Migrating from Fresha: why EU salons reconsider the "free" platform

Fresha's pricing model: where does the money come from?

Since 2025 Fresha makes money two ways that stack. **One: a mandatory subscription.** Fresha removed its free plan in early 2025. You now pay Independent €14.95/month (single calendar) or Team €9.95/month per team member; larger salons (20+ team members) fall under custom Enterprise pricing. Free is no longer an option. **Two: payment processing.** On top of the subscription, Fresha Payments charges around 1% + €0.20 per online transaction. On a €50 service that is about €0.70 - more than double your own Mollie-iDEAL at €0.29 flat (no percentage), roughly 2.4×. A salon with 150 online bookings averaging €50 pays €105/month to Fresha; the same volume via own Mollie is €43.50 - a difference of €61.50/month or €738/year. **Three: advanced features sit in the paid subscription tiers.** Sophisticated reporting, advanced no-show-fee workflows, and some marketing automations live in the paid plans - not in a free base, because that base no longer exists. Fresha may also charge a fee on new clients it sends via its marketplace (varies by region). Add it up and a busy salon lands at €1,000-€2,000/year - comparable to a paid flat-fee subscription, without the benefits of owning your client relationship and payment stack.

What locks you into Fresha?

Three technical factors make leaving more than a CSV export. **Payments are vendor-locked.** Fresha Payments is the only supported processor - you cannot connect your own Stripe or Mollie account. All iDEAL, Apple Pay, and card payments route through their gateway. On cancellation your payment flow stops; you must reconnect fresh in the new system. **Marketplace listing.** Your salon profile in Fresha marketplace search results disappears on account closure - clients who searched "hair salon Tilburg" on Fresha.com no longer find you via that channel. **Data location.** Fresha is a UK-based company (London) and hosts your data outside the EU (UK). Under GDPR, any EU-client data export outside the EU requires Standard Contractual Clauses - Fresha's DPA covers this, but you must document the arrangement in your processor register. Switching to an EU-native platform (Salonnare, Salonized, Shortcuts) places data in the EU and removes that SCC overhead entirely.

Exporting data from Fresha: what you get, what you do not

Log in at dashboard.fresha.com. Navigate to **Clients → Import/Export → Export**. You receive CSV files for: customers (name, email, phone, notes, tags), services (name, duration, price, category), inventory (SKU, stock, sales price), and staff. **Appointment history** lives separately: Reports → Sales → Export by date range, up to 12 months. For older data email [email protected] - response typically 2-5 business days. What you do NOT receive: **payment transaction history** (Fresha Payments has an internal ledger that is not exportable), **review statistics** (reviews stay on Fresha Marketplace), and **client-behavior data** (which marketplace searches led to bookings).For most salons this suffices - your client base, service menu, and recent booking history carry over. If marketplace analytics drive your growth plan, record those numbers manually before canceling.

Migration to an iDEAL-native alternative

Create a free Salonnare account at /free. CSV import happens via Settings → Data → Import Customers. Fresha column headers are auto-recognized - "FirstName" + "LastName" map to "First name" + "Last name"; "PhoneNumber" maps to "Phone". Duplicate detection (same email) lets you choose: overwrite, merge, or skip. Spot-check 10 random clients to verify contact details and tags transferred correctly. Service import is similar, but because Fresha forces service categorization differently than Salonnare, your new structure may look different. Allow 60 minutes to redesign your service menu - good opportunity to add packages or add-ons that did not fit Fresha's model. Connect your Mollie or Stripe via Settings → Payments → Connect. The OAuth flow takes one minute - log in to Mollie, authorize Salonnare, and from that moment iDEAL payments land directly in your own account at your negotiated rate. Place the booking widget on your site via a single `<script>` snippet; update your Google Business "Book online" URL and Instagram bio link simultaneously.

Filling the marketplace gap after leaving Fresha

Realistically, some of your new clients came via Fresha Marketplace search. That channel goes away. Replacements to set up in parallel: **Google Business Profile optimization** - the dominant local search source. Ensure 10+ photos, a complete service list, active review collection, and the "Book online" button pointing to your own widget. This channel typically drives a large share of new-client acquisition. **Instagram + Meta ads** - reach the under-35 demographic with geo-targeted ads starting at €50-150/month. Place your booking link directly in bio via Linktree or a single-URL redirect. **Your own marketplace listing** - Salonnare has a commission-free marketplace (`/salons`) where you list automatically. **Local SEO** - a simple blog post "best hair salon in [your city]" with LocalBusiness schema markup, active Google reviews, and solid on-page content ranks organically within 3-6 months. Expect the first 2-3 months after Fresha cancellation to show somewhat lower new-client inflow. By month 4-6 the combined Google Business + Instagram funnel typically matches or exceeds Fresha Marketplace - plus margin is fully retained since no commission flows out.

Canceling Fresha and quantifying the annual upside

Fresha has no minimum contract period: close your account immediately via Settings → Account → Close Account. Important order of operations: the widget on your website still references Fresha booking URLs that 404 on closure. Replace the widget with Salonnare's first, update Google Business and Instagram bio, then wait 14 days before closing Fresha definitively. During those 14 days disable Online Booking in Fresha to prevent new bookings in the dying system. Download a final export as archive before closure. Concrete annual upside at typical EU salon volumes: **100 online bookings/month averaging €50 saves approximately €492/year on transaction fees alone**; add a no-show rate reduction via your own booking-deposit flow (collect a percentage or fixed amount upfront via iDEAL, card or Apple Pay - kept if the client no-shows, credited against the bill if they attend), plus a brand-recognition gain because clients see your salon name in every confirmation email rather than "booked via Fresha". Add the retained margin and recovered client-relationship control on top, and for many salons the maths comes out clearly in your favour. That is the concrete answer to why "free" is not always cheaper.

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