Solaryx vs Fresha
Fresha is free to start and earns on marketplace commission and payment fees. Solaryx charges a fixed subscription and takes nothing on your bookings or your card payments.
The short answer
Fresha is a capable tool and its entry price is hard to argue with. The question is what free ends up costing: according to Fresha's public pricing, a fee on new customers its marketplace brings and on card payments, and still no bed control and no Belgian session rules.
Feature by feature
The same nineteen criteria for every software we compare, including the ones where we come up short.
| Criterion | Solaryx | Fresha |
|---|---|---|
| Built specifically for tanning salons | ||
| Starts, times and stops the beds itself | ||
| Phototype assessment and signed customer declaration | ||
| Session history and legal intervals between sessions | ||
| Lamp hours and equipment maintenance tracking | ||
| Session packages and prepaid minutes | ||
| Point of sale with products and stock | ||
| Loyalty points and gift cards | ||
| Online booking, open 24/7 | ||
| Email, SMS and WhatsApp reminders | ||
| Staff planning and leave | ||
| Several sites on one shared customer file | ||
| Salon website included | ||
| Belgian accounting export and VAT report | ||
| French, Dutch, German and English, with support in Belgium | ||
| Register keeps working offline and recovers after a power cut | ||
| Belgian eID card reader at the counter | ||
| No commission on your bookings or your new customers | ||
| Consumer marketplace that sends you new customers |
Legend: a check means included as standard, a dash means partly covered or dependent on the plan, a cross means not available.
Based on information published by each vendor, last checked in August 2026. Offers change: confirm with them before you decide. Product and company names belong to their owners.
Solaryx's marketplace is Horamia: no commission on the bookings it brings, and an audience still growing, smaller today than the large platforms'.
How we compared: each competitor's cells come from its own public website and pricing pages, checked in August 2026. Where we could not confirm that a feature is missing, we mark it as partly covered rather than absent.
Where Fresha is the better choice
There is no software bill to start
If your salon is small, seasonal or just starting, paying nothing up front is a real advantage. We ask for a setup from day one, because we install and monitor the hardware that drives your beds.
A large consumer marketplace
Fresha has a big client-facing app and directory, an acquisition channel on top of the software. Solaryx lists your salon on Horamia without commission, but its audience is still much smaller.
Where Solaryx is the better choice
Four things a solarium needs that general salon software was not built for.
The beds are part of the software
Relay boxes start each bed, run exactly the time that was sold, then ventilate. Nobody watches a clock, and no free minutes are given away.
Belgian compliance is built in, not a checklist
Phototype assessment, signed declaration, minimum interval and eID reading all happen at the counter, automatically. When the rules change, the change reaches you through the included updates.
One system instead of three
Booking, point of sale, stock, loyalty, planning and reporting run in one tool, on one customer file. Nothing to reconcile at closing between an agenda, a till and a spreadsheet.
A Belgian price from a Belgian team
A fixed subscription per salon, no commission on your bookings. Invoicing, VAT and exports follow Belgian rules, and support answers in French, Dutch, German or English.
Questions we get
On the invoice, yes. Compare the total instead: according to Fresha's public pricing, its model includes fees on new customers its marketplace brings you and on card payments, and it does not drive tanning beds. Send us your figures and we will do the calculation side by side.
Yes. Your full session history comes over during the setup, with your old services and beds matched to the new ones, and customers keep their language, notes and skin type. Depending on what your current tool lets you export, migration is either included or billed once per site.
Compare with something else
Or let us run the comparison on your own numbers: your beds, your sites, your current tools.