come through your own link do not fall under this fee.
The third is extra charges, for example for SMS messages in some regions. Check this figure in the current version at fresha.com, along with whether SMS is charged at all in your country.
An example: 20 new clients arrive through the marketplace in a month and each spends 3,000 dinars. A 20% fee comes to 12,000 dinars, about a month of subscription for good local software, and the marketplace listing keeps costing you after that.
Fresha in Serbia: three problems
Fiscalization comes first. In Serbia a receipt for a service is issued through the fiscal system (ESIR), and your register or software must support it. As far as we know, Fresha has no integration with Serbian ESIR. That leaves two systems in the salon, Fresha for appointments and a separate fiscal register for receipts. Every service is entered twice, and discrepancies only show up at reconciliation.
Language is second. Fresha does not invest much in Serbian. Parts of the interface stay in English, and messages to clients can read like machine translation. A customer in Nis who gets an awkward reminder takes that as a sign of how the salon runs. Test how messages look in Serbian on a trial account before going live.
Payments are third. Fresha online payments do not cover local IPS QR, the usual way to pay from a phone in Serbia. Processing in dinars can also cause trouble: conversions, payout delays and extra bank costs. If your clients pay cash, by card on a local POS or by IPS QR, you do not need Fresha's processing, and one of its main tools goes unused.
When Fresha works well for a salon in Serbia
Fresha is a decent product built for other markets. In some cases it pays off.
You work almost only with tourists. Foreign guests already know Fresha, search for salons in it, and book more readily in a language they understand. For a salon in central Belgrade or on Zlatibor in season, that is a real advantage.
You do not need fiscalization in the same tool. If you already issue receipts through a separate ESIR program and do not want to change anything, double entry bothers you less.
You already have a foreign payment provider. If you hold an account with an international processor and clients prepay, Fresha's processing adds no new problem.
If all three describe you, there is no reason to switch.
A local alternative: Agendo
Agendo is our product, so weigh this section accordingly.
Agendo is a free online booking service for salons in Serbia. It has an appointment journal, online booking (a website widget, a link and a Telegram bot), a CRM with client history, reminders through Telegram and web push at no extra cost, and three languages with automatic translation, so a message reaches the client in the language they use.
Agendo takes no commission on clients and does not require payment to go through it. The client pays however you agreed, and the client base stays yours. You issue the fiscal receipt through your own ESIR system as before, since Agendo handles booking and CRM. Check what the free plan includes at agendo.work.
How to move your data from Fresha
Switching is quick because the most valuable part, the client list, can be exported.
- In Fresha settings, find the client data export and download the CSV file. The exact option name changes, so check Fresha's help pages.
- In Agendo, open client import and upload that CSV. Names, phone numbers and emails map to fields, and you confirm a preview before importing.
- Enter services and staff by hand. For a salon with about ten services and a couple of employees, that is around 15 minutes.
- Publish the new booking link on Instagram, your Google profile and your website, and keep the old one for a week or two while clients get used to the change.
Keep your Fresha account open until all already scheduled bookings have passed.
FAQ
Is Fresha really free? There is no subscription on the basic plan, but payment processing and new-client marketplace commissions are charged. Check exact amounts at fresha.com/pricing.
Does Fresha work with the Serbian fiscal system? As far as we know, there is no ESIR integration. Confirm with Fresha support, since features change.
Can I export my clients from Fresha? Yes, you can download the client list as a CSV from settings.
Will I lose appointment history when switching? The client list moves over by import. Keep visit history in the exported file if you need it for your records.
Does Agendo charge a commission on clients? No. Check prices and terms at agendo.work.