How much does clinic booking software cost in Australia?

On published Australian prices, clinic booking software costs A$29.95 per team member a month on Fresha's Team plan, A$42 to A$79 a month for one bookable staff member on Timely (A$252 to A$404 for six), or A$45 to A$395 a month on Cliniko's practitioner bands, before SMS, card fees and add-ons. Those are list prices excluding GST, as listed on 29 October 2026. The bigger cost is the stack: seats multiplied by your team, plus add-ons and separate tools. Clinic App replaces the stack with one system on flat fees, with no per-seat fee, built around AHPRA and TGA rules.

The price on a booking system's pricing page is rarely what a cosmetic or skin clinic ends up paying. The subscription is multiplied by your team, then messages, card payments, add-ons and the cost of moving your data are added on top.

This guide uses the published Australian prices of three systems clinics commonly compare: Timely, Fresha and Cliniko. Every figure links to the vendor's own pricing page and is shown as listed on 29 October 2026, in Australian dollars excluding GST. Prices change, so check the linked page before you decide.

What do the main booking systems charge in Australia?

Timely and Fresha price by the number of bookable staff, and Cliniko by bands of practitioners. All three publish their prices, which is worth something in itself: you can work out most of the cost before a sales call.

Each vendor does something well here. Timely says it has no contracts and offers a 14-day free trial. Fresha's Team plan has the lower per-staff price of the two per-staff systems. Cliniko includes every feature, unlimited admin and reception users and unlimited locations in every subscription, and says its prices have not changed since June 2011.

They are not like-for-like, though. Timely puts loyalty rewards on Elevate and Innovate only. Fresha sells loyalty as a separate add-on. Cliniko is practice management software, priced with every Cliniko feature included. Compare the plan that actually includes what your clinic uses, not the cheapest one on the page. For a wider look at which system suits which kind of clinic, see our guide to the best booking systems for cosmetic clinics.

Why does per-staff pricing matter as your clinic grows?

On per-staff pricing, every injector, therapist or nurse you add to the diary adds to the monthly subscription. Timely's pricing FAQ says part-time staff are charged at the same rate as full-time staff, which matters for clinics with a nurse who works two days a week.

As an example only, here is the subscription alone for a clinic with six bookable staff, using the prices listed on 29 October 2026, excluding GST:

• Timely: A$252 (Build), A$330 (Elevate) or A$404 (Innovate) a month, as shown by Timely's price calculator for six staff.
• Fresha Team: 6 x A$29.95 = A$179.70 a month, before any add-ons.
• Cliniko: A$145 a month, the band for 6 to 8 practitioners.

Totals rise as you hire, until a band or cap applies. Timely's calculator holds Elevate at A$436 and Innovate at A$534 from 8 to 19 staff, and quotes larger teams individually. Fresha lists custom enterprise rates for businesses with over 20 team members. Per-staff pricing suits a solo practitioner or a small, stable team. Banded or flat pricing suits a clinic that plans to add staff or locations.

What costs sit on top of the subscription?

Four costs sit on top of almost every booking subscription: messages, card processing, marketplace fees and add-ons.

Messages

Appointment reminders and confirmations go by SMS, and SMS costs money once you pass the included allowance. Timely charges 12c per SMS beyond its allowance, and its targeted SMS campaigns are charged at 12c per SMS on Elevate and Innovate. Fresha charges A$0.06 per automated text after the free allowance and A$0.15 per marketing text. Cliniko sells SMS credits at 10c per message. A clinic that sends a reminder and a confirmation for every visit will feel this line every month.

Card processing

Most booking systems take card payments through their own payment service, at their own rates:

• Timely lists online payments at 1.80% + 30c and in-person payments at 1.54% + 5c per transaction, plus the cost of a terminal.
• Fresha lists online payments at 1.59% + A$0.28, in-person at 1.29% + A$0.26, manual card entry at 1.90% + A$0.26, and terminals from A$199.

Processing is now a cost the clinic carries. Under the Reserve Bank's surcharging changes, surcharges on eftpos, Mastercard and Visa payments are removed from 1 October 2026, so you can no longer add the fee to the patient's bill. As an example only, a clinic taking A$40,000 a month in card payments at 1.5% pays about A$600 a month in percentage fees alone.

Marketplace fees

Fresha's pricing page lists a one-time 20% commission, with a minimum fee of A$8, on brand new clients who discover your business through the Fresha marketplace. Returning clients, direct booking links and Facebook and Instagram bookings are free. Timely's plans are listed with "no new client fees". If your new patients mostly come from your own website, social media and referrals, this fee may rarely apply. If the marketplace is a main source of new patients, budget for it. Our guide to Fresha's new client fee goes into how it works.

Add-ons

Some features a clinic needs are sold separately. Fresha lists Client Loyalty at A$89.95 per location a month, Google Rating Boost at A$24.95 per location a month and Insights at A$15.95 per bookable team member a month. Timely lists direct phone support at A$30 a month on its Build and Elevate plans, and puts Rewards on Elevate and above. Then there are the tools clinics bolt on outside the booking system altogether: a separate loyalty app, membership billing, forms, a review tool. Each is another subscription. For what a standalone loyalty app costs, see clinic loyalty app costs in Australia.

The subscription is the number on the pricing page. The cost is that number times your team, plus every message, card tap, add-on and separate tool. One system on flat fees takes away the multiplier and the extra tools.

What does it cost to switch booking systems?

Moving your data is often free, but not always complete, and the gaps cost staff time. Timely includes transferring data from your current system on every plan, and its data transfer guide says 12 months of appointment and product purchase history is included, with anything beyond that charged as an extra fee. Cliniko's pricing page says it migrates data from many other systems at no cost.

What rarely moves is the expensive part. Timely's own guide lists deposits, customer credits, packages, saved payment card details, consultation forms, photos and documents, financial reporting data and rewards points as information that commonly cannot be moved between systems. Every one of those becomes a job: re-entering balances, asking patients to re-save cards, rebuilding forms.

Then there is the overlap. You usually pay for both systems for a few weeks while you check every balance and future booking, and you must export before you cancel. Timely's cancellation guide says you can no longer log in to export after cancelling. Our step-by-step guides cover exporting from Timely and exporting from Fresha.

How do you work out the real monthly cost for your clinic?

Add up six lines, not one. Use your own numbers from last month:

1. Subscription: the plan that includes what you use, times your bookable staff, including part-timers.
2. Messages: reminders and confirmations sent, minus the included allowance, times the per-message rate.
3. Card processing: card turnover times the percentage, plus the fixed fee per transaction.
4. Marketplace fees: new patients from the marketplace times the commission on their first booking.
5. Add-ons: every paid extra inside the system, per location or per staff member.
6. Separate tools: loyalty, memberships, forms, reviews or an app you pay for outside the booking system.

Then add the one-off switching cost: any data transfer fee, the overlap month and the staff hours to rebuild what does not move. Ask every vendor the same questions: is part-time staff charged in full, what does SMS cost after the allowance, what is the card rate, which features are add-ons, and what does moving my data include? A vendor that answers all five clearly is easier to budget for.

If line six is long, that is the case for all-in-one clinic software: one system, one bill.

What changes when everything is in one system?

On per-seat pricing, the bill grows twice: once for every staff member, and again for every add-on and separate tool. As an example only, using the prices listed on 29 October 2026, excluding GST, for a clinic with six bookable staff at one location:

• Fresha: the Team plan at 6 x A$29.95 = A$179.70, plus Client Loyalty at A$89.95 per location, plus Insights at 6 x A$15.95 = A$95.70. That is A$365.35 a month before messages, card fees and any tools outside Fresha.
• Timely: A$330 a month on Elevate for six staff, which includes Rewards. Rebooking reminders and consultation forms that send automatically are on Innovate only, at A$404 for six staff, according to its plan comparison.

Hire a seventh staff member and both totals rise again. Then add line six: whatever membership billing, forms, review or loyalty tool the clinic pays for on the side, each with its own login and its own copy of the patient list.

Clinic App works the other way. Flat fees cover one system: the diary and online booking, front desk checkout and payments, memberships with monthly billing, packages, gift vouchers, rewards, consent forms, treatment records and reports. There is no per-seat fee, so the fee is not multiplied by your team. There is no loyalty add-on, no separate membership tool and no forms upgrade to buy, and every patient has one record, so nothing is copied between tools. We do not put a Clinic App figure beside the examples above, because the fee is quoted for each clinic after a free audit. Ask for it, then compare it with your own six lines.

Which system is built for AHPRA and TGA rules?

Price is not the only line: a cosmetic clinic's system also has to fit the rules it advertises and treats under. Clinic App is built around those rules, so the safe way to do something is the default.

Those rules come from two regulators. The TGA says prescription-only medicines must not be advertised to the public: see its guidance on complying with the restrictions on advertising prescription medicines to the public. AHPRA's guidelines for advertising a regulated health service prohibit testimonials, and its guidelines for advertising higher risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures warn that inducements are used extensively to influence consumer choice. Its guidelines for performing non-surgical cosmetic procedures say a patient's consent must be documented.

Here is how Clinic App builds those rules in:

• Rewards stay off prescription treatments. Points, rewards, discounts and offers never apply to Schedule 4 (prescription-only) treatments.
• Medicine names stay off public pages. Prescription medicine names are kept off public, patient-facing promotional surfaces.
• Messages are checked before they send. Marketing campaigns and automatic messages are checked for prescription medicine names, including disguised spellings, before they can be sent.
• Review requests stay clean. They never offer points or rewards for a review, they skip staff, and they are checked for prescription medicine names.
• Consent keeps its wording. Consent forms are signed digitally, and the exact wording the patient agreed to is stored with each signature and versioned. Consent for a patient under 18 is refused unless it goes through a guardian path.
• Records keep their history. Changes to treatment records are amended or struck out, never deleted.
• Data stays in Australia. Patient data is hosted in Sydney, and card numbers are handled by Stripe, never stored by Clinic App.

Of the three systems priced above, Timely describes its plans as for hair and beauty professionals, and Cliniko describes itself as practice management software for clinics and allied health practitioners. Cliniko's blog does point practitioners to AHPRA's guidance on reviews, which is fair credit. We could not find a page from Timely, Fresha or Cliniko that describes software checks keeping rewards, offers or messages off prescription-only treatments.

Software cannot follow the rules for a clinic: the clinic and its practitioners stay responsible for their own advertising and care. What Clinic App does is take easy slips out of the front desk's hands, such as a points offer on a prescription treatment, a medicine name in a promotion or a reward for a review.

How is Clinic App priced?

Clinic App charges flat fees, with no setup fee, no per-seat fee and no lock-in. The fee is quoted for your clinic after a free 45-minute Patient Revenue Audit, because it depends on what your clinic runs.

It covers one system for cosmetic and skin clinics: the diary and online booking, deposits and cards on file, front desk checkout and payments, memberships with monthly billing, packages, gift vouchers, rewards, a prepaid wallet, referrals, review requests, reminders, the waitlist, consent forms and intake, treatment records and photos, rosters, multi-location, stock and reports. Card payments run through Stripe, so ask for the processing rate alongside your quote.

Switching is part of the job. We import your client list, visit history, gift vouchers, package balances from your Fresha or Timely exports, and active memberships from Fresha's membership report, with a preview before anything is saved. If you are comparing directly, see Clinic App vs Timely and Clinic App vs Fresha.

Zoe Wogan

Founder, Clinic App

Zoe founded Clinic App, the all-in-one system for Australian cosmetic and skin clinics, and onboards each clinic in person.