← Integrations · Appointment bookings
Take bookings on your own site. Keep your customer list.
The bookings module plugs into your UK Web Marketing site as an interactive calendar — services, staff, opening hours, deposits, automated SMS reminders. Same builder (me) on both sides. Your customer types your URL, books on your domain. Fresha and Booksy don't see your customer list.
The economics
What you're actually paying Fresha / Booksy.
The booking platforms all claim to be "free for businesses". They make money on payment processing fees, marketplace commission on new clients, and tiered subscriptions for advanced features. The actual cost depends on your volume and whether you take payments through the platform, but the realistic monthly figure for a busy salon is well into three digits — and your customer list is theirs, not yours.
For a salon doing £15,000/month in services:
| Platform | Subscription | Payment fee | Other | Total / mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fresha (UK) | £0 base | ~£428 (2.85% + 20p on £15k) | 20% marketplace commission on new clients | £428 + new-client cut |
| Booksy | £25/mo | 2.49% via Stripe Connect | — | ~£399 |
| Acuity Scheduling | £25/mo | Stripe direct (1.5% + 20p) | — | ~£250 |
| Your UK Web Marketing site + TicketWave HQ bookings | TicketWave HQ subscription | 1.5% + 20p (Stripe direct) | — | ~£225 + TicketWave HQ sub |
The bigger story isn't actually the fees — it's customer ownership. Fresha's marketplace surfaces your competitors to your own customers ("People who booked with you also liked…"). Booksy charges 50% commission on the first booking of any "new client" they claim to have brought you. Both have terms that make exporting your customer list deliberately hard. With your own bookings module, the customer list is exportable from day one and the only relationship is between you and your client.
Anatomy of one booking
What happens when a returning customer wants Tuesday at 4pm.
- Customer lands on your site — typed your URL, clicked your Google Business Profile link, or came in via local search. Your UK Web Marketing site, your branding.
- They click "Book" — calendar opens inline. Picks a service (cut + blow-dry, 60 min). Sees the available staff (or just "any available" if you don't have multiple practitioners).
- Available slots load for the next 14 days, filtered by their service + chosen staff + your opening hours. Greyed slots are taken; available are tappable.
- They pick Tuesday 4pm. Enter name, phone, email. Card details if you require a deposit (configurable per service).
- Confirmation lands. SMS + email to customer with the date, time, address and a calendar invite (.ics). You get a notification (dashboard + optional SMS).
- 24 hours before: automated SMS reminder. Customer can reschedule (link in the SMS) without messaging you.
- Day-of: optional 2-hour-before reminder. Reduces no-shows by ~30% in industry studies.
- After: automated "thanks, leave a review" email 24 hours later. Reviews land on your own site, not on a platform you can be de-listed from.
What's in the box
Features that come with the bookings module.
- Service catalogue — name, duration, price, description, optional deposit, optional service-specific staff requirement (eg. "podiatry assessment" can only be booked with a specific practitioner).
- Staff calendars — one per practitioner / stylist / consultant. Each with their own working hours, breaks, time-off. Customer sees combined availability or can pick a specific person.
- Deposits & no-show protection — charge any percentage of the service value at booking time, refundable up to N hours before (configurable). Reduces no-shows; protects revenue.
- Automated SMS + email reminders — 24h before, 2h before (optional), plus rescheduling links the customer can use without messaging you. Configurable per service.
- Customer profiles — every booking links to a single customer record. Booking history, notes (allergies, preferences), tagged for marketing later.
- Buffer time between bookings — set per service (eg. "15 mins after a cut" for cleanup). Calendar respects it automatically — customers can't book back-to-back if you don't want them to.
- Multi-location — if you have more than one chair / room / salon, each location has its own staff + schedule. Customer picks location during the flow.
- Calendar feed (iCal format) — sync your bookings into Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook. Two-way: a block you add in Google appears as unavailable on the bookings module.
- Walk-ins handled too — staff can drop a walk-in into the calendar from the TicketWave HQ dashboard. Same customer record, same reminder logic.
How the integration works technically
Web-component mode — interactive calendar, native to your site.
The bookings module uses the web component pattern: a small JavaScript widget loads inside the UK Web Marketing page, rendering the interactive calendar (date picker, slot selector, customer form). The component handles its own state — when the customer picks a date the available slots refresh without a page reload. This is the right pattern for booking calendars specifically because the experience is genuinely interactive in a way that static HTML cannot match well.
The cost: a small additional ~30 kilobytes of JavaScript loads when the booking page is rendered (one-time, cached by the browser). The visible-content speed is not affected; the calendar appears within a second on a normal connection. The widget is open-source from TicketWave HQ — you can inspect the code, host your own copy if you want, or pull in a custom theme that matches your brand. New to these terms? See the glossary.
Onboarding timeline
From "I want this" to "first booking taken".
- Day 0: WhatsApp me. I send the TicketWave HQ bookings signup link + current pricing.
- Day 1: You subscribe on TicketWave HQ. I generate your client ID + send you a setup form for services, staff and hours.
- Day 1–3: Service catalogue set up — name, duration, price, any deposits. Staff added with their working hours. Stripe Connected for deposits/payments.
- Day 3–4: I wire the booking widget into your UK Web Marketing site. The button on every page now opens the live calendar.
- Day 4–5: Test bookings + a soft launch. We make sure the SMS reminders are configured correctly (UK SMS regulations require an opt-out and a sender-name; both set automatically).
- Day 5–7: Live. Existing customers get a "you can now book online" SMS or email (templated for you). New customers find the booking button on every page of your site.
Roughly a week from sign-up to taking your first online booking.
Common questions
What people ask before activating bookings.
Can I migrate my existing bookings from Fresha / Booksy?
Yes. Both platforms let you export a CSV of upcoming bookings and a CSV of customer records. I'll import them into your TicketWave HQ dashboard so day one of going live is not day one of zero history. Past bookings come with the customer record (so loyalty data is preserved).
What about my Fresha / Booksy reviews?
Reviews on a third-party platform stay there — that's the cost of being on a platform that owns the customer relationship. Going forward, every booking on your own site triggers an automated review request 24 hours after the appointment, and those reviews live on your own domain. Within 12 months most clients have more reviews on their own site than they ever had on Fresha.
Will customers actually use it instead of calling?
Honestly, depends on the customer base. For salons with under-50s as the typical client, online booking dominates within 3 months — 70–90% of new appointments come through the form. For clinics or older customer bases, phone bookings stay strong; the online flow is a useful supplement rather than a replacement. Either way, the calendar's an asset.
What about no-show protection?
The deposit mechanic is the most effective tool — even a £10 non-refundable deposit cuts no-shows by 50–70% in industry data. Configurable per service. For high-value bookings (a £200 hair colour appointment, say) a 50% deposit is normal. For short services (£20 haircut) you might skip the deposit and rely on SMS reminders alone.
Can clients book recurring appointments (every 6 weeks)?
Yes — there's a "book my next 4 appointments at the same time of day" flow. Useful for hairdressers / physios / chiropractors with strict repeat schedules. Each booking is its own cancellable record.
What if I want to take a holiday or close for a week?
Block any range in the dashboard — for the whole business or per staff member. Customers see the next available slot after your closure. You can pre-write a "we're closed Christmas Day to 2nd Jan" message that surfaces on the booking page during that block.
What the embed actually looks like
Preview of the appointment bookings module hook.
Below is the exact placeholder that sits on every UK Web Marketing site in the matching vertical until the customer activates the TicketWave HQ subscription. When activated, this region flips to the live module — no rebuild, no page change.
Appointment bookings for salons · clinics · service businesses
This site is built with the integration hook ready. Once you activate the TicketWave HQ appointment bookings subscription, this region of the page becomes the live module — no rebuild, same day. Pricing and timing on the TicketWave HQ side.
Get this on your site
Start the website first. Add this module when you're ready.
The UK Web Marketing site is £45/mo with the first month free; this module activates separately via TicketWave HQ on its own pricing.