The Fresha alternative
built around walk-ins
Fresha is one of the biggest names in salon and barber booking, and it earned that. It runs online bookings, takes card payments, and puts your shop in front of new clients through its marketplace. The one thing it doesn’t do is run a live walk-in queue. If your Saturday is a wall of walk-ins, that gap matters. Quewy is built around the queue first, with booking alongside it, for a flat £15 a month. Here’s an honest look at where each one fits.
What Fresha does well
Credit where it’s due. Fresha is the bigger platform and there’s a lot to like.
Fresha is a proper booking platform. Clients book you online, pay by card through the app, and can find your shop in the Fresha marketplace next to thousands of others. For a salon that lives on pre-booked appointments and wants new faces walking through the door, that’s a strong package. Payments and the till are built in, so the money side and the diary stay in step.
Here’s the honest part. Fresha is built around the appointment. It doesn’t run a live walk-in queue. If someone turns up off the street on a busy Saturday, there’s no digital queue to join and no live wait time on their phone. Fresha also isn’t free any more. It moved to paid plans, and the running cost shifts with how much you take in card payments and how many new clients the marketplace sends you.
Where Quewy is different
Quewy isn’t trying to be a bigger Fresha. It does the walk-in queue Fresha leaves out, keeps bookings alongside it, and charges one flat price.
A live walk-in queue
Walk-ins scan a QR code, join the queue, and watch their place move in real time. That’s the piece Fresha doesn’t have, and it’s the whole reason Quewy exists.
Booking next to the queue
Regulars still book a slot ahead. Their appointment sits in the same calendar as the walk-ins, so the chair’s held and nobody gets doubled up.
A bill you can predict
Flat £15 a month. No cut on card payments and no fee when a new face walks in. The number stays the same in a quiet week or a rammed one.
See the queue on its own on our virtual queue feature page, or how bookings sit alongside it with smart scheduling.
Quewy vs Fresha at a glance
Fresha is the bigger platform and wins on reach and payments. Quewy wins on the walk-in queue and a flat bill. Here’s the fair version, side by side.
| Feature | Quewy | Fresha |
|---|---|---|
| Live walk-in queue | ||
| Online appointment booking | ||
| Marketplace to find new clients | ||
| Built-in card payments and POS | ||
| SMS reminders | ||
| Flat price, no cut on payments | ||
| Monthly cost | £15 flat | Subscription + fees |
Pricing shown at time of writing. Check each site for current rates.
The walk-in queue Fresha leaves out.
A salon that only takes booked appointments does fine on Fresha. Most barbershops aren’t that shop. Saturday is a mix. Some booked in, plenty just turning up. With a booking-first tool, the walk-ins have nowhere to go but a bench by the door, and some of them won’t wait around.
Quewy gives them a queue to join from their phone and a rough wait time, so they can nip to the café and come back. The booked slots still sit on the calendar and the queue works around them. You keep the booking side you’d expect, plus the walk-in side Fresha misses.
- A queue walk-ins join from their phone
- Booked slots held on the same calendar
- Fewer people walking back out the door
More on the busy days in our guide to managing walk-ins at a busy barbershop, and how it plays out for salons.
BOOKED
Priya booked an 11:00 with Sam. Fresha handles that fine, and the chair’s held.
WALK-IN
Three lads just walked in. On Quewy they join the queue and see a 20-minute wait. On a booking-only app they’d be stood at the door.
Kept simple, and priced flat
Quewy is built for the independent barber or salon running one shop, not a chain with a head office. That shapes the whole thing.
One flat price
£15 a month, and that’s the bill. No card-processing cut and no charge when a new client walks in. With Fresha the total moves with your card takings and marketplace bookings. With Quewy you know the number before the month starts. See the full pricing for the detail.
Simple for one shop
No long onboarding and no training day. Print the QR code, add your services, and you’re running the queue that afternoon. If you can use a phone you can run it, and so can whoever covers the front desk on your day off.
Questions barbers ask
Straight answers before you decide.
Is there anything wrong with Fresha?
Isn’t Fresha free?
Do my customers need to download an app?
Can I run Quewy alongside Fresha?
So which one should you pick?
Want to be found by new clients online and take card payments in one place? Fresha is the bigger platform and it does that well. If pre-booked appointments are most of your day, it’s a fair choice, and you won’t hear us say otherwise.
Live on walk-ins, or run a busy mix of booked and turn-up? That’s where a booking-first tool leaves a gap, and it’s exactly what Quewy fills. You get the queue Fresha doesn’t have, with booking alongside it, for a flat £15 and no cut on the day’s takings.
Weighing up a queue-only app too? See how Quewy compares with QueueAway.
Give walk-ins a queue to join
Quewy is in early access. Join the list to try it for your shop and lock in the £15/month rate before we launch publicly.
Get Early AccessNo download needed to join, app optional. Set up in an afternoon.