Selling bookings & appointments (overview)
An overview of how to sell bookable appointments, classes, and rentals using WooCommerce Bookings.
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
If your business offers services by appointment — consultations, classes, rentals, tours, or any time-based service — WooCommerce Bookings lets customers book and pay directly through your website.
Quick summary
WooCommerce does not include bookings by default. You need the WooCommerce Bookings extension (paid, made by Woo). It lets you create bookable products with available time slots, block out time, set prices per booking or by duration, and let customers book and pay online. For each product, you choose whether bookings go straight through or need your approval first.
What WooCommerce Bookings can do
WooCommerce Bookings is a powerful extension that supports:
- Fixed time slots (e.g., "Book a 30-minute call at 2 PM")
- Flexible durations (e.g., "Rent for 1–5 hours, customer chooses")
- Bookings by the day (e.g., equipment hire — "Pick up March 3, return March 6"). Overnight stays with check-in and check-out times need the free Accommodation Bookings add-on.
- Group bookings (e.g., "Book a table for 2–8 people")
- Multiple staff or resources (e.g., assign to a specific instructor or room)
- Buffer times between bookings
- Custom availability rules and blocked-off dates
Woo says Bookings isn't designed for one-off event tickets (it suggests its Box Office extension for those) or for recurring events.
How the booking process works
You set up a bookable product. Go to Products → Add New and choose the Bookable Product product type, or start from a template at Bookings → Add Product. Configure available days, time slots, duration, prices, and any extra options (like number of people).
A customer books online. They visit the product page, select a date and time slot, choose any options, and add to cart.
They pay at checkout. Standard WooCommerce checkout, with any payment gateway you use. To take a deposit instead of the full amount, you need the separate WooCommerce Deposits extension.
The booking appears in your dashboard. A new booking appears under Bookings → All Bookings. Depending on the product's settings, it either goes straight through or waits for your approval.
The customer gets emails — WooCommerce's usual order emails, extra emails from Bookings when a booking needs your approval and when you confirm it, and a reminder one day before the booking.
Booking confirmation: auto or manual
You can choose, for each bookable product, whether bookings are automatically confirmed or require your approval (the Requires confirmation setting):
| Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Automatic confirmation | The customer books and pays at checkout. No action needed from you. |
| Manual confirmation | The customer requests the booking with a Check Availability button instead of paying. It is marked Pending Confirmation until you approve it, and then the customer gets an email asking them to pay. Useful when you need to check availability before confirming. These bookings have to be checked out on their own, without other products in the cart. |
Managing your bookings
Go to Bookings → All Bookings. You'll see all your bookings, with the newest at the top.
Click a booking to view the details — customer, date, time, product, number of people, resources, and a link to the order.
Use Bookings → Calendar for a visual overview of what's booked when.
Confirm or cancel bookings. In the All Bookings list, use the Confirm action on a booking that's waiting for approval, or select several and use the Confirm bookings or Cancel bookings bulk actions. You can also change a booking's status from its detail page.
Blocking time off / availability settings
You can control your availability for the whole store (Bookings → Settings → Store Availability), for individual products, and for resources. For example, you can:
- Set regular weekly hours (e.g., available Mon–Fri, 9 AM–5 PM).
- Add one-off unavailable dates (holidays, vacations).
- Set how far ahead customers can book (e.g., at least 1 day in advance, or no more than 60 days out).
Integration with Google Calendar
WooCommerce Bookings can sync with Google Calendar (one-way or two-way), so your bookings appear in your calendar. It's set up under Bookings → Settings → Calendar Connection and needs a Google account — ask us to configure it.
Common questions
What does WooCommerce Bookings cost?
WooCommerce Bookings is a paid extension sold by WooCommerce, on a 1-year or 2-year plan. Visit woocommerce.com/products/woocommerce-bookings/ for current pricing.
Can customers reschedule a booking?
Woo's Bookings documentation covers letting customers cancel a booking (if you turn on Can be cancelled for the product), not rescheduling it themselves. You can move a booking yourself: open it from Bookings → All Bookings and change its start and end date and time. The customer isn't emailed about the change automatically, so let them know (for example, with a note to the customer on the linked order). Ask us if self-service rescheduling is important to you.
Can I take a deposit instead of full payment at booking?
Yes, with the separate WooCommerce Deposits extension. It adds a Deposits tab to bookable products, where you can require a deposit (a fixed amount or a percentage) at booking time, with the remainder due later.
Can multiple staff members be assigned to different bookings?
Yes. WooCommerce Bookings supports "resources" — you can set up each staff member, room, or piece of equipment as a resource, and customers either choose one or are assigned the first available one automatically.
Related guides
Need a hand?
Learn more
Last updated