Most booking software is built around one customer in one slot. A class inverts that: one slot, a dozen customers, a cap you must not exceed and a set of people who bought ten sessions in March and are still working through them. Software that models an appointment and calls it a class will fail you on the second point.
The four things a class needs that an appointment does not
A capacity, enforced. Overbooking a Tuesday reformer class with twelve machines is not a minor inconvenience, and a system that lets a thirteenth person book will do it on the night you are not looking.
A waitlist that moves by itself. Cancellations in classes arrive late and cluster, so a waitlist only earns its keep if it offers the place automatically and gives the next person a deadline before moving on.
A timetable that repeats. Classes run weekly for a term, then the term changes. Rebuilding the week by hand every time is the single biggest time sink studio owners report.
Passes and blocks. Ten class cards, monthly memberships and term blocks are how studios actually get paid, and they need to draw down against attendance without you keeping a tally.
Get paid before the door
Pay on the day is the reason class businesses have a no show problem. Somebody who has not paid has nothing to lose by staying home in the rain, and the seat they are holding was refused to somebody else.
Payment at booking fixes most of it. So does a block of sessions bought up front, which has the added effect of committing somebody to a course rather than to one session they will judge on how they feel that week.
Have a cancellation window and hold it. Something like twelve hours is normal. Publish it, put it on the confirmation and let the software enforce it rather than deciding case by case, because deciding case by case is how a policy becomes a negotiation.
What to test before you commit
- Set a capacity and try to exceed it
- Cancel a booking and watch the waitlist offer move
- Build a recurring weekly timetable and change one week of it
- Sell a ten class pass and check it draws down on attendance
- Take a booking from a phone the way a customer would
- Cover a class with a different teacher
- Print or open a register for a session
Mixed timetables
Most studios are not purely classes. There are one to one sessions, assessments, occasional workshops and room hire, and they share the same space and the same diary.
A system that handles only classes pushes the one to ones into a separate calendar, and double bookings follow within a month. Check that both live in the same diary and that the room or the equipment is what gets booked, not just the teacher.
Youzse runs classes, recurring series, class packages and one to one appointments in one diary, with payment taken at booking. Plans start at £19 a month, card payments are 2.5% plus 35p with the platform fee inside the rate and there is 0% commission on new clients who find you through the marketplace.
Where to go next
Youzse for pilates instructors
Capacity, waitlists and class passes for a studio timetable.
Youzse for yoga instructors
Recurring weekly classes with payment taken at booking.
Youzse for dance teachers
Term blocks, registers and parents paying for a child's place.
Youzse pricing
Priced per business rather than per student or per class.
Keep reading
- Choosing software
Choosing an online booking system in the UK
What a UK small business should look for in an online booking system: whether it invoices as well as books, VAT handling, UK GDPR and card rates in pounds.
- Choosing software
What "no commission" actually means
Commission-free booking software is a crowded claim. What the word commission hides, the questions that expose it and how to compare the total you pay.
- Choosing software
Do you actually need booking software?
A straight answer for UK service businesses. When a paper diary is genuinely fine, the four signs you have outgrown it and whether software pays for itself.