Create a Service: Length, Buffers, Notice and Cancellation Rules

A service is the thing customers book: a 30-minute call, a 90-minute massage, a weekly yoga class. It holds everything the booking form needs to know, from how long the appointment runs to how late a customer can still cancel online. Set these rules once and they apply everywhere the service appears, whether that’s a page, a popup or the service directory.

Set up at least one staff member with working hours before you create a service. The editor only lists active staff, and a service can’t be saved without one.

Create the Service

1. Go to Bookings → Services and click New service.
2. Under Service details, fill in the Service name (up to 200 characters), an optional Short description and a Location or meeting link.
3. Set the Duration (minutes), from 5 to 480. The default is 30.
4. Pick the Appointment type: One-to-one appointment or Scheduled group session.
5. Tick one or more people under Assigned staff.
6. Choose a Payment method under Payment. Paid services also need a Price and a Due at booking (%) figure, which is 100 for full payment or lower for a deposit.
7. Leave Available for online booking ticked and click Save service.

Group sessions ask for Seats per session (1 to 100) and at least one row under Scheduled sessions. That setup has its own guide: Group Sessions and Seat Limits. For payment methods, see Choose How Customers Pay.

Set Buffers, Notice and the Booking Window

Open Scheduling and cancellation rules below the payment section. These six numbers decide which start times customers see.

Setting	Default	Range	What it does
Start interval (minutes)	15	5 to 240	How often a start time is offered. With 15, a free hour shows 9:00, 9:15, 9:30 and so on.
Buffer before (minutes)	0	0 to 240	Time kept free before each appointment, for travel or prep.
Buffer after (minutes)	0	0 to 240	Time kept free after each appointment, for notes or cleanup.
Minimum notice (minutes)	60	0 to 525,600	How soon before a start time a customer can still book it.
Booking horizon (days)	60	1 to 365	How far ahead customers can book.
Change or cancel cutoff (minutes)	1,440	0 to 43,200	How close to the start a customer can still reschedule or cancel online. 1,440 is 24 hours. 0 keeps online changes open until the appointment starts.

Buffers block the staff member’s time, not the customer’s. A 60-minute session with a 15-minute buffer after it keeps 75 minutes off the calendar, but the customer still sees and books a 60-minute appointment.

How the Cancellation Cutoff Works

Customers see the cutoff on the details step before they book, and again on their booking page. Once it passes, the Reschedule and Cancel this appointment options close and the page tells the customer to contact the business. Staff can still change the appointment from the workspace.

Cancelling never refunds a payment on its own. If you want to charge for late cancellations, turn on the Payment rules module, covered in Cancellation Fees, No-show Protection, Tips and Peak Prices.

Preview Before You Save

Editing a live service is safer than it sounds. At the bottom of the editor:

• Preview changes checks up to 200 upcoming reservations against your new settings and lists any that fall outside the new availability or lose their staff member. It also counts candidate start times for the next seven days for one assigned staff member.
• Reason for change (optional) is stored with the edit in the service’s Revision history.
• If someone else saved the service while you were editing, your save is refused and your unsaved values are kept as a draft for 30 minutes, so you can copy them or click Reload saved values.

Existing appointments keep their times and the terms they were booked under. Changing the price or cutoff today doesn’t rewrite a booking made last week.

Good to Know

• Paid services need a price of at least 0.50 in your currency (50 minor units). Prices go up to 1,000,000 with two decimals.
• Untick Available for online booking to pause a service. Its booking page stops taking bookings, popup buttons for it disappear, and existing appointments stay as they are.
• Each service card on Bookings → Services shows its booking and upcoming counts, a Booking page link and an Embed shortcode you can copy.
• The rest of the editor (durations, visibility, guests, approvals, waitlists, questions and customer details) is covered in Durations, Categories, Guests, Limits and Visibility and the docs that follow it.

Want to see a finished service first? The Coaching Sessions demo shows a one-to-one service with several lengths and recurring bookings.