Fresha Alternative for Barbershops: The Free Plan Is Gone — Now What?

Written for US barbershop owners. Fresha figures checked 2026-08-08 against pricing guides current as of July 2026 — Fresha's own pricing page shows local currency by region, so the US dollar figures here come from the third-party sources listed at the bottom. Fresha has changed its pricing model before; check their site before you decide.

The short version

A lot of barbers still describe Fresha as "the free one." That stopped being true in early 2025, when Fresha retired its free-forever plan. Today it's a subscription — roughly $19.95/month for a single calendar, or about $14.95 per bookable team member per month on the Team plan — plus a 20% fee on new clients who find you through the Fresha marketplace, with a $6 minimum.

Dokani is the other shape entirely: a one-time license for the shop, no per-barber fee, no marketplace cut, and it keeps working when the internet doesn't.

If you're still on a legacy free Fresha account and happy, this article isn't urgent. If you're looking at a per-chair subscription line for the first time, here's the math.

1. The per-barber math

Fresha's Team plan prices per bookable team member. Every barber with a calendar is a line on the bill:

Shop size	Fresha Team (~$14.95/member)	Per year	Over 5 years	Dokani Pro
Solo barber	~$19.95 (Independent)	~$239	~$1,197	$350 once
3 chairs	~$44.85	~$538	~$2,691	$350 once
5 chairs	~$74.75	~$897	~$4,485	$350 once
8 chairs	~$119.60	~$1,435	~$7,176	$350 once

That's before the marketplace fee, before card processing, and before messaging — Fresha includes a small free message allowance and bills per message after it, with marketing texts priced separately.

Dokani Pro is a one-time license for one shop with unlimited devices on your local network: $350 at the current launch price ($699.99 list), and a flat $100 for the first 10 US shops. Hiring your fourth barber doesn't change it. Pro+ at $19/month during launch ($28.99 after) adds cloud sync, multiple locations and a web dashboard — priced per store, not per person.

Where Fresha is fairer than the table suggests: the subscription genuinely includes the whole product, and Fresha's in-person card rate — around 2.19% + $0.20 — is one of the lowest in the category. A busy shop can save more on processing than it spends on the subscription. If you're taking $40,000/year on cards, that rate difference against a 2.6% competitor is real money.

2. The 20% new-client fee

Fresha's marketplace charges 20% of a new client's first booking, minimum $6. On a $45 cut that's $9; on a $30 kids' cut it's the $6 floor, which works out closer to 20% than you'd like on cheap services.

Framed fairly: that's an acquisition fee. Someone who had never heard of your shop opened an app and booked you, and you paid a finder's fee once. Plenty of shops run the marketplace deliberately when the book is soft and treat the 20% as marketing spend.

The thing to watch is the same one that bites Booksy users: what the platform counts as "new." A client who already knows you but books through the marketplace app instead of your own link can register as a first-time booking. Track your first two months rather than trusting anyone's summary of it.

Dokani takes no commission on your own bookings, ever. Every plan, including Free, gets a public booking page on your own link — service, barber (or "any available"), time — and you can require a deposit or full prepayment through your own Stripe account to hold the slot. The money lands in your Stripe balance; we never hold it.

The honest flip side: Dokani has no marketplace. Fresha's is one of the largest in the industry and it genuinely fills chairs. If your problem is that not enough people know your shop exists, a one-time license doesn't solve it and I won't pretend otherwise.

3. What happens when the internet goes down

Fresha is a cloud platform. The calendar, the client list and checkout live on Fresha's servers, so a dead router on a Saturday morning is an operational problem, not an inconvenience.

Dokani is offline-first by design. Sales, the walk-in queue, the appointment calendar, inventory, staff PIN logins, commission calculation and thermal receipt printing all run with no internet at all, indefinitely — no sync deadline, no transactions that expire unsynced. Cloud sync is an option on Pro+, not the ground the shop stands on.

4. The barbershop features, specifically

Fresha is built for salons and spas, and it shows in the good ways and the awkward ones. It's excellent at bookings, client records and retail; it's thinner where a barbershop differs from a salon.

Where Dokani is built for the chair:

• Booth rent. A rent roll — who owes, who's paid, what's outstanding this period — sitting next to each renter's sales. Salon-first software generally assumes everyone is an employee or a commission stylist; the booth-rent shop is an afterthought.
• Walk-ins as a first-class screen. Check-in, wait times, barber requests, a printed numbered ticket from a thermal printer, then "complete & checkout" into a paid sale. Barbershops are half appointments and half whoever walks in; a booking-first product handles the first half well.
• Commission at the line, not the ticket — split tickets and retail attachment come out right without anyone correcting them later — plus batch payouts in one action.
• 7 roles and 85+ permissions with per-barber PIN login. A booth renter sees their own numbers; a cashier can't void yesterday's sales.
• US tax work: per-employee tips for W-2s, sales tax by jurisdiction, expenses mapped to Schedule C, a close-the-books lock, and an Accountant Pack exporting QuickBooks/Xero-ready CSV. (An export your accountant imports — not a live API sync.)
• Loyalty, gift cards, and email + WhatsApp reminders free on every plan, working offline. Fresha bills messaging per message past a small allowance.

Where Fresha is genuinely better:

• The marketplace — large, active, and good at what it does.
• In-person card processing today, at a very competitive rate. Dokani doesn't process in-person cards yet.
• iPhone and iPad. Dokani is Windows and Android only.
• The client-facing booking experience is polished, and clients who already use Fresha for their nails or their brows will book you in an app they trust.

5. Card payments, side by side

	Fresha	Dokani
In-person card	Yes today — ~2.19% + $0.20 (plus ~$0.10 for tap-to-pay)	Not yet — coming. Use your own terminal or cash and record the sale
Online / booking deposits	~2.79% + $0.20	Yes today — deposits or full prepay through your own Stripe account (US: 3.1% + 30¢)
Manually keyed	~3.30% + $0.20	Recorded as external card
Marketplace commission	20% of a new client's first booking, $6 minimum	None — your booking link, no cut
Where the money sits	Fresha's payments layer	Your own Stripe account

Who should pick which

Pick Fresha if: you need new clients more than cheaper software, you're solo or two-chair, you process a lot of cards and want the lowest in-person rate, or you run on iPhone/iPad.

Pick Dokani if: you have three or more chairs and don't want a bill that grows with every hire; you rent booths; your internet is unreliable; you want commissions, loyalty, gift cards and real inventory without per-person pricing; or you want your client list on your own machine rather than on a platform that can change its pricing model — as Fresha did in 2025.

Running both is reasonable. Keep Fresha for discovery if the marketplace is feeding you, and run the shop floor — queue, staff, commissions, booth rent, inventory, books — in Dokani.

Also shortlisting Square, Booksy or Vagaro? Same honest breakdown for each.

Switching is free, and we do it for you

• Download free for Windows or Android. No card, no trial clock — the free plan is permanent, with unlimited customers, staff and suppliers. Full pricing here.
• ~5-minute guided setup, and we'll do it with you on live chat: services, staff, prices, and a migration from Excel or your current system, free.
• First 10 US shops: Pro for a flat $100 (normally $350 at launch pricing), with free setup and a free card reader.

Run it beside whatever you use now for a week. If it doesn't run your shop better, you're out nothing but the download.

Sources

• Fresha pricing 2026 — Pabau (updated 28 July 2026) — Individual ~$19.95/month, Team ~$14.95 per bookable team member, Enterprise custom; 20% new-client marketplace fee with $6 minimum; US card rates 2.19% + $0.20 in person, 2.79% + $0.20 online, 3.30% + $0.20 keyed; free-forever plan removed in early 2025
• Fresha pricing guide — SchedulingKit and Fresha review — The Salon Business — plan structure and messaging costs
• Fresha official pricing — Independent / Team / Enterprise plan structure and per-message pricing (displayed in local currency by region)