Fresha has retired its permanent free plan and kept the 20% commission on new clients. Zdrovia's free plan runs on an all-in 4% card processing rate, and it drops as you grow, never anywhere close to 20%.
Free plan, 4% on card payments
Fresha keeps client notes for salons. An injector's chart records where you treated, who charted it and when, and keeps every earlier version.
Fresha is a marketplace first and software second. If new client volume from that marketplace is what keeps your chairs full, the 20% is buying you something real.
Zdrovia is a clinical record that also takes bookings and payments. Nobody finds you through us, and we do not charge you as though they did.
Fresha brings marketplace clients. Zdrovia keeps the record and takes no cut of who walks in.
Fresha is marked ahead on 2 rows, Zdrovia on 6.
| Compared | Zdrovia | Fresha |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly subscription, solo*Fresha published pricing, July 2026 | $0 on Solo (better) | US$19.95/mo* |
| Card processing rateZdrovia's rate applies to every card transaction; Fresha's 20% applies only to new marketplace-sourced clients. | 4% + 30¢ on Solo, dropping to 3% on Team Practice (better) | 20% on new marketplace clients |
| Adding practitioners | $79 covers 3, $149 covers 10, then $15 each (better) | US$14.95 each per month |
| Clinical charting | Structured treatment charts with revision history (better) | Client notes and forms |
| Injectable lot and expiry tracking | Lot numbers, expiry, oldest-first dispensing, quarantine (better) | Not part of Fresha's published product stock |
| AI scribe for treatment notes | Included on Small Practice and Team Practice (better) | Not published |
| Consumer marketplace that finds you clients | None | Yes, and it is the main draw (better) |
| Card processing | Your own Stripe account, you keep the relationship | Fresha payments (better) |
Fresha pricing and plan terms from fresha.com, checked July 2026. Feature availability changes, so confirm with the vendor before you decide. Zdrovia pricing and features are also subject to change.
Fresha built its business on being the one platform that cost nothing to start with. That was the reason most solo operators picked it. In 2025 the reason went away.
The permanent free plan is gone. A one-person business now pays US$19.95 a month, and on the Team plan every bookable team member costs US$14.95. For a three-person studio that is about $45 before anyone books anything.
Forty-five dollars is not the problem. Plenty of software costs more than that and earns it. The problem is that the 20% marketplace commission survived the change, so the people who were paying a percentage are now paying a subscription as well.
Flat pricing and percentage pricing feel similar when you are quiet. They stop feeling similar the month you have a good month. Twenty percent of a $1,200 filler package is $240 out of one appointment, and it repeats every time that client is counted as new.
Our version of this is 4% all-in, and it exists for the same reason Fresha's does: free software still costs someone money to run. The difference is the size of the number and the fact that it drops as you grow: 3% on Small Practice and Team Practice, instead of staying fixed at one rate forever. Once you are processing more than about $7,900 a month in card bookings, moving to Small Practice costs less than staying on Solo.
That break-even is not a secret we keep. It is on the pricing page, and the app will tell you when you cross it.
Fresha is very good at what it was built for. It fills calendars, it takes payment, and its marketplace really does send people to salons. None of that was designed around a medical record.
If you inject, that gap matters more every year. You need the lot number of the vial that went into a specific patient on a specific date, the consent they signed and which version of it, the photo taken before and the one taken six weeks later, and a note that reads as a clinical record rather than a comment field.
Zdrovia was built from that end. Charts carry structured fields instead of free text, so a number you write down today can be graphed against the same number in eight months. Inventory tracks lots, expiry, oldest-first dispensing and quarantine, so a recall is one query rather than an afternoon with a spreadsheet. Consent forms are versioned, so you can show which wording a patient actually signed.
Canadian clinics: your patient data sits in Canadian data centres, so PIPEDA is answered without a workaround. Prices are in Canadian dollars; Fresha's US-dollar prices are marked US$.
See how Zdrovia is set up for aestheticians and medical spas.
These are total monthly costs, not sticker prices. The Fresha column assumes a fifth of your bookings come from new marketplace clients. If yours is lower, so is your bill.
Monthly total, software plus processing, in Canadian dollars
1 practitioner, $6,000 a month in bookings
3 practitioners, $18,000 a month in bookings
6 practitioners, $45,000 a month in bookings
Fresha US pricing as published July 2026: US$19.95/month on the Independent plan for one person, US$14.95 per bookable team member on the Team plan, 20% commission on new clients booked through the marketplace, plus Fresha's own online card processing at 2.79% + US$0.20 (in-person terminal payments are 2.19% + US$0.20; the per-transaction fee is left out on both sides). Zdrovia's card processing is all-in: 4% + 30¢ per transaction on Solo, 3% on Small Practice and Team Practice, no separate gateway charge underneath it. Direct bank payments are cheaper again: 2.1% + 40¢ on Solo, 1.1% on Small Practice and Team Practice. Fresha publishes its prices in US dollars; they are converted here at US$1 = CA$1.38, and booking volume is in Canadian dollars. Zdrovia bills in Canadian dollars, so every figure above is CAD.
Migration is free on the paid plans and done by people, not a wizard. On Solo, you can start charting new patients today; the hand import comes with a paid plan.
Download a client and appointment export from the software you use now. No special format is needed, and we help you prepare it.
Our team maps patient records, appointment history and notes into Zdrovia. It's free on Small Practice and Team Practice. A standard export is usually imported within a day and seeing patients within two. A large or messy one takes longer.
Once your data is in, we run a 30-minute live walkthrough with your team, then you book and chart as normal.
Leaving Fresha, without the sales gloss.
Charting, photo documentation, injectable inventory, consent forms, booking and payments. Free to start at 4% all-in, dropping to 3% as you grow, nowhere near 20%.
No credit card. Moving a team? We'll plan the switch with you on the call.