Frequently asked questions

Bookatu is online booking and scheduling software for salons, spas, personal trainers and clinics. You get a branded booking page, a calendar, automatic reminders, deposits and no-show protection, client records, and marketing tools — all in one place.

Clients open your booking page, pick a service, choose a team member or 'any available', select a time that fits your real availability, and confirm. They get an instant confirmation and a reminder before the visit. Booking takes under a minute and works on any phone.

No. Clients can book in seconds with just their name and contact details — no app to download and no password to remember. They can optionally sign in later to view and manage their visits.

Yes. There is a free plan to get started, plus paid plans with more features as you grow. See the pricing page for what each plan includes.

Yes. The booking page and the whole admin are built mobile-first, so both your clients and your team can book and manage appointments from a phone.

Yes. Bookatu installs straight from your web browser, with no app store. On Android or Chrome, tap the Install app button. On an iPhone or iPad, open the page in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. Both you and your clients can install it for one-tap access.

Yes. Your booking page lives at its own web address, and you can add a Book now button or embed the booking widget on your existing website. You can also link to it from your Instagram bio, your Google profile and your email signature, so clients can book wherever they find you.

You connect your own Stripe account, and payments go straight to you. You can ask for a deposit at the time of booking to reduce no-shows, with the deposit coming off the total on the day. Bookatu does not take a commission on your bookings.

No. Bookatu charges a flat subscription, not a percentage of your bookings. The money your clients pay goes to your own connected payment account.

Email reminders are included on every plan. Text (SMS) reminders are included on the Studio, Pro and Scale plans, and on the Solo plan you can switch them on for a small monthly add-on. Each plan comes with a monthly text allowance, and you can see exactly what is included on the pricing page. Bookatu still never takes a commission on your bookings.

Straight into your own Stripe account, because clients pay you, not us. Stripe then pays the money out to your bank on a regular schedule, often every couple of business days. Your first payout can take a little longer while Stripe verifies your account. Bookatu never holds your money.

Yes. Because payments run through your own Stripe account, you issue refunds from your Stripe dashboard. Find the payment, then refund it in full or in part. Deposits taken at booking can be refunded the same way.

Three ways: automatic reminders before each visit, optional deposits taken at booking, and a no-show shield that asks repeat no-show clients for a larger deposit. Together these cut the empty slots that cost you money.

The slot reopens automatically, and Bookatu offers it to the best-matching client on your waitlist — your highest-value waiting client who fits that service and time — so a cancellation can turn into a re-booking instead of an empty hour.

Your SMS reminders pause for the rest of that month, and your email reminders keep going automatically, so clients are never left unreminded. The allowance is a fair-use limit, not a hard cliff, and it resets at the start of the next month.

Yes. Each team member has their own bookable services, working hours and calendar column. Clients can pick a specific person or let the system find anyone available.

Yes. You can block off time for breaks, holidays or admin — for everyone or one team member — and that time is removed from online availability immediately and shown on your calendar.

Yes. Your business hours drive both the calendar and what clients can book, so people can only book when you are actually open.

Yes. You can email clients who opted in, with a live preview of how the email will look, scheduling, and one-click unsubscribe. Only subscribed clients are ever emailed.

Yes. You set off-peak windows, such as weekday mornings or Sunday afternoons, and a percentage off, shown on your public Deals page. The discount applies automatically to bookings made in those quiet windows, so you fill slow hours without discounting your busy ones. This is separate from typed promo codes.

Salons, spas, nail and beauty studios, barbers, personal trainers and fitness studios, and clinics. The wording and features adapt to your industry — for example clinics get intake and consent forms, and trainers get workout checklists.

Yes. The whole experience rewords to your trade based on the business type you choose. Trainers see sessions, clinics see treatments and practitioners, studios see classes, and restaurants reserve tables from a menu. Whatever you do, the booking page and client portal read as if they were built for it.

You do. Your client list, notes and history are yours. You can export your data, and each business's data is isolated from every other business on the platform.

You don't have to start from scratch. Export your client list from your current tool as a CSV file, which Fresha and most booking apps can do, then import it into Bookatu under Clients. If the file is messy or you'd like a hand, send it to us and we'll help bring your clients across.

Your data is yours and you can export it any time, including your client list, bookings and payment records, as files you can open in a spreadsheet. It is stored securely, and each business's data is kept separate from every other business on the platform, so you are never locked in.

After the 90-day free trial you move onto a paid plan, priced by how many active clients you have each month. Plans start at $9 a month for Solo, then $25 for Studio, $59 for Pro and $99 for Scale. Bookatu never takes a commission on your bookings. See the pricing page for the active-client range each plan covers.

An active client is a client who books or visits you during the billing month. Quiet clients sitting in your list don't count toward your plan, so you are charged in line with how busy you actually are, not the size of your contact list.

No. Your plan is based on how many active clients you have, not how many staff or team members you add. You can add your whole team without paying more per person.

Bookatu is free for 90 days. When the trial ends you pick a plan to keep taking bookings. If you are not ready, there is a short grace period and your data is always safe, so you can carry on right where you left off as soon as you subscribe.

Any time, from the billing area in Settings, which opens your secure billing portal. There is no lock-in. Your data stays yours and you can export it before you go.

Yes. You can sell retail and take-home products from a Shop on your booking page. Each product is either shippable, where checkout collects a delivery address, or pay-online-and-collect-in-store. Payment goes straight to your own Stripe account, and you fulfil orders yourself while the order status tracks each one.

Yes. You can sell gift cards, where the value lands in the recipient's wallet, prepaid packages, where a client pays an amount and gets more credit to spend, and recurring monthly memberships. Clients buy them from your booking site and pay through your own Stripe account, and any credit applies automatically at their next visit.

Yes. Bookatu has a REST API plus an MCP server, so other software and AI assistants can check availability and book on a client's behalf. Create an API key in Settings, and find the full reference at /developers.