Treatwell is a booking marketplace first. The comparison is really a question about your business: are you buying new clients, or running the ones you have better?
You have empty columns you want filled and you would rather pay only when a new client actually walks in.
You are busy enough and want the money already coming through the door to stop leaking into colour waste, missed calls and pay disputes.
Superscripts link to the source at the foot of the page.
| SalonForge | Treatwell | |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay | £50 to £250 a month. No commission, ever. | 35% plus VAT on a new client's first booking, and nothing on repeat or direct bookings within the year1 |
| Monthly software fee | That is the subscription above | Not published for the UK1 |
| Marketplace | No | Yes — it is the business. Treatwell acts as your booking agent for marketplace clients.2 |
| Who the client belongs to | You. No marketplace, and you can export your list. | Salon-owned per their terms, though Treatwell states it has access to the data and may pass it to third parties where needed to run the service2 |
| Colour weighed and costed to the gram | Yes, built in | No evidence of any weighing or scale feature in published material3 |
| Stock deducted as it is used | Yes, at the point of use | Order and manual-log based; no automatic point-of-use deduction found3 |
| Stylist commission and pay | Yes — takings, rebooking, retail and commission from the real diary | Not found as a staff-pay feature. Their 'commission' generally refers to the marketplace fee.3 |
| Minimum term | None | None — 30 days' notice per their partner terms2 |
35% plus VAT on a new client’s first booking, which works out around 42% of that first appointment. Repeat bookings from that client within a year, and any booking that comes through your own phone, website or social, are not charged. The number people find alarming is the first-booking one, so it is worth doing the arithmetic on how many genuinely new clients you get a month.
Their terms describe the data as salon-owned and exportable, excluding reviews. They also state that Treatwell has access to it and may transfer it to third parties where needed to provide the service. Read the current partner terms yourself — this is the kind of clause worth understanding before you rely on it.
Yes, and plenty of salons do exactly that. The thing to watch is that you do not end up with two diaries, because two diaries is how one slot gets sold twice on a Saturday.
Thirty minutes, your diary and your colour spend. We will tell you if it is not a fit — a salon that signs up for the wrong reasons leaves within a year.
Book a demoTreatwell is a trademark of its owner. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or partnered with them. This page reflects publicly available information on the date shown; Treatwell may since have changed what it offers, so check with them directly before deciding.
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