Booksy, DoorDash, StyleSeat, Thumbtack, all of these do something real: they bring you customers. And then they charge you rent on those customers forever.
Rent versus ownership
Every booking through a middleman platform costs you a slice, and worse, the customer relationship belongs to the platform. Their app, their notifications, their upsells of your competitors on the same screen. You did the work; they own the doorway.
A customer who books through YOUR website is yours. Their next visit does not cost you a commission. Your reviews build YOUR name, not a profile inside someone else's app.
You do not have to quit the apps
Here is the part nobody tells you: this is not either-or. Keep Booksy if your regulars like it. The move is to put your own website in front of it, your site takes the search traffic, shows your work, your reviews, your prices, and the booking button can still run through the system you already use. We embed it. Nothing about your operation changes, except new customers find YOU first instead of a platform page with your competitors one thumb-scroll away.
The 3-year math
A middleman taking even 10 percent of a $50,000 book of business is $5,000 a year, every year, forever. A website you own outright costs $700 once. It is not close.
Rent the tools if they earn it. Never rent the customer.