The best Fresha alternative for Philippine salons and clinics
Fresha is a great product — built for London and LA. Run a salon in Manila, Cebu, or Davao and the gaps add up fast: no GCash at checkout, support timezones that don't overlap yours. Here's what to use instead.
Wemu Team
Product
If you run a salon, spa, nail bar, or clinic in the Philippines, you've probably tried Fresha. It's polished, the free tier is generous, and the booking experience is slick. But the further you run it against a Manila reality, the more gaps show up.
Below is the honest side-by-side we wish existed when we started building Wemu for SEA.
Where Fresha falls short for PH businesses
- No GCash or Maya at checkout. Customers pay with credit cards — or they don't pay at all.
- Not built around BIR invoicing. Confirm accreditation with any vendor before you rely on it for invoices.
- Payments processed through Stripe (PH), locked to 3.5% + ₱15 per transaction.
- Support is UK/US timezone. Issues on Friday night Manila get answered Monday morning London.
- Marketing is Europe/US-focused — promotions, holidays, seasonal triggers don't match your calendar.
What Wemu does differently
GCash and Maya recorded at the till
Record GCash, Maya and bank transfer payments in Wemu POS next to cash and card, and take booking deposits by GCash or bank transfer, so every payment lands in the same dashboard. Online GCash and Maya checkout isn't live yet. Platform fee is 1.5% — less than half of Fresha's effective rate for PH cards.
Sales records your bookkeeper can use
Every order, invoice and expense sits in one place, and reports export for your bookkeeper's monthly filings. For BIR invoicing, confirm accreditation and a Permit to Use with any POS vendor, Wemu included.
Multi-vertical in one app
Fresha is bookings-only. If your salon also sells retail products — shampoos, tools, gift sets — you need a second POS. Wemu is bookings + POS + inventory + invoicing in the same account. One login, one database, one monthly bill.
Pricing compared
| Fresha | Wemu | |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Free | Free trial, then from US$29/mo |
| Card processing (PH) | 3.5% + ₱15 | 1.5% platform fee |
| GCash / Maya | No | Recorded at the till; deposits by GCash |
| Retail + bookings in one | No | Yes |
| Local support (PH hours) | No | Yes |
| Marketplace discovery | Listed next to rivals, new-client fee | Wemu Local — free, no new-client fee |
For a salon doing ₱500K/month in card sales, Fresha's processing fees alone run ₱17,500/month. Wemu's 1.5% caps that at ₱7,500 — a ₱10,000 saving every month, before counting the subscription difference.
Switching from Fresha to Wemu
Migration typically takes a weekend:
- 1Export your services and staff from Fresha as CSV.
- 2Sign up for a Wemu trial and import the CSV — services, pricing, staff schedules transfer directly.
- 3Connect Stripe for card payments and record GCash or Maya at the till. Both optional at launch.
- 4Redirect your Fresha booking link to your new Wemu storefront URL (or point your custom domain).
Migration support included
Wemu's PH support team (local timezone) will hop on a call and migrate your data for you during the trial. Free.
See Wemu in action
Start a free trial, import your Fresha services in 10 minutes, and keep your existing booking page live while you test.
Start free trial →More switching guides
- StoreHub alternative in the Philippines — when bookings matter as much as the till.
- Best POS system for Philippine small businesses — six systems compared on GCash and BIR.
