Booksy Pricing and Fees in 2026: What a Salon or Barbershop Pays

Booksy has one plan and three ways to pay for it. As of September 2026 its US pricing page lists $29.99 a month plus tax for the first user and $20 a month for each additional staff member, with a 14-day free trial; the UK pricing page lists £40 a month plus VAT and £5 per extra user. On top sit two charges you only pay if you use them: Boost, the optional marketplace feature that takes a one-time 30% of a new client's first visit, and card processing at 2.49% plus $0.10 on the Booksy reader or 2.69% plus $0.30 for cards on file, deposits and cancellation fees. This guide separates the three, works through what a three-chair barbershop pays, and says when Booksy is the right choice.

Booksy pricing: the subscription

Booksy does not sell tiers. There is one subscription with everything in it, priced per person, and a listing on the Booksy marketplace comes with it at no extra charge.

| Country | Price (as of September 2026) | Each additional staff member | What is included | Free trial | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | US | $29.99 a month plus tax | $20 a month | Calendar, online booking, client records, reminders, no-show protection, marketing with 2,000 free texts a month | 14 days, no card required | | UK | £40 a month plus VAT | £5 a month | The same, with 500 free texts a month | 7 days, no card required |

Booksy shows local prices in other countries, so check the page for yours. The details that matter more than the headline:

• Every team member is a line on the bill. The price is per person with a login, not per location: a three-person shop is $69.99 a month plus tax, or £50 plus VAT.
• Month to month. Both pages say no commitment, cancel any time. Booksy's help centre adds that the card on file is charged automatically every month, and that the same card pays your Boost fees.
• Cancelling is not a button. Booksy's article on closing an account says to email the support team, and one App Store reviewer on 11 September 2026 says he has been trying to cancel his business account for almost a year and is still charged. If you subscribed through the App Store or Google Play the subscription lives in the store, and Booksy notes that cutting your staff count does not lower an App Store subscription automatically.
• Tax is extra and there is no free plan. Sales tax in the US; 20% VAT in the UK on the subscription, processing and Boost. After the trial you pay.

Booksy Boost: the marketplace commission

Listing on the marketplace is free. Boost is the paid version of that visibility: switch it on and Booksy pushes your profile higher in the marketplace and in the Booksy for Customers app, and charges you when it works. The rules, from Booksy's Boost page and its help centre article on Boost pricing, as of September 2026:

• No monthly fee. You pay a one-time 30% commission on the first visit of a client Booksy finds you. Every appointment after that is 100% yours, and so is the tip.
• Who counts. A Boost client is anyone who books with you for the first time while Boost is on. That is the whole definition, and it is why regulars missing from your client list can be counted.
• Minimum $10, maximum $100. If 30% of the service is under $10 you pay $10, a free consultation booked alone costs $10, and the most Booksy takes on one first visit is $100. The UK article says minimum £5 plus VAT and gives no maximum.
• Services are added up, add-ons are not. A $50 haircut plus a $10 consultation is $15 plus $3, so $18, calculated on base prices with add-ons excluded.
• No-shows are not charged, but only if you mark the no-show on the same day.

Booksy's own advice on not being charged is short: add walk-ins to your client list before they leave the shop, put your Booksy Profile Link on your website and business cards, and point your Instagram and Facebook Book Now buttons at that link, not at your marketplace profile. Turn Boost off when your book is full. If a regular is still attributed to Boost, claim them before the end of your billing period plus 7 days; a confirmed claim is refunded within 14 business days.

Is 30% expensive? On a $40 haircut the fee is $12, and if that client returns every three weeks for a year it bought about $680 of revenue, which beats most advertising. On a $20 cut the $10 minimum is half the ticket, which is what a barber reviewing Booksy on Capterra in June 2026 meant by "every new client they took 50% of the haircut for the first booking".

Card processing and payment fees

Booksy Payments has no monthly or setup fee. These are the rates on the US and UK pricing pages as of September 2026, plus the extras from the help centre article on processing costs:

| Payment type | US rate | UK rate | | --- | --- | --- | | Booksy Card Reader, in person | 2.49% plus $0.10 | Not listed on the UK page | | Tap to Pay on a phone, in person | 2.49% plus $0.20 | 0.99% plus 20p, plus VAT | | Mobile Payments: cards on file, deposits, cancellation fees, keyed entry | 2.69% plus $0.30 | 1.29% plus 20p, plus VAT | | Reader hardware | Stripe Reader M2 at $53.10 or Stripe Reader S710 at $299, plus shipping | None listed | | Payouts | Next business day free; 30-minute fast payouts 1.5% | 30-minute fast payouts 1.5% | | Chargebacks and refunds | $20 per chargeback; refunds carry the same fee as the sale | Check the UK help centre |

No-show protection is where the Mobile Payments rate catches people. Booksy's setup article says it needs Mobile Payments enabled, and you pick a mode per service: Deposits, where the client prepays part or all of the price and it comes off the total at checkout, or Cancellation Fees, where the client puts a card on file and you charge or waive the fee for a late cancellation or no-show. A deposit is yours to keep if they cancel or no-show. Either way the money moves at 2.69% plus $0.30, so a $10 deposit costs $0.57 to collect and the balance is charged in the chair at the reader rate.

What Booksy really costs a 3-chair barbershop

Take a US barbershop with an owner and two barbers doing 450 appointments a month at an average of $40, so $18,000 of revenue. Assume 70% are paid on the Booksy reader (315 transactions, $12,600), a $10 deposit on 40 bookings a month through Mobile Payments, Boost bringing 20 genuinely new clients a month at $40, and reminders inside the 2,000 free texts.

| Line | Arithmetic | Monthly | | --- | --- | --- | | Subscription, owner plus two barbers | $29.99 plus 2 x $20 | $69.99 plus tax | | Reader processing, percentage | 2.49% of $12,600 | $313.74 | | Reader processing, per transaction | 315 x $0.10 | $31.50 | | Deposits through Mobile Payments | 2.69% of $400 plus 40 x $0.30 | $22.76 | | Boost commission | 20 x 30% of $40 | $240.00 | | Marketing texts | within the 2,000 free | $0.00 | | Total | | $677.99 plus tax |

Call it $680 a month, or about $8,100 a year: subscription 10%, processing 54%, Boost 35%. Boost is the only line you can switch off, and with it off the same shop pays $437.99, which is the Booksy most established shops are on.

The same shop in the UK, at £30 a cut with 300 Tap to Pay transactions (£9,000) and 20 Boost clients: £50 plus VAT for software (£60), 0.99% plus 20p on 300 transactions (£178.92 with VAT), 20 x 30% of £30 for Boost (£216 with VAT): about £455 a month, or £239 with Boost off.

Hidden and easy-to-miss Booksy costs

• Texts are capped. The US page includes 2,000 free marketing texts a month and publishes no price beyond that; the UK page includes 500, then 5p each. Booksy's messaging article says emails and push are always free, points you to Subscription and Billing for your own limit, and caps marketing at 4 messages per client per 30 days.
• Every extra person is $20. Eight barbers is $169.99 a month plus tax.
• Prices have held, hardware has not. The archived US page from 25 August 2026 listed the same $29.99 plus $20, and the archived UK pages from August 2024 and February 2025 listed £40 with £10 per extra user, so the UK seat price has halved. The countertop reader went the other way, from $219.85 plus shipping in that August 2026 copy to the Stripe Reader S710 at $299 on the live page.
• Tax on everything. Sales tax on the subscription in the US; VAT on the subscription, processing and Boost in the UK, so £40 is really £48.
• Your reviews live on Booksy. The rating you build sits on your Booksy profile next to other shops, and Booksy's review policy is that a review is only removed if it breaks the terms of service.
• What reviewers complain about. On Trustpilot Booksy scores 3.1 out of 5 from 16,554 reviews as of September 2026, and the one-star page is mostly Boost: "Booksy took 30% off my existing customers because I wasn't properly advised" (21 July 2026), Boost fees on clients from the owner's own Google Ads (9 July 2026), and "there is not even one costumer that came in the salon from Booksy, but they never forget to charge you" (1 June 2026). The app stores are kinder, 4.5 from 14,837 ratings on the App Store and 4.7 from 30.4 thousand reviews on Google Play, but even a four-star App Store review from 15 September 2026 says "30% of your earnings per customer is just too high". Capterra's 482 reviews average 4.4, with unexpected charges and slow support the common complaints.

Who should stay on Booksy

Booksy is the right answer for a lot of barbers and nail techs:

• A barber with empty chairs in a Booksy city. A September 2026 App Store reviewer says Booksy has "fully taken over the barber industry in Las Vegas". Where clients already have the app, 30% once for a real first visit is cheaper than most ads.
• Solo professionals. $29.99 for the calendar, payments, no-show protection and 2,000 texts, with no tiers to climb, is good value.
• Anyone who wants discovery to be optional. The listing is free and Boost is a switch: on for a slow month, off when you are booked.
• Small teams in the UK. £5 per extra user is the cheapest seat in the category.

If that is you, stay. Keep the client list clean, point every Book Now button at your Profile Link, and mark no-shows the same day.

Who should look at a Booksy alternative

The case for moving usually looks like this:

• Regulars are most of your book, yet they keep booking through the marketplace and you are filing Boost claims to get your own clients back.
• Boost has become the biggest line on the bill, ahead of processing.
• You want your own name and icon on the client's phone, and a client list and a rating that are yours rather than the marketplace's.

Most owners comparing start with Fresha, and our Fresha pricing guide has the numbers: a 20% new client fee with a $6 minimum against Booksy's 30% and $10, and $14.95 per bookable team member against $20, on the same marketplace-plus-subscription shape. Our Fresha alternative page covers leaving a marketplace for an app of your own, and all of it applies to Booksy; the salon booking software pricing comparison puts Booksy next to Fresha, Vagaro, GlossGenius and Square on one example.

The owned-app alternative

Codersy Apps designs, builds and publishes a booking app under your salon's or barbershop's own name and logo in the App Store and Google Play. It costs a flat €50 a month, with no development or setup fee, no per-booking fee and no commission, and you can cancel any month. You get a client app and an admin app, per-employee calendars, prices and hours, 24/7 self-booking, push and email reminders, deposits against no-shows through Stripe or a local processor (their processing fees are separate), the ability to ban repeat no-shows, push notifications to every client, and revenue analytics. The client list belongs to the salon. A demo is on your phone within 7 days and the app is live in both stores in 3 to 4 weeks. Milano Beauty, Ana Beauty Club, Lila Vanila and Belgrade Bling run on it today.

The trade is plain: an owned app brings no marketplace, so discovery is your job. Many shops keep the free Booksy listing for new clients, leave Boost off, and move their regulars to their own app, where the 30% commission, the claims and the metered texts stop mattering. Processing does not vanish, whoever you use. See our beauty salon app page, or the barber booking app page if your chairs are barber chairs.

The bottom line on Booksy pricing

Booksy's subscription is easy to understand: $29.99 plus $20 a head in the US, £40 plus £5 in the UK, everything included, month to month. It is rarely the number that matters. Card processing is the biggest line for almost everyone, and Boost is the one you control: 30% once, with a $10 floor and a $100 ceiling, on clients Booksy finds you and on any regular who slips through the marketplace unlisted. If Boost still fills chairs you could not fill yourself, Booksy is good value. If your book is full of people who ask for you by name, you are paying to rent a relationship you already own, and it is worth talking to us about what your own app would cost instead.