Bookster

Managing appointments through phone calls, texts, and emails is chaotic.
You lose track of bookings, double-book appointments, and spend hours on scheduling instead of serving customers.
Bookster turns your WordPress site into a 24/7 booking system.
📌 <a href="https://docs.yaycommerce.com/bookster/price-plans" rel="nofollow ugc">Documentation</a> | <a href="https://demo.wpbookster.com/pet-care/" rel="nofollow ugc">Quick Demo</a>
Customers book appointments themselves, see real-time availability, and receive automatic confirmations.
You manage everything from one dashboard.
<h3>💫 Perfect For</h3>
<ul>
<li>Hair salons and barbershops</li>
<li>Spas and beauty clinics</li>
<li>Massage therapists and wellness centers</li>
<li>Personal trainers and fitness coaches</li>
<li>Consultants and coaches</li>
<li>Tutors and education services</li>
<li>Medical and dental practices</li>
<li>Any service business that takes appointments</li>
</ul>
<h3>💙 How It Works</h3>
Customers visit your booking page, choose a service, pick their preferred staff member, select an available time slot, and book instantly.
You receive an email notification and can view all appointments in your calendar dashboard. No more back-and-forth scheduling.
<h3>🔥 Key Features (100% Free)</h3>
<h3>Unlimited Bookings & Services</h3>
<ul>
<li>Create unlimited services with custom names, descriptions, and photos</li>
<li>Organize services into categories (e.g., Haircuts, Coloring, Spa Treatments)</li>
<li>Set individual duration and pricing for each service</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/bookster-taxation/" rel="ugc">Add taxes</a>, <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/bookster-discounts-fees/" rel="ugc">fees and discounts</a> to bookings</li>
<li>No limits on number of appointments per month</li>
<li>Offer <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/bookster-extra-options/" rel="ugc">service add-ons and upsell options</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Smart Scheduling</h3>
<ul>
<li>Set your working hours for each day of the week</li>
<li>Configure different availability for different services</li>
<li>Add buffer time between appointments (e.g., 15-minute cleanup)</li>
<li>Block off days for vacations or holidays</li>
<li>Set minimum advance notice for bookings (e.g., require 24-hour notice)</li>
</ul>
<h3>Staff Management</h3>
<ul>
<li>Add unlimited team members from Bookster → Agents menu</li>
<li>Set individual working hours for each staff member</li>
<li>Assign specific services to specific team members</li>
<li>Let customers choose their preferred agent or assign automatically</li>
<li>Track performance and bookings per agent</li>
</ul>
<h3>Customer Booking Experience</h3>
<ul>
<li>Clean, mobile-friendly booking form that works on all devices</li>
<li>Multi-step process: choose service → select staff → pick time → enter details → confirm</li>
<li>Customers see only available time slots (no double-booking)</li>
<li>Optional customer account dashboard to view and manage their bookings</li>
<li>Customers can cancel or reschedule appointments themselves</li>
</ul>
<h3>Payment Options</h3>
<ul>
<li>Accept cash/check for in-person payment</li>
<li>Accept PayPal payments online (customers pay when booking)</li>
<li>Stripe integration available via addon for credit card payments</li>
<li>Mark bookings as paid or unpaid manually</li>
<li>Track revenue in the analytics dashboard</li>
</ul>
<h3>Automatic Notifications</h3>
<ul>
<li>Email confirmation sent to customers immediately after booking</li>
<li>Reminder emails sent before appointment</li>
<li>Email notifications sent to admin when new bookings arrive</li>
<li>Customize email templates with your branding</li>
<li>All emails sent automatically – no manual work required</li>
</ul>
<h3>Admin Dashboard</h3>
<ul>
<li>View all appointments in Bookster → Calendar menu</li>
<li>Switch between day, week, and month calendar views</li>
<li>Click any appointment to view or edit details instantly</li>
<li>Filter appointments by status (confirmed, pending, cancelled)</li>
<li>Search for specific customers or appointments</li>
<li>Drag appointments to different dates to reschedule</li>
<li>Color-coded by service or staff member for quick overview</li>
</ul>
<h3>Analytics & Reports</h3>
<ul>
<li>Track total bookings and revenue right from dashboard</li>
<li>View performance by service (which services are most popular)</li>
<li>Monitor individual agent performance</li>
<li>Make data-driven decisions about staffing and services</li>
</ul>
<h3>Premium Addons (Optional)</h3>
Upgrade your booking system with these customizable options:
Booking Form
<ul>
<li>Customize booking form steps (reorder, add, or remove steps)</li>
<li>Add custom fields to collect specific information</li>
<li>Enable recaptcha, brand logo, timezone selector, and more for your booking system.</li>
</ul>
Advanced Features (coming in future addons)
<ul>
<li>Group bookings and classes</li>
<li>Recurring appointments</li>
<li>Multiple locations management</li>
<li>SMS notifications via Twilio</li>
<li>Design Toolkit for Block Editor and Elementor</li>
</ul>
<h3>Getting Started</h3>
<h3>Adding the Booking Calendar to Your Site</h3>
Method 1: Shortcode (Works Anywhere) 
Add <code>[bookster_booking_form]</code> to any page, post, or widget area.
Method 2: Block Editor 
1. Edit the page where you want the booking form 
2. Click the + button to add a block 
3. Search for “Bookster” 
4. Select the Bookster Booking Form block 
5. Publish the page
Method 3: Classic Editor 
Paste <code>[bookster_booking_form]</code> directly into your content.
<h3>Viewing and Managing Appointments</h3>
<ol>
<li>Go to Bookster → Calendar in your WordPress dashboard</li>
<li>You’ll see all appointments in calendar format</li>
<li>Click any appointment to view details or make changes</li>
<li>Use the view buttons at top to switch between day/week/month views</li>
<li>Use filters to show appointments based on agents or booking status</li>
</ol>
<h3>Creating a Manual Booking (For Walk-Ins or Phone Bookings)</h3>
<ol>
<li>Go to Bookster → Calendar</li>
<li>Click the + New Appointment button (or click an empty time slot)</li>
<li>Select the service and staff member</li>
<li>Choose date and time</li>
<li>Enter customer information (name, email, phone)</li>
<li>Select payment method</li>
<li>Click Create Appointment</li>
<li>Customer automatically receives confirmation email</li>
</ol>
<h3>Troubleshooting</h3>
<h3>Booking calendar not showing on my page</h3>
Check 1: Verify the shortcode 
Make sure you added <code>[bookster_booking_form]</code> exactly (with square brackets).
Check 2: Clear cache 
If using a caching plugin, clear your cache: WP Rocket → Clear Cache or similar.
Check 3: Theme conflict 
Temporarily switch to a default WordPress theme (Twenty Twenty-Five) to test. If it works, there’s a theme conflict.
<h3>Customers not receiving email confirmations</h3>
Check 1: Email settings 
Go to Bookster → Integrations → Email tab and confirm email notifications are enabled.
Check 2: Check spam folders 
Ask customers to check spam/junk folders. Add your domain to their contacts.
Check 3: WordPress email issues 
WordPress email can be unreliable. Install an SMTP plugin like YaySMTP to improve email delivery: 
1. Install YaySMTP plugin 
2. Connect it to Gmail, SendGrid, or Mailgun 
3. Send a test email to verify
Check 4: Test with yourself 
Create a test booking using your own email to confirm emails are sending.
<h3>Time slots not showing as available</h3>
Check 1: Working hours configured 
Go to Bookster → Settings → Schedule and verify hours are set for the day in question.
Check 2: Agent availability 
If using staff members, check Bookster → Agents and verify the agent works on that day.
Check 3: Minimum advance notice 
Check Bookster → Settings → General → Restrictions, if you require 24-hour notice, today’s appointments won’t show.
Check 4: Service duration 
If your service is 2 hours but only 1 hour remains before closing time, that slot won’t appear.
<h3>Double bookings happening</h3>
This shouldn’t happen with Bookster. If it does:
Check 1: Multiple admin users 
If multiple people manage bookings, ensure everyone refreshes the calendar before creating appointments.
Check 2: Contact support 
If this persists, contact Bookster support with specific examples.
<h3>PayPal payments not working</h3>
<ol>
<li>Go to Bookster → Settings → Payments tab</li>
<li>Verify your PayPal email address is correct</li>
<li>Confirm PayPal is enabled (toggle should be blue/on)</li>
<li>Test in PayPal sandbox mode first</li>
<li>Check if PayPal account is verified and can accept payments</li>
<li>Review PayPal transaction logs for error messages</li>
</ol>
<h3>Calendar showing wrong timezone</h3>
<ol>
<li>Go to Settings → General in WordPress</li>
<li>Set your city timezone correctly (e.g., “New York” or “Berlin”)</li>
<li>Save changes</li>
<li>Go to Bookster → Settings and verify timezone matches</li>
<li>Clear browser cache and reload</li>
</ol>
<h3>Third-Party Services</h3>
Bookster uses these external services to provide full functionality:
FullCalendar.io
<ul>
<li>Purpose: Renders the interactive booking calendar</li>
<li>Privacy: No personal data sent to FullCalendar</li>
<li>Terms: https://fullcalendar.io/license</li>
</ul>
Stripe.com (Optional – only if using Stripe addon)
<ul>
<li>Purpose: Process credit card payments</li>
<li>Data shared: Customer name, email, payment amount</li>
<li>Privacy: https://stripe.com/privacy</li>
</ul>
PayPal.com
<ul>
<li>Purpose: Process PayPal payments</li>
<li>Data shared: Customer name, email, payment amount </li>
<li>Privacy: https://www.paypal.com/privacy</li>
</ul>
When customers make payments, they’re redirected to Stripe or PayPal’s secure servers. Bookster does not store credit card numbers.
<h3>Support</h3>
Need help? We’re here for you:
<ul>
<li>Documentation: Visit Bookster’s <a href="https://docs.yaycommerce.com/bookster/management/dashboard" rel="nofollow ugc">detailed guides</a></li>
<li>Support Forum: Post questions in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/bookster/" rel="ugc">WordPress.org support forum</a></li>
<li>Email & Live Chat Support: Contact us through the <a href="https://wpbookster.com/support/" rel="nofollow ugc">Bookster website</a></li>
<li>Video Tutorials: Watch setup videos on our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@wpbookster" rel="nofollow ugc">YouTube channel</a></li>
</ul>
Response time: We typically respond within 4 hours on business days and 12 hours on weekends.
<h3>We’d Love Your Feedback ❣️</h3>
If Bookster helps your business, please leave us a review on WordPress.org! It takes 60 seconds and brightens our day. <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/bookster/reviews/?filter=5" rel="ugc">Click here ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to share your experience</a>.
Have a feature request? We’re actively developing new features based on user feedback. <a href="https://feedbo.io/board/bookster/" rel="nofollow ugc">Submit your ideas here</a>.
<h3>Compatibility</h3>
Works With All Major WordPress Themes:
<ul>
<li>Brandy</li>
<li>WP Shadcn</li>
<li>GeneratePress</li>
<li>OceanWP</li>
<li>Divi</li>
<li>Avada</li>
<li>And thousands more</li>
</ul>
Page Builders:
<ul>
<li>Elementor</li>
<li>Gutenberg (Block Editor)</li>
<li>Classic Editor</li>
<li>Beaver Builder</li>
<li>WPBakery</li>
</ul>
<h3>What’s Next?</h3>
After installing Bookster:
<ol>
<li>Run the setup wizard</li>
<li>Add the booking calendar to a page</li>
<li>Create a test booking to see the customer experience</li>
<li>Customize email templates with your branding</li>
<li>Share your booking page link with customers</li>
<li>Start accepting appointments 24/7!</li>
</ol>
Your new booking system is ready to help you grow your business. Welcome to Bookster! 🚀

Bookster – WordPress Appointment Booking Plugin

Manage real-time bookings with ease. Accept online or in-person payments seamlessly on your WordPress site.

appointy

Trusted by businesses since 2010, Appointy is one of the most popular, reliable, and highly rated appointment scheduling and WordPress booking calendar plugin. It has all the features that businesses need to accept appointments, calendar bookings and payments 24×7 in one easy-to-use user interface. Additionally, it can also help you:
<ol>
<li>Schedule online: Customers self-schedule anytime, anywhere.</li>
<li>Increase productivity: Improve staff productivity, manage multiple staff and locations.</li>
<li>Attract customers: Social promotion via Facebook, Twitter, and Email marketing. Reserve with Google Integration.</li>
<li>Retain customers: Understand your customers and run customer loyalty programs.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Appointy has been built from the ground up keeping business growth at its core</h3>
With Appointy’s super-quick guided setup, (or you may opt for our Free Done For You setup), enterprise level customization, built in marketing & analytics features and simplified integration with your website, you will get an instant boost for your business’s revenue, exposure and customer satisfaction.
With its partnership with Google, Appointy also provides you the opportunity to turn Google searchers into paying customers using Reserve with Google.
<h3>What can I use Appointy for ?</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Appointment Scheduling : Schedule services or staff (Hair Salon Booking, Barber Shop booking, Beauty Center Booking, Spa Booking, Acupuncture Booking, Dog Groomers Booking, Massage Therapists Booking, One-to-One coaching, Gym, Dentists Appointment Scheduling, Doctors Appointment Scheduling, Nutritionist Appointment Booking,Fitness Coach booking etc).
</li>
<li>
Class Scheduling : Yoga Class Scheduling , Dance Class Scheduling, Fitness Class Scheduling , Cooking Class Booking,Culture classroom booking, ,Swimming Class booking, Music class booking etc.
</li>
<li>
Resource Scheduling : Schedule Resources (Balloon Rides, Real Estates or Agents, Hotel Rooms, Machines, Pools, Courts, Rentals etc.)
</li>
<li>
Event Scheduling / Event Booking: Schedule Events with Events Calendar (Single or Multiple occurring events)
</li>
<li>
Meeting Scheduler: Book Meetings Online
</li>
<li>
Booking Calendar / Appointment Calendar: Book Calendar, Book Rental, Beauty Salon Booking, Tour Guide Booking, Restaurant Booking, Cafe Booking, Conference Room booking, Car Rental Booking, Hospital Booking, Clinic Booking, Facility Booking, Private Residence Booking
</li>
<li>
Reservations: Hotel reservation & bookings, Tour Reservations, Reserve Calendar, Any kind of Online Reservations
</li>
<li>
Almost any other business that accepts appointments
</li>
</ul>
<a href="https://www.appointy.com/?utm_source=wordpress&utm_medium=textdescription&utm_campaign=wptext" rel="nofollow ugc">Homepage</a> | <a href="https://www.appointy.com/online-appointment-scheduling-software/?utm_source=wordpress&utm_medium=textdescription&utm_campaign=wptext" rel="nofollow ugc">Appointment Scheduling</a> | <a href="https://www.appointy.com/online-class-scheduling-software/?utm_source=wordpress&utm_medium=textdescription&utm_campaign=wptext" rel="nofollow ugc">Class Scheduling</a> | <a href="https://www.appointy.com/online-activity-scheduling-software/?utm_source=wordpress&utm_medium=textdescription&utm_campaign=wptext" rel="nofollow ugc">Activity Scheduling</a> | <a href="https://booking.appointy.com/demospa/?utm_source=wordpress&utm_medium=textdescription&utm_campaign=wptext" rel="nofollow ugc">Demo</a>
<div class="embed-vimeo" style="text-align: center;"><iframe loading="lazy" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/134405724" width="750" height="422" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<h3>Appointy Features and Pricing</h3>
Free Plan:
Features offered in Free Plan 
1. No. of Staff Users: 1 
2. No. of Services: 5 
3. No. of Appointments in a month: 100 
4. Clients can schedule appointments 24×7 
5. Integration on your website and Facebook page 
6. Check Daily, weekly, and monthly availability in just one click 
7. Schedule classes, groups, events or individual appointments 
8. Zapier Integration 
9. Automatic Reminders 
10. Mobile App 
11. Reschedule appointments 
12. Set service dependency 
13. Client Verification 
14. Automatic appointment assignment to staff 
15. Reserve with Google integration 
16. CRM Tool 
17. 24×7 Customer Support and Free Setup 
18. Real Time Notifications 
19. SSL Security 
20. Accept Payments through Square 
21. Instagram and Facebook Integration
Premium Plans: Growth, Professional, Enterprise
Features offered in Premium Plans: (All features of the free plan + the features below as per plan type) 
1. No. of Staff Users: 1-5 as per plan with option to add more staff members 
2. No. of Services: Unlimited 
3. No. of Appointments in a month: Unlimited 
4. Schedule resources/ equipment/ rooms in addition to staff 
5. Service Level Agreement 
6. Multi Location Support 
7. Recurring bookings 
8. Capacity booking 
9. Two way Google calendar synchronisation 
10. i-Cal feed 
11. Office 365 integration 
12. Google Analytics 
13. Google Tag Manager 
14. Customizable deals and discounts 
15. Gift certificates 
16. Accept Payments through Square,Stripe, PayPal and Authorize.Net 
17. Business analysis reports 
18. Separate staff login 
19. SMS customization 
20. Custom booking portal, features & Integration
<h3>Support</h3>
For any help or setup support you may mail us at <a href="mailto:contact@appointy.com" rel="nofollow ugc">contact@appointy.com</a> 
You can also schedule an appointment by <a href="https://booking.appointy.com/support/?utm_source=wordpress&utm_medium=textdescription&utm_campaign=Wordpress_description" rel="nofollow ugc">clicking this link</a>
You may also call us at our 24×7 support numbers: 
24×7 Support: USA <a href="tel:+1 786 766 7676" rel="nofollow ugc">+1 786 766 7676</a> 
24×7 Support: UK <a href="tel:+44 20 3871 3003" rel="nofollow ugc">+44 20 3871 3003</a>
<h3>Why is Appointy better than other standalone WordPress scheduling plugins</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Freemium plan that’s free forever. No credit card required. Affordable pricing that scales as your business grows. No hidden costs. Most WordPress scheduling plugins just provide basic features in the free version and then force you to buy premium add-ons for additional critical features like payments etc. whereas Appointy provides many of these premium features in its free forever version itself. As a result, the standalone WordPress plugins with their add-ons end up being more expensive and bug ridden in the long term over Appointy.
</li>
<li>
Other WordPress scheduling plugins are often plagued by poor support and long issue resolution turnaround times but Appointy being one of the biggest players in the appointment scheduling domain, is proud to offer the highest standards of customer support 24×7 through call/chat/email. You can even request free setup assistance for your business.
</li>
<li>
Other WordPress scheduling plugins and their add-ons often create unnecessary bloat in the WordPress dashboard thus slowing down your website and resulting in compatibility clashes with your theme and other plugins, whereas Appointy is a SaaS application and all the heavy processing is managed by Appointy’s super fast cloud servers so that processing is extremely fast and you never lose your precious data or appointments.
</li>
<li>
Other WordPress scheduling plugins require setting up of server cron jobs and specialized server settings forcing you to either upgrade to higher hosting plans or losing out on bookings/appointment reminders thus eventually affecting your business’s service quality and customer satisfaction. But with Appointy, you can set up scheduling on your website with just the basic shared hosting plan as all the sms/email reminders, are taken care of by Appointy with their efficient cloud service with 99.99% uptime guarantee. This saves you unnecessary hosting costs and ensures professional services to your customers.
</li>
<li>
Other WordPress scheduling plugins creates security vulnerabilities, whereas Appointy being a SaaS application is 100% safe and integrates with your favourite payment processors out of the box even in its free plan.
</li>
<li>
Other WordPress plugins which have their working from within WordPress remain exposed to problems caused by WordPress version updates leading to service downtimes and business losses whereas Appointy being a SaaS is always resistant to compatibility and functionality issues arising out of any such updates, thus ensuring robust performance and business reliability.
</li>
<li>
Other scheduling plugins tend to get limited by features and as your requirements grow along with your business, you are forced to switch platforms which impacts your business and creates new problems. Whereas, Appointy offers enterprise level plans and features so that as your business grows Appointy will be your growth partner throughout your journey.
</li>
<li>
Unlike other plugins, Appointy offers multi platform access to your business settings and administration. You can access Appointy on the go through our Android and iOS apps as well.
</li>
<li>
Unlike other WordPress scheduling plugins, Appointy has several marketing and analytics features so that you can get an edge over your competition.
</li>
<li>
Unlike other WordPress scheduling plugins, Appointy has a very intuitive interface and onboarding process which enables you to get comfortable with the system within the first 5 minutes itself. In case you need help, our 24×7 support desk is always at your disposal. Appointy also provides you with several third party software integrations.
</li>
<li>
Several of the standalone free WordPress plugins compromise your data and the data of your customers and are not GDPR compliant. Appointy being the one of the most trusted and reliable appointment scheduling plugins, is GDPR compliant and provides 100% security for you and your customer’s data.
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Translations</h3>
Appointy appointment booking and online scheduling is available in:
<ul>
<li>Chinese</li>
<li>Croatian</li>
<li>Czech</li>
<li>Danish</li>
<li>Estonian</li>
<li>French</li>
<li>Finnish</li>
<li>German</li>
<li>Greek</li>
<li>Hungarian</li>
<li>Italian</li>
<li>Japanese</li>
<li>Lithuanian</li>
<li>Latvian</li>
<li>Dutch</li>
<li>Nynorsk</li>
<li>Portuguese</li>
<li>Polish</li>
<li>Russian</li>
<li>Romanian</li>
<li>Spanish</li>
<li>Slovenian</li>
<li>Serbian</li>
<li>Slovak</li>
<li>Swedish</li>
<li>Turkish</li>
</ul>

WordPress Appointment Booking and Online Scheduling Plugin by Appointy

Trusted by businesses since 2010. Online scheduling & booking plugin that’s reliable, easy to use and feature packed. 24x7 setup & support.

Bookster – WordPress Appointment Booking Plugin vs WordPress Appointment Booking and Online Scheduling Plugin by Appointy