Fresha alternative for mobile hairdressers: when CalMov fits

What Fresha does well, and who should stay with it

Fresha is a full system for hair, beauty and wellness businesses. Its scheduling page lists team shifts, blocked time and breaks, extra time on services, appointment notes, a waitlist, automated reminders, client profiles, forms and patch test requirements. It also has a marketplace where new clients can find you, and it takes payments.

Two features matter a lot to hairdressers. Fresha's processing time lets you take another client while a colour develops. And its appointment guide shows how to set a booking to repeat, so a regular keeps her slot every six weeks without asking.

Stay with Fresha if you work in a salon or rent a chair, if you have a team, if new clients find you on the marketplace, or if overlapping clients during processing is how you earn. CalMov is not a salon system and has no marketplace.

• Fresha's scheduling features
• Fresha's guide to appointments and repeats

Where Fresha falls short for mobile work

Fresha does know that mobile hairdressers exist. When you create a workspace, one of the choices is that you visit your clients as a mobile operator, at their home address. Its locations guide also has an option for a location with no physical address, for mobile or online services.

After that, the help pages we read say little about the journey. We couldn't find a Fresha page that describes a service area by distance, asking for the client's address before times are shown, or working out the drive between one client's home and the next. If Fresha does any of these, it isn't in the guides we found, so ask Fresha before you rely on it.

What Fresha does document is extra time. Blocked time is a fixed number of minutes added to a service, when the client is not present and you can't be booked. It is the same for the client next door and the client 35 minutes away.

• Fresha's workspace setup and mobile operator option
• Fresha's guide to business locations

How to handle travel time in Fresha today

If you are staying with Fresha, use blocked time for the drive. Don't use processing time. Fresha's guide says processing time leaves you free to take another appointment, which is the opposite of what a drive needs.

Fresha's guide says blocked time isn't visible to clients, so they see the service length and nothing else. It also says extra time set on a service applies to new appointments booked for that service, so check the bookings you already have.

• Go to Catalog, then Service menu, and open the service.
• Under Pricing and duration, choose Add extra time, then Blocked.
• Set the duration from the dropdown. Place it before or after the service, then save.
• Repeat for each service you do at clients' homes. A colour may need a longer pack-up than a dry cut.
• For one unusual journey, open that appointment in the Calendar, select the service, choose Add extra time, set the minutes, then Apply and Save.
• Each time a client books, check her address against the visits either side. The blocked time won't do that for you.

• Fresha's steps for adding extra time
• Fresha's lesson on blocked and processing time
• Our full guide to adding travel time in Fresha

A worked day: three cuts and a colour with a fixed gap

This is an example with made-up clients and drive times. A mobile hairdresser has a 60-minute cut and blow-dry, a two-hour colour, and two more cuts. She has put 20 minutes of blocked time after every service. Packing up is left out to keep the sums simple.

The short hop to the colour client leaves 12 minutes spare. The long drive after it is 15 minutes more than the gap, and the last client is still seven minutes behind. Raising the blocked time to 35 minutes would cover the long drive, and waste 27 minutes on the short one, every day.

• More worked examples of travel time between appointments

The same day in CalMov

In CalMov the client enters her address first. CalMov then only offers times you can reach, allowing for the journey before and after each visit.

On Pro, the drive times come from the roads, with expected traffic. In the example, client C is not offered 13:10, because the 35-minute drive from the colour doesn't fit. The first start that fits is after 13:25. Client B can be offered a start sooner than 10:50, because the drive from A is eight minutes. You don't confirm anything by hand.

On the free Lite plan, CalMov uses a fixed travel gap that you set. That behaves much like Fresha's blocked time. It suits a hairdresser whose clients all live close together.

Your calendar shows the drive between visits and the drive back to base. Pro can also mark Eco times, the ones that need the least extra driving, so clients can pick a time that keeps your day tight.

• How CalMov works out travel on Lite and Pro
• Try a CalMov booking page as a client

What else a mobile hairdresser gets in CalMov

CalMov has a Toolkit of eight tools that you switch on or off. When you pick Hairdresser as your trade, it suggests the usual setup, and you change what you like. Three of the tools matter most for colour work at home.

One honest limit. A colour service in CalMov can be split into stages, such as apply, develop and rinse. But at a client's home you normally stay for the whole visit. If seeing a second client while a colour develops is central to how you work, Fresha documents that clearly, and you should test CalMov's stages against your day before relying on them.

• Checks before booking: say that a colour needs an allergy alert test first, how long before the visit it must be done, such as 48 hours, and how long a pass lasts. The booking page tells the client what is needed and offers to book the patch test first. You record each result as Passed or Failed.
• Time and price questions: ask about hair length, and let each answer add minutes and money. The client sees the time and price change as she answers. Lite allows one such question per service, or two combined.
• Forms after booking: ask questions that can wait in a short form sent with the confirmation. Questions can be marked Private.
• Saved profiles and rebooking reminders: a returning client picks her saved details, and CalMov emails her a link when she is due again.
• Photos (Pro): before and after photos in job mode, with a report you can email to the client.

• CalMov for mobile hairdressers
• Free mobile hairdresser pricing calculator

Cost and plans compared

Fresha's pricing page, viewed from the UK on 5 October 2026, lists an Independent plan for one person at £14.95 a month and a Team plan at £9.95 a month for each bookable team member, both with a 7-day trial. New clients who find you through the Fresha marketplace carry a one-time 20% commission, with a £4 minimum. Returning clients carry no fee. Card processing fees are separate. Prices can differ by country, so check the page where you are.

CalMov Lite is free, with up to two active services and a fixed travel gap. CalMov Pro is £22 a month at the founder price and £29 as standard ($29 and $39 in the US), with a 14-day free trial and no card. Pro adds road-based drive times, travel charges by distance or drive time, unlimited services, add-ons, online payments through Stripe (included on Pro; Lite can add them as an upgrade with a 30p fee per paid booking, in the UK) and the Pro tools. A Team plan, for more than one person, is in pilot.

For one person, Fresha's Independent plan costs less than CalMov Pro. The question is what you are paying for: a salon system with a marketplace, or a diary that checks the drive.

• Fresha's pricing page
• CalMov plans and prices

How to switch from Fresha, or run both

Many hairdressers do both kinds of work: salon days and home-visit days. It is reasonable to keep Fresha for the salon and use CalMov for home visits. If you do, block your home-visit days in Fresha and your salon days in CalMov, so nobody books you in two places.

If you move over fully, do it in small steps and keep Fresha running until your last Fresha booking is done.

• List your future bookings, repeat series, prices and any deposits already taken.
• Export your client list. Fresha's guide says you can download it as Excel or CSV from the Clients list.
• Set up CalMov Lite for free with your two most booked services, your hours and your service area.
• Add the allergy alert test check to your colour services before you share the link.
• Book yourself in from a phone, once from a near address and once from a far one.
• Tell regulars with a repeating slot how they will book from now on. Rebooking reminders can prompt them.

• Fresha's steps for exporting your client list
• Check what a longer client journey costs you