Choose How Customers Pay

Some sessions are free, some get paid in cash at the studio, and some need money up front before you block the time. Core Bookings sets the payment method per service, so a free discovery call, a pay-at-the-door class and a prepaid strategy session can all live on the same site.

Pick a Method for a Service

Open a service in Bookings → Services and go to the Payment section. Choose a Payment method, then set the Price and Due at booking (%). Paid services need a price of at least 0.50 in your booking currency.

Payment method	How the customer pays
Free	Nothing to pay. The booking confirms straight away.
Pay offline	The booking confirms straight away and shows as “Pay offline” until you record the payment.
Stripe hosted Checkout	Card payment on Stripe’s own checkout page.
Stripe embedded payment	Card payment inside the booking page, without leaving your site.
FluentCart checkout	Your FluentCart checkout page, with the gateways you set up in FluentCart.
PayPal checkout	PayPal’s checkout page. Needs the PayPal, Polar and Paddle module.
Polar checkout	Polar’s checkout page. Polar is the merchant of record and handles tax.
Paddle checkout	Paddle’s checkout overlay on a page of your site. Paddle is the merchant of record and handles tax.

PayPal, Polar and Paddle only appear in the list after you switch them on. If you switch one off later, services that use it keep it (marked “switched off”) and new bookings for them are refused until you turn it back on or pick another method.

What Happens at Checkout

For every online method, the flow is the same:

1. The customer picks a time and submits the form. Core Bookings holds the time for about 32 minutes and shows “Your time is held while you complete payment.”
2. They click Continue to payment on their booking page and pay with the provider.
3. The provider tells your site about the payment. Core Bookings checks the amount, the currency and that the time is still free, then confirms the booking.

If the hold runs out before payment, the time is released. If a payment arrives after the time was taken, or the amount doesn’t match, the booking goes to payment review instead of confirming. On services that need staff approval, online payment starts only after you approve the request.

A recurring request is paid in one checkout for the whole series.

Take a Deposit

Due at booking (%) sets how much of the price the customer pays when they book, from 1 to 100. The default is 100, which means full payment. Set it to 30 on a 200.00 service and the customer pays 60.00 at checkout.

How the rest gets paid depends on the method:

• Stripe hosted Checkout, Stripe embedded payment and FluentCart checkout: once the booking is confirmed, the customer’s booking page shows a Pay remaining balance button with the amount. Stripe balances always use Stripe’s hosted checkout, even for embedded services. FluentCart balances open a separate FluentCart cart for exactly that amount.
• PayPal, Polar and Paddle: deposits work, but there’s no online balance button. Collect the rest offline.

You can let customers add a tip when they pay a Stripe balance. That lives in payment rules.

Record Offline Payments

When a customer pays in person, open the appointment in Bookings → Appointments and click Record offline payment. To mark several at once, tick them in the list and use the Record offline payment bulk action. Only confirmed, unpaid offline bookings can be marked paid.

Appointments you add yourself from the admin, such as phone or walk-in bookings, are always settled offline, whatever the service’s method. You can record them as paid when you create them.

Good to Know

• The booking currency is set in Bookings → Settings → General. Only currencies with two decimal places are available, and existing appointments keep the currency they were booked in.
• Session packs, memberships and gift card sales are paid through Stripe or FluentCart, never PayPal, Polar or Paddle.
• A booking fully covered by a gift card, session credits or a membership confirms with no checkout, even on an online-payment service.
• Cancelling a booking doesn’t refund it automatically. You issue refunds from the appointment, or in FluentCart for FluentCart orders.
• Saving keys doesn’t prove they work. Run a test booking in test or sandbox mode before you take live payments.

Next, connect your provider: Stripe, FluentCart, or PayPal, Polar or Paddle.