Why marketplace commission compounds, and a subscription does not

A one-time fee on a new client is easy to dismiss. Twenty per cent of one appointment, once and then they are yours. On a £45 first visit that is £9 to acquire a client who might spend £2,000 with you over four years. Framed that way it is obviously good value.

It is good value. The problem is what happens to that number as you grow.

Two businesses, same platform

A settled salon with a full book of regulars wins three new clients a month. At 20% of a £45 first visit, that is £27 a month. Trivial.

A salon that has just opened, or just hired two stylists, is winning forty new clients a month because it has columns to fill. Same rate, same platform, £360 a month. Not trivial.

The fee did not change. The business did. Commission pricing charges you most at exactly the moment you can least afford it, which is when you are growing and have not yet got the repeat book to support the extra capacity.

A subscription does the opposite. It is heaviest when you are small and quiet, and proportionally lighter every month you grow. Fixed costs are unpleasant when you are struggling and forgettable when you are busy.

Which shape suits you

• If your book is full and stable, and you barely need new clients, commission is cheap and a subscription is dead weight. Take the commission model.
• If you are growing, hiring, opening a second location or filling a new column, commission is the expensive shape and a flat subscription is the cheap one.
• If you are somewhere in between, work out your actual new client count for the last three months and multiply it out. It usually settles the argument in about four minutes.

The part that is not about money

There is a second question underneath the pricing one, which is who the client belongs to. A platform that charges you once and leaves you with the relationship is selling introductions. A platform that keeps the relationship is renting you access to your own customers.

Ask any provider directly
can I export my full client list with contact details and notes, at any time, including for clients who first found me through you? The answer tells you what you are actually buying.

Youzse charges 0% commission on new clients and recovers its costs through a card rate of 2.5% plus 35p, with the platform fee inside that single number. That is the right shape for a business that is growing, and the wrong shape for one with a full book and high card takings that never needs to be found. We would rather say which is which than pretend one model wins for everyone.