Taking appointments and reservations
Let customers book a time from your live availability — one-on-one appointments (salon, spa, coaching) or shared seated reservations (restaurant, tasting room). You set the hours and the rules; the store generates the open times and never double-books.
Taking appointments and reservations
Bookings on Zillo are Calendly-style: you set weekly hours and rules on a resource (a stylist, a table, a tasting room), and the store generates the open times for customers to pick from. The store never double-books and lets you flip between two shapes:
- One-on-one appointments — salon, spa, coaching, dental, court bookings.
- Shared seated reservations — restaurants, tasting rooms, anywhere multiple parties book into the same window until it fills.
For fixed-date events (a 7pm tasting, a Saturday morning class), use Event tickets with multiple dates instead — the customer picks one date at checkout.
Appointment vs reservation
The shape is chosen by the Max seated setting:
- One-on-one appointment (Max seated = 1) — the booked time belongs to one customer. A hair appointment, a massage, a 1 coaching session. Booking 2pm with a stylist takes that stylist's 2pm.
- Seated reservation (Max seated > 1) — a single time holds several parties until it's full. A 7pm restaurant seating that seats 20; a party of 6 takes 6 of those seats.
Create a booking product
- Open Products and click New product → Appointment or Reservation (or the AI builder will route you to the right form).
- Fill in the basics — title, description, photo, and price. A free reservation? Set the price to 0 and customers book with no payment.
- Assign a resource — the person, table, or room this is booked against.
- Set the rules (below), then Publish.
The booking rules
- Duration — how long one appointment lasts.
- Time step — how far apart the offered start times are. Leave blank for back-to-back times (every duration minutes).
- Minimum lead time — how far ahead a customer must book. A time disappears once it's inside this window, so you're never surprised by a booking five minutes out.
- Booking window — how many days into the future customers can book.
- Buffer before / after — quiet time padded around each appointment so back-to-backs aren't jammed together.
- Max seated — guests per time. 1 = one-on-one; higher = a shared seating.
- Min / max booking size — the smallest and largest party a single booking can be.
For restaurant seatings, set the time step equal to the duration so seatings are clean and back-to-back — a 6
, a 7, a 9 — rather than overlapping.What customers see
The booking page shows the resource (or lets them choose, when more than one is offered), then a date and the open times. For a seated reservation each time shows how many seats are left, and the party-size picker won't let them book more than will fit. Sold-out times drop off automatically, and the store never double-books a one-on-one slot — even if two people try at the same instant, only one wins.
When the customer reaches checkout, their time is held for a few minutes while they fill in their details — a countdown shows how long. That stops two people racing for the last table and losing it mid-checkout. If the hold runs out, they're prompted to pick another time.
Add upgrades and required choices
Attach add-ons to a booking — a wine pairing, a photographer, a bottle on arrival — from the product editor. Optional add-ons are simple extras; group them into a required, choose-one menu (a banquet menu where every party must pick one) when you need a selection before checkout can continue. See Add-ons and upgrades.
What you get
Every booking issues a confirmation email with a QR code and a calendar invite (.ics) the customer can add to their own calendar in a tap. You manage bookings from Orders and the booking list — each shows the time, the resource, the party size, and the customer's details.
Availability comes from the hours you set on each resource — Zillo doesn't read your Google or Outlook calendar. To block a day off, add a date-specific override on the resource (see the resources article below).