Treatwell takes 35% on every new client you get through the platform — including many who would have found you on Google Maps anyway. A custom booking solution costs once. The platform fee costs every month.
Nadia opened her hair salon in Düsseldorf six years ago. Four stylists, a full appointment book, a loyal clientele built through referrals, Instagram, and simply doing excellent work. Two years ago she signed up for Treatwell because clients kept asking whether they could book online.
Today a quarter of her bookings come through the platform. Thirty-five percent commission on every client Treatwell sends her way — that's in the contract. What isn't in the contract: a lot of those "new clients" discovered the salon on Google Maps, clicked the Treatwell listing because it appeared at the top, and booked there. The platform facilitated it. Nadia pays 35% — for someone who would have found her anyway.
What the New-Client Commission Really Costs
Treatwell's pitch is a straightforward one: we bring you clients you wouldn't have had otherwise. For new clients arriving through the marketplace, the commission is 35% per booking. For returning regulars, it's zero. That sounds like a fair trade.
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But who decides whether a client counts as "new"? The platform does. A client who once booked at a different salon in town through Treatwell can be classified as a new client the next time around. And a client who finds a salon via Google, lands on its Treatwell profile because the salon has no direct booking option, and books there — the platform calls that a new client. The 35% applies regardless.
Then there's the monthly subscription fee, which piles on top depending on the plan. For a salon that relies seriously on platform visibility, this isn't a minor line in the accounts. It's ongoing operating cost with no expiry date.
According to the German Hairdressing Association, Germany alone has roughly 80,000 hair salons, most of them one- or two-person businesses operating on tight margins. The picture is similar across the UK and US. For these salons, a commission of more than a third per booking isn't a rounding error — it's a structural problem that repeats with every booking cycle.
Regulars Don't Need a Platform — They Need You
The real imbalance becomes clear when you look at who's actually booking through Treatwell. Not just genuine new clients who've never heard of the salon. Also regulars who prefer clicking to calling. Clients who've been coming for years, always book the same stylist, always want the same color — and still book through Treatwell because it's the only online option the salon offers.
A client who comes six times a year for four years generates 24 bookings. The relationship behind those bookings was built by the salon — through quality, consistency, personal rapport. When those bookings run through the platform, the platform is sitting inside that relationship. It holds the contact details. It holds the booking history. And the next time that client opens the app, it shows them every salon in the neighborhood — not just yours.
That's the real cost: not just the commission on clients the platform genuinely brought in, but the ongoing fee on loyalty you earned yourself, paid to a third party that positioned itself between you and your client.
Booking at Your Salon, Not on a Platform
What a salon actually needs isn't complicated: a booking page where clients can book directly — with stylist selection, a treatment catalog, and automatic appointment reminders. And a running treatment history per client, so the stylist already knows at the second visit what was done at the first.
That second visit matters more than people realize. A stylist who opens a client record and sees the color from eight weeks ago — the exact shade, how long it processed — doesn't need to ask. The conversation starts somewhere better than "so what did we do last time?" That's not a luxury feature; it's the foundation of a professional relationship.
When clients have their own direct booking page, they stop defaulting to the platform. Regulars book directly because it's just as easy. New clients who find the salon online land on the salon's own page, not a comparison marketplace with fifty competitors listed below the fold. And the 35% commission? It stays in the business.
nopex builds exactly this — not an off-the-shelf booking tool with a generic template, but a booking page that looks like your salon. Your stylists with real photos, your treatments with accurate times and prices, your brand. One cost up front. No commission per booking, no monthly fee to a platform sitting between you and your clients.
Nadia spent six years building her clientele. A booking page of her own brings those relationships back to where they belong.
