Fresha vs Timely: How Each One Prices Your Team

By Roger Grekos, founder and editor, Twizzlo. Prices were read first-hand from each vendor's own website between September 8 and September 11, 2026.

Twizzlo publishes this page and competes with the products priced on it. Every competitor price stated here as current is read from that vendor's own website, its pricing page or help center, with the qualifier printed there, or recorded as not published.

Fresha vs Timely turns on two meters. Timely bills per bookable staff, from $26 per staff monthly at one staff, but Elevate and Innovate totals stay flat from 8 to 19 staff: $241 and $300 a month. Fresha bills per bookable team member and adds a 20% one-time commission, with a minimum fee per client, on brand new marketplace clients.

How do Fresha and Timely actually charge you?

Fresha vs Timely is not a feature argument first. It is a metering argument. The two products bill on different units, and the unit you are counting decides your invoice long before any feature list does. Timely bills per bookable staff member. Its pricing page opens by asking how many bookable staff you have, and the plan prices it shows depend on your answer.

Read in a browser on 2026-09-08 with the region selector set to USA, one bookable staff member returns Build at $26 per staff monthly on Timely's pricing page. Elevate is $39 per staff monthly and Innovate is $47 per staff monthly at that same head count. Each card also prints a separate total. At one staff member that total matches the per staff figure exactly: "Total $26 USD", "Billed monthly".

Like Timely, Fresha bills per bookable team member, but it splits that across two plans and adds a commission on top. Fresha's pricing page states the model in one line under the headline: "As you expand we charge for each bookable team member." The Independent plan covers a single team member and a single calendar column. The Team plan covers unlimited team members, gives multiple calendar columns, and bills per team member monthly.

Fresha charges a 20% one-time commission on brand new clients who discover your business through the Fresha marketplace, and a minimum fee of CA$6 per client applies. That commission is not part of the subscription price. Returning clients carry no marketplace fee ever, and Fresha lists your own direct booking link, Facebook, Instagram and Google bookings as free of the marketplace fee. Timely's meter is your head count up to eight staff. Fresha's meter is your head count plus a slice of your new client acquisition. The crossover depends on how many staff you carry and how many new clients arrive through Fresha's marketplace rather than your own channels. Our guide to salon scheduling software priced by team size works the same decision through for salons.

What does Timely charge at 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 15 staff?

Settling Fresha vs Timely at your real head count starts here. Timely's pricing table is a staff stepper: at each head count from 1 to 19 bookable staff, as stepped on 2026-09-10, every plan sold at that size prints its monthly total, so the shape appears as you step through it. That stepper was first read on 2026-09-08 in a browser with the region selector set to USA, so every Timely figure below is the USD edition, billed monthly.

At 1 bookable staff, Timely's stepper shows Build $26, Elevate $39, Innovate $47, each per staff monthly. At 3 staff: Build "$24.67 per staff" for "Total $74 USD", Elevate "$32.33 per staff" for "Total $97 USD", Innovate "$39.67 per staff" for "Total $119 USD", all monthly. At 5 staff: Build "Total $122 USD", Elevate "Total $155 USD", Innovate "Total $191 USD", all monthly. At 7 staff: Build "Total $170 USD", Elevate "Total $213 USD", Innovate "Total $263 USD", all monthly.

At 8 staff, Timely's pricing page changes character. Build stops being purchasable and its card reads "Only available for salons with 1-7 staff". Elevate switches its headline to "$241" labelled "total price / monthly" with "$30.13 USD per staff" underneath, both monthly. Innovate reads "$300" total price monthly with "$37.50 USD per staff". At 10 staff: Elevate still $241 total monthly, now "$24.10 USD per staff". Innovate still $300 total monthly, now "$30 USD per staff". At 15 staff: Elevate still $241 total monthly, now "$16.07 USD per staff". Innovate still $300 total monthly, now "$20 USD per staff". At 20 or more the stepper shows "20+" and both plans replace the price with "Book a call for a custom quote".

From eight to nineteen bookable staff, stepped one by one on 2026-09-10, Timely's Elevate total does not move, and neither does Innovate's. The number still changing on screen is the per staff figure, and it falls only because a fixed total is being divided by a larger head count.

Why does Timely's per staff price keep falling?

From 8 to 19 staff (stepped 2026-09-10), Timely's per staff figure is not a price. It is a quotient. Divide Elevate's $241 monthly total by 8 staff and you get $30.125 per staff monthly, which the page rounds to the "$30.13 USD per staff" it displays. Divide $241 by 10 and you get exactly $24.10 per staff monthly, the figure shown at ten staff. Divide $241 by 15 and you get $16.0667 per staff monthly, rounded to the "$16.07 USD per staff" shown at fifteen. Innovate behaves the same way: its $300 monthly total divided by 8 is $37.50, by 10 is $30.00, by 15 is $20.00, each per staff monthly. All of them match the page to the cent. That is a flat fee wearing per seat clothing.

If your team has anywhere from 8 to 19 bookable staff, the Timely figure to budget is a single flat subscription: $241 a month on Elevate or $300 a month on Innovate, as Timely's stepper showed on 2026-09-10. At twenty it becomes a sales conversation.

The way Timely prices by head count has two practical consequences for anyone weighing Fresha vs Timely, and neither is obvious from the headline. First, if you size your budget by multiplying the headline, you will overstate Timely above one staff, most of all from eight staff up. A ten person salon reading "$39 per staff monthly" on the Elevate card would budget $390 a month. Timely's own page charges $241 a month. That is $149 a month less than the naive figure, or $1,788 a year less. Overstating a vendor is still getting it wrong. Second, Build has a hard ceiling. It carries Timely's lowest one-staff headline, the $26 per staff monthly, and you cannot buy it at eight staff or more.

A salon with eight chairs comparing the "From $26 per staff member, per month" headline Pabau's comparison prints is comparing against Timely Build, a plan it is not eligible for. The entry price for an eight person team is Elevate at $241 a month, not $26 per staff monthly times anything. Timely's own FAQ is clear on the staff definition: part-time staff members are currently charged at the same rate as full-time staff members. A Saturday-only stylist counts as a full seat. That matters for salons carrying casual staff. If seat counting is what you are trying to escape, we cover that in appointment software with no seat fees.

What does Fresha charge, and is there still a free plan?

One caveat first, and it is a real limit on this section rather than a hedge. Fresha's pricing page offers no currency switcher. Its footer language picker leaves prices in CA$, even on the en-GB page served on 2026-09-11. From our connection the page served the Canadian edition, so every Fresha figure below is in Canadian dollars as printed on 2026-09-08. The US edition was NOT FETCHED. We are not converting these to USD and we are not substituting a US number from a review site, because neither would be Fresha's published US price.

The Fresha half of Fresha vs Timely comes from its own page, which lists only paid or custom-rate plans. There is no free subscription tier on it. Fresha's Independent plan is CA$29.95 per month with a 7 day trial, covering exactly one team member, a single calendar column, 100 free messages and 50 free marketing emails a month. Team is CA$19.95 per team member monthly with a 7 day trial, covering unlimited team members, multiple calendar columns, and both allowances repeated per team member monthly. Enterprise is listed as "Custom rates" for high-volume businesses with over 20 team members.

Note the shape. Fresha's per person rate is lower than its solo rate. A single operator's subscription is CA$29.95 per month, while each member of a five person team adds CA$19.95 monthly. Fresha positions Independent for one-person businesses and Team for multiple team member businesses, so its cheapest headline sits on the plan it points at teams rather than the one it points at solo operators. The page publishes no rule barring a solo operator from Team, and we are not asserting one.

Fresha's marketplace commission sits outside the subscription. Fresha charges a 20% one-time commission on brand new clients acquired through its marketplace, and a minimum fee of CA$6 per client applies. Returning clients carry no marketplace fee ever. That is a real acquisition channel with a real price rather than a hidden fee, but it is a variable cost that scales with new client volume, not with staff count. Card processing is charged separately, per transaction: online payments at 2.79% + CA$0.20, in-person at 2.29% + CA$0.20 plus CA$0.15 per Tap to pay authorization, manual card entry at 3.30% + CA$0.20, and Klarna installments at 6.99% + CA$0.30.

Fresha's terminals start from CA$189 per device on Independent and are free on Team, subject to processing volumes. Then the add-ons, which is where a Fresha quote drifts. AI Concierge is CA$139.95 per location monthly and Data Connector CA$305 per location monthly. Insights is CA$13.95 per bookable team member monthly, so it re-applies the seat meter on top of the subscription. Premium support is free on Team but CA$29.95 monthly on Independent, and all rates are exclusive of local sales taxes. If you are weighing the whole platform rather than the entry price, our Fresha alternatives roundup and our Twizzlo compared with Fresha page start from these same published numbers.

Which Fresha vs Timely comparison pages get the prices wrong?

Checking rival pages is worth doing on the record, because two ranking for fresha vs timely on 2026-09-08 carry errors a buyer would act on. Vev's comparison at vev.co/blog/fresha-vs-timely, published January 03, 2025, prints Timely as "Build - $39 USD, Elevate - $59 USD, Innovate - $70 USD per month" and summarizes the range as "$39 - $70". Timely's own pricing page, read in a browser on 2026-09-08 with USA selected, shows Build $26, Elevate $39, Innovate $47, each per staff monthly at one staff. Every one of Vev's three numbers is wrong. The page also changed the billing unit from Timely's "per staff / monthly" to "per month". A ten person salon trusting that line would budget $59 a month for Elevate. Timely charges $241 a month.

Vev's page states Fresha is "Free for all" and records Fresha's base price as "0". On 2026-09-08 the Fresha pricing page served to us showed no free subscription tier at all. It showed Independent at CA$29.95 per month and Team at CA$19.95 per team member monthly, each with a 7 day trial. The claim that Fresha is free for all is an old one, and it no longer matches the page we could read. Any comparison resting on "Fresha is free" now needs to say which edition it read and when.

Pabau's comparison at pabau.com/blog/fresha-vs-timely, last updated August 28, 2026, gets Timely's one-staff Build price right at "From $26 per staff member, per month". It gets Fresha's plan structure wrong. Its table row reads "Starting Price | $19.95/mo (Independent)", and its body line is "Paid plans from $19.95/month". On the Fresha page we read, CA$19.95 is the Team rate, billed per team member monthly. Independent is a different plan at a higher flat rate.

Pabau prints plain dollars and we read Canadian dollars, so we are not comparing the currencies here. The defect that survives the currency gap is the one that matters: the Team plan's number has been detached from its per team member unit and printed under the Independent plan's name. That is the failure mode worth naming: not an invented number, but a real number with its qualifier removed. Once "per team member monthly" becomes "per month", a five person team's subscription is five times the figure on the page. We hold ourselves to the same standard in Vagaro against Fresha.

How does Timely's price compare with flat rate software?

The Fresha vs Timely question changes shape once flat-rate products sit beside it, because per seat and per location software diverge fast. Competitor prices below were read from each vendor's own pricing page on 2026-09-08, unless a later read date is given where they appear. Fresha is deliberately absent from this USD comparison because only its Canadian edition was reachable.

Twizzlo Business Pro is $29.99 per month flat per business, with unlimited bookings, employees, locations and customers, 50 SMS included then $0.03 per message, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Its Free plan is $0 per month permanently, not a trial, capped at 150 bookings monthly with no SMS.

Square Appointments meters per location rather than per staff: Free at $0, Plus at $49 and Premium at $149 per month per location, with 30 day trials on the paid tiers. GlossGenius prices by plan tier and per location (read 2026-09-11), billed monthly at Standard $28, Gold $56 for businesses up to 9 staff, and Platinum $168 for teams of 10 or more, with a flat 2.6% processing rate. Its Compare plans table, read on 2026-09-11, marks Staff Management as not included on Standard and adds that each additional location is charged the plan price, at a 15% discount.

Acuity is flat monthly but caps calendars instead of staff: Starter $20 for 1 calendar, Standard $34 for up to 6, Premium $61 for up to 36, each billed monthly. Acuity's page loads on its annual toggle (re-read 2026-09-11), so those monthly figures appear only after you switch it to monthly billing.

The crossover between per seat and flat pricing is the number to find. Twizzlo Business Pro at $29.99 a month flat per business sits below Timely Build's measured subscription total from two to seven staff. At two staff, Build is $25 per staff monthly, a $50 monthly total, read on 2026-09-10 and 2026-09-11. Twizzlo Business Pro also sits below Timely Elevate's monthly subscription total at every team size stepped on 2026-09-10, including one, where Elevate is $39.

Against Timely at ten staff on Elevate, Twizzlo Business Pro's $29.99 per business against $241, both monthly, is a difference of $211.01 a month, or $2,532.12 a year, on the subscription alone. That gap is real but it is not the whole bill, and pretending otherwise would be the same error we just criticized. Twizzlo charges a 1.5% Twizzlo platform fee on top of Stripe's own fees on payments taken through the platform. A salon processing meaningful card volume should price that in before treating the subscription gap as savings. We break the mechanics down in how card processing fees actually work, and the plan detail sits on Twizzlo's pricing page.

Per staff billing reaches the allowances as well as the price, and that quietly changes the math. Timely's included SMS is per staff, not per business. Its table lists "Included monthly SMS per staff (excludes targeted SMS)" at 100 SMS on Build, which is why the Build card reads 700 SMS per month at seven staff and 2,000 at twenty. Excess is 12c per SMS. Fresha's Team plan likewise gives 100 free messages per team member monthly and 50 free marketing emails per team member monthly. Twizzlo's 50 SMS are included per business, then $0.03 per message, so the allowance does not grow when you hire.

A per staff allowance makes a per seat plan look more generous than its subscription suggests, and a per business allowance makes a flat plan look thinner than it is. Read both the price unit and the allowance unit before comparing, because vendors do not use the same one. If flat pricing that holds its shape as you hire is the goal, that is the argument in flat rate booking software that scales.

Where does Twizzlo fall short against Fresha and Timely?

We sell scheduling software, so the useful thing we can add to any Fresha vs Timely shortlist is a straight list of where one or both of them beat us. Retail and inventory. Fresha's plan comparison lists Retail and inventory and an Online product store on both plans. Timely's comparison table shows "Retail and professional stock management" and "Use the Timely Stock app" as included in Build, Elevate and Innovate, and shows "Order stock directly from suppliers" as not included in Build and included from Elevate up. So Timely's stock tools start on its entry plan, not on higher tiers. Twizzlo has no retail inventory at all. A salon selling shelf product should not shortlist us.

Memberships and packages. Fresha's comparison lists Packages and Memberships on both plans. Twizzlo has no membership autopay and no package builder. If recurring memberships or prepaid service packages are the core of your revenue, we are the wrong tool for you today.

Payroll and commissions. Fresha's comparison shows Sales commissions, Wages, Pay runs and "Timesheets clock in and out" on the Team plan. Twizzlo has neither payroll nor commissions. Timely's comparison table, read on 2026-09-10, lists "Manage timesheets and rosters" as included in Build, Elevate and Innovate, and shows no payroll, wage, pay run or commission row.

POS hardware. Fresha sells terminals from CA$189 per device on Independent and free on Team, subject to processing volumes. Square sells hardware "with options starting at $59", a figure its pricing page prints with no unit or period. Timely's comparison table, read on 2026-09-11, lists "Connect to supported point of sale hardware" and "Accept payments anywhere with Tap to Pay or a Timely terminal" as included in Build, Elevate and Innovate. Twizzlo sells none, so if your front desk depends on a dedicated card terminal, count that gap before you shortlist us.

Marketing automation and charting. Fresha sells AI Concierge at CA$139.95 per location monthly, Client Loyalty at CA$79.95 per location monthly and Google Rating Boost as paid add-ons. Timely's SMS table reads "Included monthly SMS per staff (excludes targeted SMS)", so targeted campaigns fall outside the included allowance. Twizzlo has no marketing automation suite and no SOAP notes or charting, which rules us out for clinical work.

Published card processing rate. Fresha publishes 2.79% + CA$0.20 per transaction online. Square publishes 2.6% + 15c for "Tap, dip, or swipe" payments on its Free plan, falling to 2.5% + 15c on Plus and 2.4% + 15c on Premium. GlossGenius publishes a flat 2.6% rate. Twizzlo publishes no card processing rate, and does levy a 1.5% Twizzlo platform fee on top of Stripe's own fees. That is less transparent than the three above, and we would rather say so than let you find out later.

Timely's card processing rate is NOT FETCHED: its pricing page says its processing fees are listed in a separate help article, which we did not open. Twizzlo Business Pro stays at $29.99 per month flat per business while you hire. If your objection to both products is the seat meter itself and you have already ruled out Timely specifically, our Timely alternative page is the closer read.

So which one should you choose?

The Fresha vs Timely answer turns on two things: your head count, and where your new clients come from. Choose Timely if your hair or beauty team wants stock control, tiered staff pricing (from Elevate, read 2026-09-10) and consultation forms in one product, and your head count is either small or large enough to benefit from the plateau. Timely Elevate's per staff cost is lowest from eight to nineteen staff, the flat range its page showed on 2026-09-10, because $241 a month works out at $30.13 each a month for eight people and $12.68 each for nineteen. In the middle it behaves as a per seat plan: from three to seven staff (stepped 2026-09-10) the Elevate total climbs with every hire, reaching $213 a month at seven.

Choose Fresha if the marketplace is worth something to you. Fresha's 20% one-time commission on brand new marketplace clients is hardest to justify if those clients would have found you anyway. If Fresha's marketplace genuinely originates bookings you would not otherwise get, a one-time 20%, minimum CA$6, on a new client is a reasonable acquisition cost, and returning clients carry no marketplace fee ever. Fresha's pricing page also lists Memberships on both plans, and Wages and Pay runs on its Team plan. Timely's pricing page, read on 2026-09-10, lists none of these.

Choose flat-rate software if your objection is the meter. If you expect to grow from three chairs to eight, a per seat plan prices your ambition, and a per location or per business plan without a staff, calendar or booking cap does not. Whatever you pick, do the arithmetic at your real head count rather than at the headline. Timely's headline is a one staff price and Build is not sold above seven staff. Fresha's headline belongs to the Team plan and is charged per team member monthly. Neither number describes what a six person salon pays, and neither is the number that salon will be invoiced.

Prices in this article were read from each vendor's own website between September 8 and September 11, 2026, and they will drift, so check the vendor's page before you buy. If a flat rate fits how you are growing, start with Twizzlo's salon scheduling software and test it on the free plan.