Your availability is what controls which time slots clients see on your booking page. The defaults the onboarding wizard ships are a starting point; most practitioners refine theirs over the first few weeks. This is the full picture of what you can tune.
Weekly hours
Under Settings, Availability, each day of the week has a row. For each day, set:
- Whether the day is bookable at all.
- The hours within that day when clients can book.
You can have multiple blocks per day (mornings only on Mondays, plus a Tuesday evening). The bookable slots within those blocks are calculated based on your services' durations.
Time off
Time off is the layer on top of your weekly hours. Use it for vacations, conferences, "I am taking Tuesday off this week," and anything else that does not fit the weekly pattern.
To add a time-off block, go to your Calendar, find the time you want to block, and create a personal block. Or from Availability, click Add time off and pick a date range.
Time-off blocks override weekly hours but do not affect existing bookings. If you already have a 2 PM appointment on a day you later mark as off, that appointment stays on the calendar. The block only prevents new bookings.
Lead time
Lead time is the minimum notice a client must give to book. The default is two hours. If your services need prep, raise it. If you want to support same-day-walk-up-style bookings, lower it.
A useful default for most solo practices is between two and twelve hours. Twenty-four hours is sometimes right for services with significant prep (deep-tissue prep, longer skincare protocols).
Lookahead window
The lookahead window is how far in advance clients can book. The default is 60 days.
- Shorter windows (14 to 30 days) are useful for practices with a lot of fluctuation, where you do not know what next month looks like yet.
- Longer windows (90 to 180 days) are useful for practices with predictable schedules and regulars who want to book a series of weekly appointments at once.
You can change the window without affecting any existing bookings.
Buffer time
Buffer time is the gap ApptOnly inserts between bookings. The default is zero. Practical buffer values:
- 5 to 10 minutes for low-prep services so you have a moment to reset the room.
- 15 to 30 minutes for services that need real cleanup or where you need to change out (massage table sheets, treatment room turnover).
Buffer is added after each appointment, not before. So a 60-minute session that starts at 2 PM with a 15-minute buffer means the next bookable slot is 3:15 PM.
Multi-location notes
ApptOnly's data model supports multiple locations, but the practitioner-facing UI for managing them is still being built out. For now, run one location per business. If you need to offer the same services from a second location, the easiest pattern is a second business account.
Common refinements after launch
- Practitioners who set 9-to-5 hours often tighten to 10-to-2 within the first month, because the early-and-late slots that nobody books are visual clutter.
- Lookahead windows tend to grow over time as practitioners get more confident in their forward calendar.
- Buffer time tends to grow, not shrink, as practitioners get more honest about how long resets actually take.