How to Accept Online Bookings for Your Business
How to accept online bookings for your business in about 30 minutes: add your services and hours, set booking rules, connect your calendar, turn on confirmations and reminders, test the flow, and share one booking link everywhere clients find you.
Start the GuideHow to Accept Online Bookings for Your Business This step-by-step guide covers everything you need, from prerequisites to pro tips, so you can complete the process in 30 minutes or less. Browse all how-to guides.
What You Need Before Accept Online Bookings
Make sure you have the following ready:
- Business name and contact information
- Service list with durations and prices
- Your weekly working hours and days off
- A Stripe, PayPal, or Square account if you want to take payment at booking (Standard plan and above)
How to Accept Online Bookings
10 steps · 30 minutes
Sign up and configure your business profile
Create your account, enter your business name, timezone, and contact info. This forms the basis of your public booking page.
Add your services
Enter each bookable service with name, duration, price, and description. Clients see this when choosing what to book. Use client-friendly names ("60-Minute Swedish Massage" beats "SWD-60") and a one- or two-sentence description of what to expect.
If you offer a long menu, group services into categories so clients are not faced with a wall of options.
Set your availability
Define your working hours, days off, breaks such as lunch, and any blackout dates. The booking page only shows slots within these windows. Update them whenever your hours change or before time off, so clients can't book times you can't keep.
Start with slightly fewer available hours than you work, you can always expand.
Add booking rules
Add buffer time between appointments (10-15 minutes is a common starting point), set a minimum notice so nobody books a slot that starts in 20 minutes, and limit how far ahead clients can book. Clients see times in their own timezone, so out-of-area bookings land in the right slot.
A booking window of a few weeks to a few months keeps your schedule manageable; very long windows invite forgotten appointments.
Connect your calendar
Connect Google Calendar, Outlook/Microsoft 365, or Apple iCloud so existing events block time on your booking page. Busy times refresh every 10 minutes, and SchedulingKit checks your calendar again live when a client books.
Customize your booking page
Add your logo, brand colors, and a welcome message. Choose whether to show prices and enable the booking form fields you need.
Name, email, and phone are enough for most services. Every extra required field lowers completion.
Turn on confirmations and reminders
Send a confirmation as soon as a booking is made and an email reminder before the appointment, for example 24 hours ahead. On Standard and above you can add SMS reminders for clients who opt in on the booking form.
Enable payment collection
On Standard and above, connect Stripe, PayPal, or Square to collect full payments or deposits at the time of booking.
Test the full booking flow
Book a test appointment on your phone, check the confirmation email arrives and the booking appears on your calendar, then try rescheduling and cancelling it. Fix anything that feels clunky before you announce the link.
Share your booking link everywhere
Add the link to your website navigation and homepage, Instagram bio, Google Business Profile, email signature, and business cards. Reply to availability questions by text or DM with the link instead of trading times.
Print a QR code that points to your booking page on flyers, receipts, and in-store signage.
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Create a Booking Page
How to create a professional booking page in minutes, without design or coding skills: organize your services, add your branding, write clear descriptions and a welcome message, set availability, keep the form short, and test it on a phone before you share it.
Sync Your Calendars
How to sync your calendars to prevent double-bookings: connect Google Calendar, Outlook/Microsoft 365, or Apple iCloud so your busy times block your booking page, choose where new bookings are written, understand how often it refreshes, and test that it works.
Embed Booking on Your Website
How to embed a booking widget on your website in about 15 minutes: pick an inline embed, popup widget, or button link, paste the code into WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, or a custom site, place it where visitors decide to book, and test it on phones.
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