Booking software for Australian clinics and salons compared

Online booking is now standard for hairdressers, beauty salons, physios and psychologists. The software that runs it also handles reminders, deposits, payments and, for clinics, client notes and claiming, and each platform charges for those in a different way. A monthly fee that looks cheap can be outweighed by card fees, text message costs or a commission on new clients.

This comparison sets out what five widely used platforms publish for Australian businesses: Fresha and Timely, which are built mainly for beauty and hair; Square Appointments, the booking tool from the payments company Square; and Nookal and Halaxy, which are built for health practices.

How we compared

On Saturday 17 October 2026 we read each company’s own pricing page, as it displayed in Australia. We used no reseller pages, review sites or sales quotes.

What we compared: how each platform charges (per staff member, per practitioner, per location or free); published card payment fees; text message (SMS) allowances and costs; deposits and no-show or cancellation fees; online booking; Medicare, DVA and HICAPS claiming; and whether the pricing page mentions moving or exporting your data.

What we didn’t do: this is a desk comparison of published plans. We didn’t open accounts, take test bookings or process payments, and we didn’t assess ease of use, support quality, reliability or privacy practices. Where a pricing page doesn’t mention something, we say “not stated”. The feature may exist elsewhere on the company’s site or in its help pages, but we haven’t relied on those.

Prices are as each page showed them on 17 October 2026, with GST treatment as each page states it. There are no affiliate links in this story.

Side by side

Feature	Fresha	Timely	Square Appointments	Nookal	Halaxy
Built mainly for	Beauty and wellness	Hair and beauty	General (all business types)	Allied health	Health practitioners
How you pay	Per bookable team member	Per bookable staff member	Per location	Per practitioner	Free core, then credits
Entry price, per month	A$44.95 (Independent, one person)	A$42 per staff member (Build)	$0 (Free, single location)	A$49 per practitioner (Essentials)	Free
GST, as stated	Rates exclusive of 10% sales tax	Excluding GST	Not stated for plans	Calculator adds 10% GST	Credits A$0.15 to A$0.22 including GST
In-person card fee	1.29% + A$0.26	1.54% + 5¢	1.6%	Not stated	1.5% to 1.9% per transaction, plus 75c to $1 on Silver and Bronze bands (automated payments; no in-person rate stated)
Online card fee	1.59% + A$0.28	1.80% + 30¢	2.2%	Not stated	Same rate (one rate for all transactions)
Text reminders	20 a month per team member free, then A$0.06 a text	100 a month per staff member on Build, then 12c a text	Included; cost not stated	From $0.07 per outbound SMS	Paid with credits
Deposits or no-show fees	Listed	Yes, on Build	Prepayments on all plans; cancellation fees on Plus and Premium	Deposits on all plans	Not stated
New-client fee	20% one-time, minimum A$8, for marketplace clients	None (“No new client fees”)	Not stated	Not stated	Not stated
Health claiming	Not stated	Not stated	Not stated	Medicare from $0.10 a claim	Medicare, DVA, HICAPS and more, using credits

Fresha

Fresha’s pricing page lists two plans. Independent costs A$44.95 a month for a one-person business with a single calendar column. Team costs A$29.95 a month per bookable team member. Both have a seven-day trial, and Enterprise pricing is custom for businesses with more than 20 team members. The page says “Rates are exclusive of 10.0% sales tax.”

Card fees: online payments cost 1.59% + A$0.28 per transaction and in-person payments 1.29% + A$0.26, plus A$0.12 per Tap to Pay authorisation. Manually keyed cards cost 1.90% + A$0.26, Afterpay 6.69% + A$0.99, and terminals start from A$199 each. Fresha says using its payments is optional.

Text messages: automated text and WhatsApp notifications include 20 free a month (per team member on Team), then A$0.06 per text or A$0.09 to A$0.25 per WhatsApp message. Marketing texts cost A$0.15 each.

The marketplace fee: Fresha charges a one-time 20% commission, with a minimum fee of A$8, on brand-new clients who discover a business through the Fresha marketplace. Fresha says there is no fee on returning clients, or on new clients who come through a business’s own website, Instagram or Facebook.

Upfront payments and no-show and cancellation fees are listed under Payments. Health claiming and data export are not stated on the pricing page.

Timely

Timely’s pricing page shows Australian prices excluding GST, billed monthly with no contract. For one staff member, Build is A$42, Elevate A$65 and Innovate A$79 a month. The per-person price falls on the higher plans as you add staff: the page’s calculator showed A$126 (Build), A$171 (Elevate) and A$209 (Innovate) a month for three staff. Part-time staff are charged the same as full-time. There is a 14-day free trial.

Card fees: 1.54% + 5¢ per transaction in person (Tap to Pay or a Timely terminal, plus the cost of the terminal), and 1.80% + 30¢ online, which covers cardless checkout, deposits and cancellation fees. International cards online cost 3.00% + 30¢. Timely says it can discuss a custom in-person rate for businesses taking more than $8,000 a month in card payments year-round.

Text messages: Build includes 100 SMS per staff member a month, Elevate 200 and Innovate 350. Extra texts above the allowance cost 12c each. Targeted SMS campaigns start on Elevate.

Timely lists taking deposits and charging cancellation fees with card details on Build, and “No new client fees” on every plan. The page lists Xero and QuickBooks integrations and says Timely will transfer data from your current system. Health claiming is not stated.

Square Appointments

Square’s Appointments pricing page charges per location, with no employee limit. Free costs $0 for a single location, Plus $40 a month per location and Premium $90 a month per location. The page doesn’t say whether the plan prices include GST.

Card fees are the same on every plan: 1.6% in person and 2.2% online or keyed in. The 1.6% in-person rate applies to sellers who signed up on or after 30 May 2024, or who subscribe to Plus or Premium; other earlier sellers pay 1.9% on Square Reader, Square Stand or Tap to Pay. Afterpay costs 6% + 30 cents per transaction, excluding GST. Our Square vs Stripe comparison covers Square’s card fees in more detail.

Text messages: text and email reminders are included on all plans; the page doesn’t state an SMS cost. Custom SMS notifications need Plus or Premium.

No-shows: prepayments are included on every plan. A cancellation policy with a fee charged to the card on file needs Plus or Premium. Reports can be exported on all plans. Health claiming is not stated.

Nookal

Nookal’s pricing page charges per practitioner. Essentials is A$49 a month and Professional A$59 a month per practitioner; Enterprise is quoted. The page’s cost calculator adds GST (10%) on top. There are no lock-in contracts.

Every plan lists online bookings, clinical notes, payments, SMS reminders and deposits. Professional adds recalls, two-way SMS, custom forms and advanced reporting.

Usage charges: SMS costs from $0.07 per outbound message. Medicare claims cost from $0.10 a claim, lodged from the patient record. Add-ons on Professional include AI + Voice clinical notes at $25 per active licence a month and a patient portal from $10 per location a month.

Nookal’s pricing page doesn’t state its card processing rate, and doesn’t mention HICAPS, DVA or data export.

Halaxy

Halaxy’s pricing page says its core platform is free “for any practitioner, any size practice, anywhere”, with unlimited practitioners and locations. The free core includes the calendar, online bookings, email reminders, clinical notes and invoicing.

Halaxy makes its money in two ways:

• Payments: processing fees start from 1.5% per transaction and apply only to successful transactions. The page says: “Between 1.5% to 1.9% per transaction plus a 75c to $1 fee for Silver and Bronze bands.” It doesn’t define the bands.
• Credits: SMS messages, telehealth, AI Scribe and funding body rebates use credits, priced at A$0.15 to A$0.22 per credit including GST. The page lists Medicare, DVA, ECLIPSE, TAC, HICAPS, WorkCover, Comcare and NDIS. It doesn’t say how many credits an SMS or a claim uses; Halaxy’s credits guide has that, but it wasn’t accessible when we checked.

Deposits, no-show fees and data export are not stated on the pricing page.

What we left out

• Cliniko, an Australian-owned practice management system, publishes its prices only in US dollars: US$45 a month for one practitioner, US$95 for two to five, up to US$395 for 26 to 200. SMS costs 10¢ a message. Because the page states no Australian price or GST treatment, we haven’t put it in the table.
• Kitomba asks you to answer questions to see pricing, so its plans have no published price we could compare.
• Jane, a practice management system, showed only Canadian-dollar prices on its pricing page when we checked.

Which fits which business

There is no single winner. On the published facts:

• A solo beauty therapist or barber: Square Appointments’ Free plan costs nothing a month for one location, with card fees of 1.6% in person for sellers who joined from 30 May 2024. Fresha’s Independent plan is A$44.95 plus tax, with lower in-person card fees than Square on sales over about A$84 (our arithmetic, on a Fresha terminal; Tap to Pay adds A$0.12 a payment) and the marketplace as a source of new clients, at 20% of the first booking.
• A salon with several staff: Timely and Fresha both charge per person. Three staff cost A$126 a month on Timely’s Build plan, excluding GST, and A$89.85 on Fresha’s Team plan (three times A$29.95), excluding tax. Square Appointments charges per location instead, so Plus is $40 a month however many staff you have. Check SMS allowances (300 texts a month for three staff on Timely Build, 60 on Fresha Team) and Fresha’s marketplace fee before treating any gap as the full cost.
• Allied health practices claiming Medicare: Nookal and Halaxy both list Medicare claiming. Halaxy has no monthly fee but uses credits for SMS and claims; Nookal charges A$49 or A$59 per practitioner plus usage. Halaxy is the only one of the five to list HICAPS and DVA on its pricing page.

Two more things to check. If your reminders show your business name rather than a phone number, the sender ID needs to be on the ACMA register or texts show as “Unverified”: see our SMS Sender ID Register explainer. And with card surcharges ending on 1 October 2026 (what changed), you can no longer add these fees to the bill as a surcharge.

Checklist

• Count your bookable staff. Fresha’s Team plan, Timely and Nookal charge per person, and Timely charges part-time staff the same as full-time.
• Work out your card fees. Apply each platform’s in-person and online rate to your average booking, including Fresha’s and Timely’s fixed fee per transaction.
• Estimate your monthly texts. Compare reminders sent per month with each plan’s SMS allowance and the per-text rate once it runs out.
• Check where new clients come from. On Fresha, clients who find you through its marketplace cost 20% of their first booking, minimum A$8.
• Confirm the no-show tools on your plan. Square Appointments needs Plus or Premium for cancellation fees charged to a card on file.
• Ask how claims are lodged and priced. Get Nookal’s per-claim Medicare charge, or the number of Halaxy credits used per claim and per SMS, in writing.
• Ask for a Cliniko quote in Australian dollars. Its pricing page lists only US-dollar prices.
• Ask how to export your client records. None of the five pricing pages states how you get a full export if you leave.