How do you become less dependent on Treatwell?

Use Treatwell for what it does well: finding new clients. Move everything else to your own channel. Make sure your own website comes up first when someone googles your salon name, put a booking link on it that works day and night, and actively point clients to it: a card at the register, a link in your confirmation email, a button on your Google profile. That way you pay commission for genuinely new clients and keep the rest yourself.

What Treatwell gets you, and what it costs

First, the honest version. Treatwell is good at one thing: getting people who want an appointment right now to land at your salon. Someone who types "hair salon Haarlem" and doesn't have a regular spot yet will find you there among the other salons. For bringing in new clients, that really works.

What it costs is on their own pricing page (at the time of writing, July 2026): 35% commission on a new client's first booking, 0% on repeat appointments, a Starter subscription of €35 per month, and a 2% transaction fee when a client prepays online. All excluding VAT.

Run the numbers with the price list from Salon Vondel & Vos, my demo salon (fictional business, real site). A €48 haircut costs you €16.80 in commission on a new client. If that client comes back ten more times, that's a fine deal. If they never come back, it was an expensive introduction.

The sore spot: who counts as a new client?

That 35% applies to clients who "discover your salon through the Treatwell platform and book with you for the first time," as the pricing page puts it. How Treatwell determines where someone discovered you is not explained.

And that's where it hurts. Say someone hears your name from a coworker, googles your salon, and sees your Treatwell page ranking above your own site. One click, booked through the platform. That client was already on their way to you, but to the platform this is a first booking. So count on paying the new-client commission.

There's one more thing. Every regular who books through the Treatwell app out of habit is opening an app where your competitors sit one scroll away, with photos, reviews, and availability. There's no commission on that, but it does put a storefront full of alternatives in front of your best clients every single time.

The strategy: the platform for new clients, your own site for the rest

You don't have to cancel Treatwell. Use it for what it's good at: clients who don't know you yet. And make sure everything else runs through your own channel.

That starts with a website of your own that comes up first when someone googles your salon name. If someone books there, you pay no commission. Treatwell says on its own pricing page that appointments made by phone, WhatsApp, or through your own website are commission-free.

That keeps the roles clean. The platform is your display window for people who don't know you yet. Your own site is the front door for everyone who already knows they want to sit in your chair.

How to move clients to your own channel, the honest way

There's nothing sneaky about this. You simply make the direct route to you easier than the route through an app. Four places where that works:

  • At the register: a card with a QR code to your booking page. "Next appointment? Book with us directly." Scanned while the client pays.
  • In your confirmation or thank-you email: one line with your own booking link for next time.
  • On your Google Business Profile: set your own site as the website and your own booking link as the appointment button, so people who google you actually end up with you.
  • In your Instagram bio and on WhatsApp: the same link everywhere, so there's only one route.

What running your own booking system takes in practice

A booking page that's always open, to start. Plenty of appointments get planned in the evening, on the couch, long after your salon has closed. At Salon Vondel & Vos (again: a demo), you can schedule a €145 balayage at 11 p.m. The confirmation arrives immediately, the reminder follows on its own, and that reminder is exactly what cuts down on no-shows.

Beyond that, you need your price list online, a calendar that syncs so double bookings can't happen, and automatic confirmations so you don't have to call to confirm every appointment. Sounds like a lot, but you set it up properly once and then it runs.

The booking link is one of the workflows in the Get Found package: a site that gets found when people search your name, with appointments and confirmations that run automatically. The cost of the tools is in the quote up front.