Setora vs Booksy for UK Barbershops

Booksy charges per staff member. We charge per location. Here's what that actually means for your monthly bill.

Every pricing figure below is sourced, every review is linked and we show where Booksy genuinely does a better job. You can check the evidence and decide.

Pricing verified March 2026. Sources linked throughout.

The short version

Booksy is a well-established platform with a strong client marketplace and a polished consumer app. If you want new clients to find you through an app they already have on their phone, Booksy delivers that.

But the per-user pricing model means your bill grows every time you add a team member. A three-chair shop pays around £60/month before VAT, Boost commissions and card processing fees. Factor those in and the real monthly cost sits somewhere between £150 and £300, depending on how many new clients come through the marketplace.

Setora charges £39/month per location. No per-user fees. No marketplace commissions. No surprises when your team grows.

If you want a built-in client marketplace and you're happy paying commissions for that access, Booksy is a solid choice. If you want predictable costs and full control of your data, keep reading.

What Booksy actually costs

Booksy's UK pricing page shows a single plan at £40/month for one provider, with each additional bookable team member costing £5/month. VAT at 20% goes on top. No feature tiers, no contracts, month-to-month billing.

That's the headline. Here's the rest.

Boost commissions

Booksy Boost is an optional marketplace feature that promotes your shop to Booksy's consumer app users. When a new client books through the marketplace and completes their visit, Booksy takes a one-time 30% commission on the service price, with a minimum fee of £5 per new client. That commission is also subject to VAT.

Booksy says Boost only applies to genuinely new clients found through the marketplace, not people who booked via your direct link, QR code or social media. In theory, that's reasonable. In practice, it's the single most complained-about feature in Booksy's review history. More on that below.

Payment processing

If you take card payments through Booksy, their processing rates are 1.29% + 20p + VAT for mobile payments (card-on-file, deposits, cancellation fees) and 0.99% + 20p + VAT for Tap to Pay. These are competitive rates. Standard payouts arrive the next business day for free, or you can pay 1.5% for a 30-minute fast payout. Source: Booksy UK pricing page.

SMS

Booksy includes 500 free marketing messages per month. Appointment confirmations and reminders are always free and don't count towards that limit. Extra marketing messages cost 5p each. That's a genuine strength. At Setora, SMS reminders are charged as credits on a pay-as-you-go or subscription basis. We don't pretend otherwise.

What a three-chair shop actually pays

Here's where the per-user model bites. An independent analysis from BarberInsights estimated that most UK barbers pay between £70 and £180 per month depending on team size, card volume and new client flow. Their example of a three-chair shop came to roughly £226/month once Boost and processing were included.

The subscription-only difference is already significant. A five-chair shop pays £72/month on Booksy versus £39/month on Setora, a £396 annual gap before any commissions or processing fees.

To be fair: if Boost is delivering genuinely new clients you wouldn't otherwise reach, that 30% commission on a first visit might be worth it. The question is whether you can verify which clients Boost actually sourced. Many barbers say they can't. (For a similar breakdown of how Fresha's marketplace commission works, see our Fresha vs Setora comparison.)

What Booksy does well

We said we'd give credit where it's due. Here it is.

The marketplace is real. Booksy claims 50 million+ consumer users globally and 260 million appointments facilitated annually. That's not a vanity metric. If you're a new shop trying to build a client base from scratch, having your listing inside an app that millions of people already use is genuinely valuable. Setora doesn't have a client marketplace. We're a booking and management platform, not a discovery tool. If marketplace access is your top priority, Booksy has something we don't.

The consumer app is polished. Booksy's client-facing app is well-designed, easy to use and highly rated on the App Store. Clients can browse portfolios, read reviews, rebook previous appointments and pay deposits, all in a clean interface. G2 gives it 4.7/5. That app experience benefits your shop's reputation.

All features at one price. Unlike some competitors that gate features behind tiers, every Booksy subscriber gets the same toolset: CRM, no-show protection with deposits, email and SMS marketing, online gift cards, memberships, Reserve with Google, Instagram and Facebook booking buttons and website widgets. Source: Booksy features page. There's no "upgrade to Pro" upsell once you're in.

They've been around. Booksy operates in at least five countries, has raised over $169 million in funding and reached profitability in early 2024. Setora's independent evidence includes NHBF Trade Assured status, Digital StartUp of the Year for the East of England at the UK StartUp Awards 2026 and customer reviews on Trustpilot. It also has software listings on G2 and Capterra. Compare those records alongside the pricing model, data access and features your shop needs.

What Booksy users actually say

Booksy holds a 3.2 out of 5 on Trustpilot from over 16,400 reviews and a 1.4 out of 5 on Sitejabber from 89 reviews. The complaints from UK users cluster around three themes.

Boost commission disputes

This is the big one. UK barbers repeatedly report being charged Boost commissions for clients who were already theirs, existing customers who simply created a new Booksy account to book online.

One verified UK business, Hair Studios, wrote on Trustpilot: they described the Boost fees as unfair, explaining that clients visiting a sister branch were still being counted as Boost referrals. They'd submitted multiple claims with evidence and received no response.

A Sitejabber reviewer reported a similar experience: Booksy added their online booking widget, and then existing clients who booked through it were classified as marketplace referrals, triggering the 30% commission on people they already knew.

Customer support

BusinessCloud UK summarised the pattern across reviews: users consistently describe support as slow, hard to reach, with email responses taking weeks and chat support leaving people waiting for hours. Trustpilot data shows Booksy responded to only 13% of negative reviews, typically taking over a month.

Cancellation friction

Multiple UK Trustpilot reviewers report difficulties cancelling their subscriptions. One described continued charges after cancellation, requiring their bank to intervene. There is no self-service cancellation option in the Booksy dashboard. You have to email support.

At Setora, you can cancel your subscription yourself, from your account settings, any time.

Getting your data out

This matters more than most shop owners realise until they try to switch platforms.

Booksy's own help centre directs users to contact support to obtain a copy of their client list. There is no reliable self-service export button for your full dataset.

Appointment history is even harder to retrieve. Goldie's migration guide confirms that Booksy does not offer self-service appointment export at all. You have to ask support and hope they respond in a reasonable timeframe.

Under UK GDPR, you have the legal right to receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format within one calendar month. The ICO is clear that organisations should not put legal, technical or financial obstacles in the way. But exercising that right through a support team that users consistently describe as unresponsive adds friction that shouldn't exist.

At Setora, authorised users can export a customer CSV without a support ticket. It contains contact details, marketing consent, booking totals and last booking date. Available reports use their own CSV exports.

Beyond the raw data, there are soft lock-in factors worth noting. Reviews collected on Booksy don't transfer. Clients who are used to the Booksy app may need re-educating. All your booking integrations (Instagram, Google, your website widget) need reconfiguring. None of this is unique to Booksy, but it's worth factoring into your decision.

Side-by-side comparison

Questions worth asking before you choose

Do I need a customer marketplace? If you're a new shop without an established customer base, Booksy's marketplace is a genuine advantage. If you already have a full book and your customers find you through Instagram, Google or word of mouth, you're paying for discovery you don't need. If you're still weighing up options, our guide to barbershop booking software covers the full UK market.

How many staff will I have in 12 months? Booksy's per-user pricing means every new hire increases your software bill. If you're planning to grow, run the numbers for where you want to be, not just where you are now.

Can I verify which customers Boost actually sent me? Before opting into Boost, ask how you'll distinguish between a genuinely new marketplace customer and an existing one who happened to find your Booksy page. If you can't verify that reliably, you're trusting the platform to charge you fairly.

How easily can I leave? Try exporting your customer list before you commit. If a platform makes it hard to take your data with you, that tells you something about their business model.

The bottom line

Booksy is a capable platform with a genuine competitive advantage in its consumer marketplace. If new customer acquisition through app discovery is your top priority and you're willing to pay commissions for that access, it delivers. The consumer app is slick, the feature set is complete and the brand is established.

But the per-user pricing model creates a cost trajectory that works against growing shops. The 30% Boost commission is the most complained-about feature in UK barbershop software reviews. Getting your data out requires contacting a support team that users consistently rate poorly. And cancelling your account means sending an email and waiting.

Setora is newer. We're smaller. We don't have a customer marketplace and we won't pretend we do. What we offer is flat, predictable pricing at £39/month per location, with all your staff included, your data always exportable and no commissions on any customer, ever.

Start 14-day free trial and see for yourself. Or don't. We've given you the numbers. You decide.

Already on Booksy? Switch from Booksy to Setora.

Last updated: March 2026. Booksy pricing verified via biz.booksy.com/en-gb/pricing. If anything here is inaccurate, let us know and we'll correct it.