How to take class bookings online, from timetable to cancellations
Before choosing a tool, answer one question: does each slot hold one person or a group? Anticode's booking calendar holds one booking per service, day and time, which is exactly right for private lessons and refuses double bookings on its own. Group classes need a place count, and that's best handled by a checkout that stops at capacity.
Match the class to the method
| Kind of class | Example | Method on an Anticode site |
|---|---|---|
| One-to-one | Piano lesson, private yoga, a driving lesson | Booking calendar: the visitor picks the class, day and time |
| Small group, fixed dates | Six-week beginners' course, a Saturday workshop | Payment link to your provider, where each date has a place limit |
| Drop-in group class | Tuesday evening Pilates for 14 | A timetable page plus a checkout or class-pass tool from your provider |
| Enquiry first | Children's classes needing a chat with a parent | Contact form, then you confirm by reply |
Setting up one-to-one bookings
- List your classes as services with a length and price each, for example "60-minute private lesson".
- Ask for the calendar: "a booking page for private music lessons with a booking calendar, prices and a cancellation policy". The booking form asks for the service, day, time, name, phone and email.
- Know how it behaves. The calendar always shows the coming days, skips Mondays and offers six fixed times a day (09:00, 10:30, 12:00, 14:30, 16:00, 17:30); you can't set your own hours, lesson lengths or closed days. Dates in the past or more than 120 days ahead are refused, and once one person books a service at a day and time, nobody else can take that slot.
- Connect a notification: Slack, Telegram, Discord or the default email to your account, so you see each booking quickly. A Google Sheets or Airtable connector keeps a running list.
- Confirm each booking by reply from your own email or phone, with the address and what to bring. Anticode doesn't email the person who booked.
- Publish and book a slot yourself to check the whole path.
Setting up group classes
Because one slot holds one booking, the calendar can't count places in a class of fourteen. Use your payment provider instead. Create one product per class date (or a class pass) at Stripe, PayPal, Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, Shopify or Whop, with a quantity limit if your provider offers one. Your Anticode account has one payment link, so point it at a page at your provider that lists the dates, and have the timetable page's buy buttons open it. The provider keeps the list of who has booked each date.
Studios with many weekly classes, memberships and class packs often outgrow this and use a dedicated studio booking service. In that case, keep the timetable and the studio's story on your Anticode site and link the "Book" button to that service; published pages can't embed booking widgets, but they can link to them.
Payment and cancellations
The booking calendar takes no payment and no deposits. For one-to-one lessons, common patterns are pay on the day, a block of lessons paid in advance by a link you send, or a monthly invoice. Cancellations happen by message to you: write the policy on the page (for example, 24 hours' notice or the lesson is charged), and handle refunds in your provider's dashboard. There are no recurring bookings, so a weekly student books each lesson or you agree the series with them directly.
What goes wrong
- A student books a time you're away. No calendar sync. Confirm by reply and offer an alternative.
- A group date oversells. The provider's quantity limit is the only real stop; set it before you share the link.
- People book the wrong service. Name services plainly with length and level.
- No-shows. Send a reminder the day before from your own phone or email tool.
How you know it's working
Bookings arrive as notifications you act on within your stated reply time. No slot has two students. Group dates fill to their limit and stop. And your inbox has fewer "is Thursday free?" messages, because the calendar answers that.
Limits
No deposits, custom hours or slot lengths, capacity per slot, recurring bookings, calendar sync, staff rotas, waitlists, reminders or class passes in Anticode. See the booking calendar, adding a booking calendar to a website, selling workshop tickets and the yoga studios guide.
Questions people ask
Can the booking calendar handle a class of ten people?
No. Each service, day and time takes one booking. For group classes, sell places through your payment provider with a quantity limit.
Can students pay when they book?
Not inside the booking calendar. Take payment through a payment link to your provider, on the day, or by invoice.
What's the simplest way to take class bookings online for private lessons?
The booking calendar on your site, a notification to your phone, and a confirmation you send by reply.