BookingNexa vs Fresha

Fresha describes the marketplace as being discovered when clients search for services around them, alongside more than 25 million customers looking to book. A customer in that app is shopping for a service in an area, not walking into your shop. Which business they end up with is decided in Fresha's results, not on your own page.

To be fair to Fresha, it draws the line after the first visit. Its marketplace page says that once a client books with you, they are yours, that you can rebook and market to them, and that no further marketplace commission applies. That is a real limit on the fee and it is worth knowing.

Where it gets uncomfortable is the edge. Fresha's own help center says the fee also covers people who view your marketplace profile first and then book through another online channel, so a client you brought in yourself can still be counted as an introduction. One nail technician wrote on Capterra in November 2025 that she was charged 20 percent for a client she had found personally, because that client searched her name on the marketplace.

Fresha's partner terms also say that when a Fresha user verifies an email or phone number matching a client record you hold, Fresha automatically links that record to the user's account and makes defined categories of that record available to them. Your client list and Fresha's user base are joined at the record level.

And you cannot simply step out of the marketplace. Fresha states that unlisting your marketplace profile will disable all your online booking channels, so the directory and your booking page are one switch. With BookingNexa there is nothing to unlist, because there was never a directory in the first place.

This matters because of what surrounds it. Fresha's pricing page lists client loyalty, a Google rating booster, team messaging, insights reporting, accounting sync, and the data connector as paid add-ons, each billed again per location or per bookable team member. The plan you sign up for is a base, not a total.

We are not going to tell you what Fresha's AI costs, because Fresha does not say. That is the point. A quoted price you can compare is a feature; a price you learn after you switch something on is a surprise on an invoice.

On our side the AI receptionist is part of the plan, the monthly call allowance is published as a number, and both are read live from our billing system rather than typed onto this page. If a plan changes tomorrow, this page changes with it.

Fresha describes the charge as a one-time fee for introducing a client it brought you. In Fresha's words, a marketplace new client is someone who first discovers your business through the Fresha marketplace and goes on to make an online booking.

The attribution is wider than a direct marketplace booking. Fresha's own help center says the fee covers people who book through your marketplace profile, and also those who view your marketplace profile first and then choose to book through another online channel.

Two working salon owners on Capterra describe being charged for clients they consider their own. One reports being billed after a client she found herself searched her business name on the marketplace. Another reports being billed for customers who booked using the QR code in his own shop. Those are their accounts of their own bills, not our characterisation of Fresha's policy.

Fresha states that a minimum fee and a maximum cap both exist, but publishes neither amount in any market we could read.

Fresha's pricing page states plainly that as you expand, it charges for each bookable team member. Its Independent plan covers a single calendar column, and Enterprise is quoted individually for businesses above twenty team members.

Per-seat pricing is not a trick, and for a solo operator it is often the cheaper structure. It just means your software bill is coupled to your headcount, which is exactly when your payroll is going up too.

Several add-ons are billed separately again, most of them per location or per bookable team member: client loyalty, a Google rating booster, team messaging, insights reporting, accounting sync, and the data connector.

Fresha's pricing page shows three tiers, Independent, Team, and Enterprise, each with a 7 day trial and no zero-priced option.

You will see a 14 day trial quoted for Fresha in several review articles. Fresha's own pricing page said 7 days when we checked it, so we have used Fresha's number.

Fresha states that AI Concierge answers incoming calls and messages instantly and guides clients through booking, and that it works across calls, SMS, and in-app chat. Fresha also says it launched in English-speaking markets first.

We could not find Instagram, Facebook Messenger, or WhatsApp named on any Fresha page describing AI Concierge. If Fresha has added those channels since we last checked, this row is out of date and the date on it will tell you.

BookingNexa answers Instagram and Facebook DMs, holds the conversation, collects what it needs, and writes the booking into the same calendar as a phone booking. A booking made in a DM can only be changed from that same DM by the same person, which is how we stop one customer touching another's appointment.

Work out what 20 covers. A single appointment can easily use three messages: a confirmation, a reminder the day before, and a follow-up. That is six or seven clients a month per team member before you are into paid messages, and reminders are the thing that actually stops no-shows.

Fresha publishes its per-message prices in each market's own currency, and we could not read a United States dollar figure for a text, a marketing email, or a marketing text on any Fresha page. So we cannot tell you what the overage costs, only that there is one and that it starts early.

Our allowance is a number you can see before you buy, it covers two-way conversations rather than one-way blasts, and it resets at the start of every month rather than being an annual pot you burn through by March.