Salonnare vs Fresha — NL-first or international?

Dutch compliance

Salonnare is designed with Dutch regulations in mind: correct VAT rates (21% for services, 9% for retail products), iDEAL as the primary payment method alongside Stripe/Mollie, GDPR compliance via EU servers, and a tax-office-ready POS with full audit trail. Fresha is internationally oriented — iDEAL support is limited or unavailable and VAT must be configured manually.

Support in your own language

Salonnare offers support in Dutch, English, German, French and Spanish with a response time of 24 hours on working days. Fresha support is primarily English via forms, with longer response times for non-US time zones.

Features and pricing

Fresha is free for basic features but charges 1.19% + €0.20 per transaction on online payments. Salonnare also has a free tier and lets you use your own Stripe/Mollie account without any additional margin — you only pay the standard Stripe/Mollie fees.

Online booking: Fresha vs Salonnare in practice

Imagine a new client looking for a hair salon in Amsterdam and finding your booking page. With Fresha the client books via the Fresha app or widget, receives a Fresha-branded confirmation and enters the Fresha ecosystem - including offers from nearby competitors. With Salonnare the client books via your own widget on your website. The confirmation email comes from your salon, the reminder carries your logo, and after the appointment a Google review request goes out under your name. There is no marketplace pushing competitors. Your client stays yours. Discover all the features that make this possible.

Transaction costs compared

Fresha charges 1.19% + €0.20 per online payment. At an average treatment price of €45 and 100 online payments per month that costs €73.50 in Fresha fees on top of the standard card processing fee. With Salonnare you pay €0 extra - only the standard Stripe (1.5% + €0.25) or Mollie iDEAL fee (€0.29 per transaction). With iDEAL payments you save €44 per month on transaction costs alone with Salonnare, not counting the subscription price difference. See the pricing for a complete cost overview.

Migration path from Fresha to Salonnare

Fresha offers data export via their dashboard. Export your clients and appointments as CSV and import them into Salonnare. Tip: also export your product list and service list so you do not have to re-enter them. Set up your booking widget on your website, update your Google Business booking link and inform your clients via a short email. Most salons are up and running on Salonnare within one working day. Start with the free plan to test everything before you make the final switch.

Fresha's free model: what really sits behind it?

Fresha markets itself as "the only truly free salon software" - and technically that is correct: you pay no monthly subscription. What the marketing downplays is how Fresha actually earns: transaction fees on every online payment. Specifically, Fresha charges 1.19% + €0.20 per online transaction on top of the standard card processing fee. For a salon with an average treatment price of €45 and 100 online payments per month that works out to (1.19% × €4,500) + (100 × €0.20) = €53.55 + €20 = €73.55 per month, roughly €880 per year. At higher volumes (200 payments × €60 average) it rises to €182.80/mo = €2,193/year. These are real costs hidden inside the "free" model. With Salonnare, online payments run through your own Stripe or Mollie account without a Salonnare margin - you only pay the standard provider fees (Stripe ~1.5% + €0.25 or Mollie iDEAL €0.29 flat). You see transparently what your provider charges; Salonnare does not sit in between. Check the pricing for a full cost overview.

NL compliance compared: VAT, POS and tax office

Fresha is built for international scale with the US/UK/AU as core markets. Dutch tax compliance is configurable but not out of the box. Concretely you have to manually: set correct VAT rates per service and product (21% for hairdressing services, 9% for retail products like shampoo and hair care - a detail Fresha does not automatically know), set up a tax-office-compliant POS audit trail (receipt exports in Auditfile format are not standard available), and check GDPR data-processing terms because Fresha partly runs on US infrastructure with potential cross-border transfers. In a tax audit you assemble reports yourself from Fresha exports. Salonnare has Dutch compliance built in from day one: VAT rates are correct per service type (21% service / 9% retail), the POS exports directly to Auditfile format for the tax office, and data lives on EU servers in Frankfurt and Amsterdam with a GDPR-compliant data-processing agreement. For a Dutch salon this saves several days of configuration and gives peace of mind during audits.

Language and support: 24/7 English vs Dutch working hours

Fresha offers 24/7 support - impressive on paper, but with one important nuance: primarily English, primarily via forms and chat with non-NL time zones in the response loop. For many Dutch salons this means that a question about VAT configuration or iDEAL at Fresha first has to be translated, then lands with a support agent without Dutch tax context, and often receives a generic answer that does not specifically match NL regulations. Salonnare offers support in Dutch, English, German, French and Spanish - not 24/7 but during working hours (Mon-Fri 9:00-17:00) with response times typically within hours on working days. Crucially: support is delivered by a Dutch developer who knows Dutch salons, Dutch VAT rules, iDEAL integration and tax-office processes from first-hand experience. For questions that specifically need NL context, that is more valuable than 24/7 English tickets. No 24/7 support is a conscious design choice: a responsive small team that truly understands NL salons rather than an outsourced call centre.

iDEAL integration: native vs external connection

iDEAL is responsible for ~70% of all online transactions in the Netherlands and is the conversion-maker on many Dutch salons' booking widgets. With Fresha iDEAL is not native - it works, but via an external Mollie or Stripe setup you need to set up and maintain yourself: open your own Mollie account, generate API keys, connect it in Fresha's payment settings, and verify at each Mollie API update whether the integration still works. With Salonnare iDEAL is native in two flavours right after signup: via Stripe Connect and via a direct Mollie integration for iDEAL-first flows. No external setup, no separate API keys, no maintenance. For a Dutch salon this means your booking widget accepts iDEAL payments straight after signup - deposits for no-show protection, prepaid giftcards, POS payments and subscription-based memberships all work with iDEAL as the primary option. See all features.

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