Help Centre · Booked

• How the booking buffer works — A single number that stops customers booking the slot you're currently standing in.
• What notifications you will get — Booked sends a small, fixed set of messages tied to your appointment. No marketing.
• Claim your shop URL — Your shop lives at booked.co/<slug>. Pick it once, print it on cards, put it in your Instagram bio.
• Migration checklist — One page. Print it. Cross items off as you switch.
• Find a shop on Booked — Every shop on Booked lives at a memorable URL. Here is how to find yours.
• How the customer list is built — Pro only. Every unique email or phone that has ever booked lands as a customer row.
• Plans compared: Starter, Pro, SMS add-on — One row per plan, one column per thing that matters. The whole pricing story on one screen.
• Pricing explained — Two plans, one add-on, no per-booking fee, no card-vault lock-in.
• Add a staff member — One row per person. Give them a role, and services if they take bookings.
• Block time off — Vacations, single days, or a two-hour lunch. Blocks belong to a staff member, not the whole shop.
• Start your 7-day Starter trial — Card required, no charge for seven days, cancel any time before day 7 for zero cost.
• Starter vs Pro: which plan fits — Choose by staff count and whether you need customer history.
• Assign services to a staff member — Only services with a check next to a staff member show up when the customer picks that person.
• Stop receiving SMS from Booked — Reply STOP to any SMS. Opt-out is instant and applies to that shop.
• Set up your first service — Name, duration, price. That's the whole form. Everything else is optional.
• Add a note to a customer — Notes are private to your shop. They're the "always uses 3 on the sides" you meant to remember.
• Switch from Square Appointments — How the concepts map, what to export, and what to expect on the fee side.
• How to book an appointment — Pick a service, pick a time, leave your name and contact details. That is the whole flow.
• Tag customers — Short labels — VIP, first-timer, needs deposit — that make the customer list filterable.
• Free trial details — 7 days on Starter. No trial on Pro. No card required until day 7.
• Reply to and moderate reviews — Answer a review in public, hide one that should not be up, or add a review a client gave you in person.
• Stop receiving emails from a shop — Use the unsubscribe link in the footer of any email.
• Set staff hours — Staff schedules slot inside shop hours. Narrower is fine. Wider isn't.
• Add your first staff member — If you're a solo shop, add yourself as staff. The calendar needs a person to hang appointments on.
• Switch from Booksy — The marketplace question, and how to move the pieces that matter.
• Do I need an account to book? — No. Booked never asks customers to sign up.
• Upgrade from Starter to Pro — One click. Prorated for the remainder of the cycle. Unlocks staff, CRM, deposits, and SMS eligibility immediately.
• Mark a booking as no-show — Two clicks. The customer's history gets a mark, and any deposit rules kick in.
• Reschedule a booking — Drag on the calendar, or open the booking and pick a new time. The customer gets an email.
• Reschedule your appointment — Open your confirmation, pick a new time, done. Cutoffs are set by the shop.
• Import your customer list — CSV in, deduped rows out. Booked reads exports from Square, Booksy, Vagaro, Fresha, GlossGenius, Acuity, and Schedulicity.
• Downgrade from Pro to Starter — Effective at the end of the current cycle. Some data — extra staff, CRM history — is hidden, not deleted.
• Change your email or phone number — Ask the shop to update your customer record. You cannot edit it yourself.
• Switch from Vagaro — Bigger toolset, bigger price. Move to Booked when you have stopped using most of it.
• Add time off for one staff member — Same steps as any time-off block, but scoped to a single staff row.
• Merge two records for the same client — Fold a duplicate into the record you want to keep, without losing their visit history.
• Set your weekly hours — Shop hours are the outer envelope. Staff hours slot inside them.
• SMS costs and limits — $5 for 500 messages a month. Top-up packs available if you run out.
• Close for a holiday, or open on odd hours — One date at a time. Overrides your weekly hours for that date only, and tells customers why.
• Make your booking page look like your shop — Logo, colour, a cover photo, a gallery and an about block — and, on Pro, removing our mark entirely.
• Can I add a walk-in from the calendar? — Yes. Click an empty slot, fill three fields, done. No customer email required.
• Price and duration a service — Duration includes cleanup. Price is what the customer pays in full. No hidden fees at checkout.
• Add the SMS add-on — $5/month on top of Pro. 500 messages per billing cycle, then a top-up if you need more.
• Can I export my customers? — Yes. CSV of every customer row, downloaded from the customer list. Take it with you if you ever leave.
• Cancel your appointment — Cancel from the same link that confirmed the booking. Deposit rules depend on the shop.
• Card processing fees — A flat 2.75% all-in when a customer pays a deposit or prepays. No hidden per-transaction cents.
• Who can see your data — Only the shop you booked with, plus the specific vendors Booked uses to deliver messages.
• The go-live checklist — Fourteen things to confirm before you print the QR code.
• Switch from Fresha — Fresha is free, but "free" has a distribution and a data cost. Read this before switching either way.
• Run a class or group session — Let several customers book the same start time by giving a service more than one seat.
• How many staff members can I have? — Starter is one. Pro is unlimited. That's the whole rule.
• See your bookings in your phone calendar — Subscribe from Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook so your appointments sit alongside the rest of your day.
• Features at a glance — Everything Booked does, in one table, honestly labeled.
• Top up SMS credits mid-cycle — One-off purchase, not a subscription. Credits roll over until you use them.
• Can I change my shop URL later? — Yes, but every printed card and social link pointing at the old one will 404.
• Why a deposit is required — Some services ask for a small deposit up front. Here is why and how it works.
• Booking statuses explained — Five statuses. Each one changes what the customer sees and what your reports count.
• Ask a shop to delete your data — Send the shop a deletion request. They must action it under GDPR and CCPA.
• Switch from Schedulicity — Similar sized tool, similar sized price. What actually differs.
• Switch from Acuity (Squarespace Scheduling) — Acuity is a good general scheduler. Booked is a specific one for shops.
• What happens when I hit the 500-message SMS cap? — Sending pauses. Bookings still work; only the text messages stop. We email you at 80% and again at 100%.
• Service categories and how they show on your page — Categories group services under a header. Skip them if you have fewer than five services.
• SMS charges and rates — Standard message and data rates from your carrier. Booked does not add a fee.
• Data ownership — Your customers and their history are yours. Export anytime, no lock-in.
• Add a second location — What $9 a month buys, what the new room inherits, what it does not, and how to move between them.
• Turn on deposits — Charge a percent of the service at booking. Pro plan and a verified Stripe account required.
• Payment methods accepted — Cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Link, wherever the shop has payments enabled.
• Leave a tip after your appointment — You can tip when you book, or afterwards from your confirmation page. All of it goes to the shop.
• Change or remove a card you saved — What saving a card at a shop actually does, and how to see, update or delete it later.
• Switch from Instagram DM bookings — The biggest quality-of-life upgrade a shop can make. Here is how in an hour.
• Sign in with a text message — Link your mobile once, then sign in with a 6-digit code instead of a password.
• Report a problem with a shop — Booked is the software the shop uses. For service issues talk to the shop; for platform abuse tell Booked.
• Security basics — What Booked does under the hood to keep your data safe.
• My confirmation did not arrive — Three things to check before contacting the shop.
• Open your Stripe billing portal — Update card, download invoices, change plan, cancel — all in one Stripe-hosted page.
• Take card payments and get paid — Setting up payouts, what Booked charges, and how the money reaches your bank.
• Waitlists for full sessions — When a class fills up, customers can ask to be told if a place opens. Nothing is held — first to book gets it.
• Turn on tipping — Two moments a client can tip, how to set the presets, and why none of it reaches us.
• No times available: what to do — A blank calendar usually means the shop is full, not broken.
• Uptime and reliability — How Booked stays up, and what happens when a dependency does not.
• Switch from Google Calendar and a form — The MacGyver setup that works until it does not. When to graduate.
• Install Booked on your phone — Add it to your home screen so it opens like an app — and what it does and does not do without a signal.
• Set up a standing appointment — Book a regular into the same slot every week or fortnight, in one go, without re-entering it each time.
• How do refunds and chargebacks work? — Deposit refunds are your call, issued from Stripe. Chargebacks go through Stripe's dispute flow.
• Join a waitlist for a full class — A sold-out class stays on the page marked FULL. Leave your name and we will message you if a place opens.
• Why shops switch to Booked — The four reasons we hear the most, in order.
• Who Booked is for — Independent barbershops and salons, one to a dozen chairs. Not chains, not spas.
• Change the service or staff after booking — The reschedule flow only changes the time. For a different service or barber, cancel and rebook.
• Cancel your subscription — Cancels at the end of the current cycle. Your data stays; your public page pauses.
• Why Booked is small on purpose — Every feature we do not build is one you do not pay for. Here is the trade.
• Running late or a no-show — Call the shop. Do not rely on the booking link when the clock is short.
• Booking for someone else — Yes, but put their contact details in the booking so confirmations reach the right person.
• How billing works — Monthly, prepaid, prorated on changes, canceled from the Stripe portal.
• Accepted countries and currencies — US-first today. What works elsewhere and what does not.
• What happens if I cancel — Access ends at cycle end. Data is retained for 30 days, then purged.
• Support and response times — Email support only, one small team behind it, honest hours and realistic response times.