Brivila vs Fresha
Choosing the platform your beauty business runs on is one of the more consequential decisions you'll make, because it quietly shapes every day that follows: how clients find you, how they book, how you get paid, and how much of your evening goes to admin. Fresha is one of the established names professionals weigh, and it's a reasonable one to consider. Rather than tell you what a competitor does — their terms and features are theirs to state and change — this page lays out the criteria worth judging any platform on, then explains where Brivila stands, so you can compare honestly against whatever the current offering is.
What to look for in a booking platform
Before comparing any two names, it helps to fix on the things that actually matter over a year of use rather than the things that look good in a demo. A handful of criteria tend to separate a platform you're glad you chose from one you're stuck with:
- Fees and markups — not just a headline number, but whether anything gets added on top of the price your client sees, and whether the total you're charged is predictable.
- Payments — how money is collected, whether you can take payment in person as well as online, and how cleanly payments tie back to the booking and the client.
- Client management — whether client history, notes, and contact details live in one dependable place instead of scattered across tools.
- Discoverability — whether the platform only manages the clients you already have, or also helps new ones find you.
- Ease of use — how quickly you can get set up and take a booking, and how much daily friction the software adds or removes.
- Support — whether help is there when something breaks during a working day.
Ask about fees directly — from anyone
Fee structures are where platforms differ most and where the fine print matters most. Established platforms take different approaches to how they charge, what they charge for, and whether any cost is passed to the client at checkout — so the honest advice for any comparison is to read the current terms directly from the source rather than trust a summary that may be out of date.
That advice applies to us as much as anyone. What we can tell you plainly is Brivila's own stance, below, and you should hold every platform you consider — including Brivila — to the same question: is the price my client agreed to the price they actually pay, or does something get added on the way through?
How Brivila approaches it
Brivila is a beauty commerce platform that puts two things in one place: a marketplace where clients discover and book beauty and self-care services, and the business operating system professionals run on. Bookings, payments, client records, a public storefront, and reporting live in a single account rather than a patchwork of apps, and an assistive AI companion handles the busywork around them.
On fees, our position is deliberately simple: no markup on the price a client sees, and no surprise booking fees sprung at checkout. The rate you set is the rate your client is quoted, and nothing invisible gets stacked on top. On payments, you can collect online or offer pay-at-venue, so a client can reserve in advance and settle in person — the choice is yours, not forced by the software.
Because Brivila is a marketplace as well as an operating system, it can also do something a pure management tool can't: bring you clients you didn't already have. And it works internationally — a business anywhere can present its prices in the currency its own clients use, without a workaround for professionals serving a local or a global audience.
Who each suits
An honest close means acknowledging that different businesses land in different places. A long-established platform that has spent years building a large consumer audience carries real weight, and a business already embedded in one — with its clients, habits, and history there — may find the cost of moving outweighs the reasons to. Familiarity and an existing base are genuine advantages, and it would be dishonest to wave them away.
Brivila suits the professional who cares specifically about the things above: no markup on the client's price, an assistive AI companion rather than a gimmick, worldwide reach with prices in the local currency, a pay-at-venue option, and a pricing stance that stays honest at checkout. If those are the terms you'd choose a platform on, Brivila is built around exactly them. Compare it against whatever any other platform states today, on the criteria that will still matter a year from now.