Payment methods accepted

This page is what you can pay with once a shop is charging you at booking. Cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Link are the usual set, and which of them appear depends on your phone and your country. Booked never keeps the card number. How you first reach the shop's page is a separate step.

Cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Link, wherever the shop has payments enabled.

If a shop has enabled payments, deposits and prepayments are collected through Stripe. The exact options that appear depend on your device and country, and typically include:

Booked itself never sees or stores your card number. Stripe handles the entire payment, on a page hosted by Stripe, and hands back only the result.

Why the options differ between shops

Which wallets appear is decided by your browser and by what you have set up on the device, not by the shop. Apple Pay needs a card in Wallet and Safari; Google Pay needs a card in Google and Chrome. If neither is configured you will simply see the card fields.

Prepaid and virtual cards

These generally work. Two things occasionally catch people out: a prepaid card with less on it than the deposit will be declined for the usual reason, and some virtual-card services block recurring or delayed charges, which matters if the shop charges the balance later rather than taking it in person.

The minimum charge

Card payments have a floor of $5.00. If a shop's deposit works out below that on a very cheap service, the shop will collect in person instead.

If a payment is declined

Nothing is booked and nothing is charged — a declined payment means the slot was never held, so you can try again straight away with another card. Booked is not told why your bank declined it; only your bank knows that.

If the shop has not enabled payments

No card details are collected at booking. You pay in person after the service, however that shop normally takes payment — cash, their own card terminal, or an app. Most shops on Booked work this way.

Tips

If tipping is switched on you can add one at the payment step, or afterwards from your confirmation page. See Leave a tip after your appointment.

More in Booking