The Bookatu blog
Practical, no-nonsense advice for service businesses. Cutting no-shows, building steady income, getting found online, and keeping more of what you earn.
How to fill every bike in your spin studio without chasing texts
A whiteboard and a phone full of maybes is no way to run a room of fourteen bikes. Here's how one Wellington studio put its class timetable online and filled the room before opening.
How a Piha surf school stopped dreading the Friday-night phone
Ana teaches beginners to surf at Piha, where the wind decides everything. Here is how running lessons as bookable group sessions, each with a live forecast on the card, gave her back her Friday nights and her rain-day sanity.
How a Tuesday night tennis clinic runs itself now
Meet Will, who runs a beginners tennis clinic every Tuesday at his local club. Here is how running it as a fixed-time group session, with a live weather forecast on the card and payment taken online, quietly fixed the whole thing.
Mini-session days that fill up before dinner
Priya sells out a full Saturday of fifteen-minute autumn mini-sessions at the botanic gardens. Here is how laying the day out as bookable sessions, with one location and a live forecast on every slot, took the DM avalanche out of it entirely.
A class timetable that fills its own spots
Mara runs eight classes a week off a clipboard by the door, and it shows. Here is how putting every class on the timetable as a capped, bookable session let her members sort their own spots and filled her Saturday reformer by Thursday.
Why there's a tiny weather forecast on your booking page
There is a small animated weather forecast on the booking page for outdoor sessions, and it is not only there to look cute. It answers the question everyone asks before booking, and when a session is rained off, everyone gets credited back automatically.
Why your booking page is your colour, and your dashboard is ours
When you set your brand colour in Bookatu, it paints your booking page, your emails and everything your clients touch. It does not paint the dashboard you work in. That is a deliberate choice, and it is the same one every tool you trust makes. Here is the thinking.
How to put your services on sale without discounting everything
You do not have to edit every price by hand to run a promotion. Put a whole category on sale in one place, let the discount come off automatically at checkout, and switch it back off when the week is over.
How we ship features that touch money without changing anyone's price by accident
A pricing bug is the kind you cannot take back once a card is charged. Here is the discipline we use to add discounts, staff pricing and sales to the booking flow without a single price moving until we mean it to.
How much photo storage do you actually need?
The honest answer is that it depends on what you shoot, not on a number on a pricing page. Here is a plain guide to what fills up a gallery, what your clients downloading never costs you, and how to size your plan without overpaying.
Set the hours you actually work (and let clients book around them)
Weekends only, evenings after a day job, three long days and four off. Your booking calendar should match your real life, not a default nine to five. Here is how to set opening hours per day, per person, with buffers and notice that protect your time.
Add a Book Now button to your website or Instagram bio
You already have a website and a bio link. Paste one line of code, or drop in your booking link, and turn the visitors you already get into booked appointments, with no plugin and no commission.