No-Show Fees: Price the Empty Chair

Money Matters · October 19, 2026

A no-show fee chosen at 2:15 with the chair empty is a guess. Choose it once, from your own prices, and collect it at booking.

A no-show fee chosen at 2:15, with the chair empty and the client not answering, is a guess.

Choose it once, from your own prices, and collect it at booking as a deposit.

Price the hours nobody can resell

The fee covers the slot you could not sell to someone else. Work it from the service price and the chair time.

Then ask one question per row: if this client does not come and nobody fills the slot, how much of the price can you stand to lose? A walk-in can fill a 45-minute gap on a Saturday. Nobody walks in for three hours of color booked a fortnight out. For tattoo work, the deposit post for tattoo artists sizes the number by the session.

Collect it as a deposit

A deposit puts the fee on the line before the appointment. When you mark a booking no-show, a deposit that was taken stays taken.

Deposits are one setting for the whole shop: a percentage from 10 to 100, 25% by default, or the full price. There is no per-service rule. Pick the percentage for the service where a miss hurts most, then check what it does to the cheapest one. A 50% deposit that protects your color work asks $20 up front for a $40 cut.

Two numbers sit under that choice. A charge has a $5.00 minimum, so at 25% any service under $20 cannot take a deposit. And the card rate is 3.75% + 45¢ on the deposit itself: $2.14 on a $45 deposit.

If you are still deciding between a deposit and a card on file, that decision comes first.

Set the refund window before you switch it on

Whether a client who cancels gets the deposit back is decided by your refund window, 24 hours by default, on Dashboard → Hours. Cancel before it and the deposit goes back to the card. Cancel inside it and you keep it. The cancel screen shows the client which side of the line they are on, and how much they would get back, before they confirm.

That window is the number clients will argue about, so pick it on purpose. The late-cancel post has the decision tree for the 7am text.

Mark it the same day

Mark no-show opens at the appointment's start time. On Pro it adds one to the no-show count on the client's profile, so a pattern shows up before the third miss. Leave a booking sitting at confirmed and it counts as nothing, which makes your no-show rate look better than it is. Never delete a no-show. Deleted bookings drop out of your history and your totals.

Say it before it happens

On your booking page, in the About section:

A 25% deposit holds your time. Cancel more than 24 hours ahead and it goes back to your card. Inside 24 hours, or if you do not come, it covers the chair.

After a no-show, from your own phone, the same day:

We missed you at 2:00 today. Your deposit covered the slot. Reply here if you'd like to rebook.

A good regular who misses once is a judgment call. If you waive it, refund the deposit from the booking and tell them you have. The two-strike rule in the no-show post covers the second miss.

When the numbers are set, turn on deposits.

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