Most pricing guides tell you what a tool costs. That’s the least useful thing to know, because the headline number is the part that changes least as your shop grows. What actually decides your bill is the model underneath it, and the costs that sit outside the subscription entirely.
There are five models in common use. They behave differently enough that the cheapest tool for a solo therapist is rarely the cheapest one for a team of six.
About the figures below. Everything here was read off each vendor’s own pricing page in August 2026, in the currency that page served us, before tax. Vendor pricing pages are localised by your IP address, so what you see may differ. We’re citing list prices to illustrate how the models behave, not to declare a winner. Check the current number on the vendor’s page before you decide anything.
The five ways spa software is priced
Per seat. You pay for each person who takes bookings. Fresha’s Independent plan was 19.95 € a month for a single team member, with the Team plan at 12.95 € per team member above that.
Per location. You pay per site, regardless of headcount. Mindbody’s Starter tier started at 99 € a month per location, with unlimited users on every tier.
Per user with a capped free tier. Setmore published a $0 plan covering up to 4 users and 200 appointments a month, with Pro at $12/user/month billed monthly, or $5/user/month billed annually.
Flat fee plus a per-staff add-on. Booksy’s Spanish page showed 34.99 € + IVA a month, with 8 € + IVA per additional employee. Its default dollar page showed $29.99/month + tax with $20/month per extra staff member.
Commission on top of any of the above. Some vendors add a one-time fee when a client finds you through their consumer marketplace. More on that below, because it’s the least transparent part of the market.
What the same shop pays under each model
Below is the monthly subscription for one shop at three sizes, using the euro-rendered list prices above. We’re comparing only the vendors served to us in euros, because we have no sourced exchange rate and converting would invent precision we don’t have.
| Bookable people | Fresha | Booksy (Spain) | Mindbody | WellDesk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 19.95 € | 34.99 € | from 99 € | 9.99 € |
| 3 | 38.85 € | 50.99 € | from 99 € | 19.99 € |
| 6 | 77.70 € | 74.99 € | from 99 € | 34.99 € |
All list prices before tax, August 2026. Fresha and Booksy both state their figures exclude sales tax. Mindbody’s entry tier is the only one of its three with a published price.
The shape matters more than any single row. Per-seat models start cheapest and climb fastest. Fresha is less than half Booksy’s price for a solo professional and more expensive by six people. Per-location pricing is a flat line. Mindbody looks unaffordable to a solo therapist and stops looking that way as a team grows, which is exactly who it’s built for.
The practical read: if you’re one or two people, per-seat almost certainly wins. If you’re planning to be eight, price the eight-person version now rather than the version you’re buying today.
The costs that aren’t in the sticker price
A subscription comparison is incomplete on its own. Four other lines land on the same bill.
Card processing. Fresha listed 1.29% for online payments and 0.99% in person, plus 0.10 € per Tap to Pay authorisation. Booksy’s dollar page listed 2.69% + $0.30 for mobile or keyed entry and 2.49% + $0.10 through a card reader; its Spanish page listed 2% + 0.15 € for mobile payments. Mindbody says standard processing fees apply and publishes no rate.
Metered messaging. Fresha includes 150 messages and 50 marketing emails a month, then charges 0.05 € per text, 0.02 € per marketing email and 0.04–0.10 € per WhatsApp message. For a shop sending appointment reminders to every client, an allowance measured in the low hundreds is a monthly cost, not a free feature.
Paid add-ons. This is where a 19.95 € subscription stops describing the bill. Fresha’s published add-ons included Client Loyalty at 39.95 € per location a month, Insights reporting at 7.95 € per team member, Google Rating Boost at 10.95 € per location and AI Concierge at 94.95 € per location. On Mindbody, room and resource management, better reporting and marketing automation all sit above the entry tier, on the two tiers with no published price.
Hardware. Fresha listed card terminals from 119 € per device. Vagaro’s page included a complimentary card reader.
Marketplace commissions, and the one nobody publishes
If a tool has a consumer marketplace, it may take a cut when a new client discovers you there. The three vendors here disclose it very differently:
- Booksy publishes it plainly: a one-time 30% fee based on the total cost of a Boost client’s first visit, stated the same way on both its dollar and Spanish pages.
- Vagaro states 20% on a first appointment from a new customer discovered through its marketplace.
- Fresha charges a new-client fee, describes its mechanics in its help centre, and publishes no rate or minimum on any page we could reach. Its help article points at the pricing page for the figure; the pricing page doesn’t state one.
The Fresha case is the awkward one. A widely repeated percentage for Fresha circulates in third-party articles, and we’re not going to print it, because we couldn’t source it from Fresha. What we can tell you is what Fresha’s own help centre states: the fee applies once per new client, is calculated from their first completed appointment, and doesn’t apply to clients already in your list — including ones you import before they book. Our Fresha alternative guide goes through that in detail.
Don’t let the numbers blur together, either. Vagaro’s page states 20%. Fresha’s does not state anything. Those are different situations and they often get reported as one.
What vendors don’t publish
Worth knowing before a sales call, because a missing number is a negotiating position:
- Mindbody publishes a price for one of its three tiers. Accelerate and Ultimate are both “Let’s talk”. Its processing rate isn’t published, and neither are contract terms beyond a note that cancellation requires advance notice.
- Fresha doesn’t publish its new-client fee rate, its cap for higher-value services, or its minimum for low-value ones, though its help centre confirms all three exist.
- Setmore, Booksy and Vagaro all publish month-to-month terms and say you can cancel any time.
If a vendor won’t put a number on a page, budget for the worse end of your guess.
For comparison, what WellDesk costs
The first 100 shops use WellDesk free — the whole product, not a capped tier — and lock in their price for when we start charging. After that it’s 9.99 € a month for you plus 5 € a month for each additional person taking bookings. Reception and admin logins don’t count and are free.
There’s no marketplace, so there’s no new-client commission. Card payments run through Stripe and carry Stripe’s processing fees the same as anywhere, and booking-page card payments are currently available to shops in Spain while we expand.
Two things to weigh honestly against the table above. We’re newer and smaller than every vendor on this page, with a narrower feature set. And there’s no self-serve export of your client list yet — we’ll send you your data if you ask, and it’s on the list to build properly.
If you want the head-to-head rather than the model-level view, we’ve written up Fresha, Setmore and Mindbody individually.
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