How to Use Acuity Scheduling: Setup Guide From First Service to Paid Bookings

Decide on paper before you click

This guide takes a new Acuity Scheduling account from signup to the first paid booking: calendars and services, hours and limits, a branded scheduling page, forms and reminders, payments and calendar sync, and a full test. Plan two to three hours. Most of the work is decisions, not clicks. Gather your service menu with prices and durations, each staff member's weekly hours, your cancellation and deposit policy, and logins for Stripe, Square or PayPal. Write down how many staff, rooms and locations clients book. These answers drive every step below. A salon that settles its services, stylists' hours, cancellation rule and deposit before opening Acuity can build the whole account in one sitting.

Start the trial and pick standalone or Squarespace

Sign up from the pricing page; the trial needs no card. It lasts seven days on its own or 14 attached to a Squarespace website, and during it you cannot send emails, customize notifications or send automated texts ^[1]. Build first and test reminders later. At the start you also choose to use Acuity by itself or attach it to a Squarespace site, and that choice cannot be changed later. Standalone accounts have unlimited contributors and their own billing; attached ones follow the website's billing and contributor limit. You can still embed a standalone scheduler on any Squarespace site, so most owners pick standalone.

Then add your business name, logo and business time zone. Logos can be JPEG, GIF or PNG, up to 600 by 120 pixels. Avoid emojis and special characters in the business name, because it becomes the sender name on your emails and some email providers reject it. Acuity adjusts for daylight saving time on its own. Still, check the time zone twice, because staff notifications always use it.

Build calendars and invite your staff

A calendar is a set of bookable times, usually one per staff member, room or location, and your plan caps them: one on Starter, six on Standard, 36 on Premium ^[2]. Staff who only manage bookings do not need a calendar, and shared rooms are better handled as resources. Draw the list on paper. A practice with two therapists who share one treatment room needs two calendars and one resource, not three calendars. That keeps it on Standard and stops double-booking the room.

Add a calendar for each person or location from the Availability panel, with a clear name, an address if it is a location, and an email or phone for notifications. Each calendar gets its own direct link, so name them as clients know them. Then invite staff as contributors with the access level they need: View Only, View and Edit, or Scheduling Administrator. Contributors must accept the invitation before they can access the account, and you can block them from exporting your client list. Give the lowest level that works.

Add your services, prices and classes

Appointment types, prices and add-ons

Appointment types are your services, and there is no limit to how many you can add, so list every service separately and assign each to the calendars that offer it. Start with your top five. Duplicating a type copies its settings but not its email and text notification settings. Durations run from 1 to 1,440 minutes; enter a price, or leave it blank so clients book for free. If your prices include tax, say so in the description. Price changes apply only to new bookings, with no built-in scheduled change, so raising a $90 service to $100 leaves every client already booked at the old price.

Add-ons change price and duration and can be chosen at booking or added later, which suits upgrades like a straight-razor shave after a haircut. Negative values discount or shorten a service, and staff-only add-ons can be marked admin-only. Once you have at least two services, group them into categories. Appointment types show in the order you create them, while calendars and categories sort alphabetically, so put the most booked service first. A private service stays off the public page but remains bookable by direct link, which suits returning clients, VIP offers and follow-ups. Test each private link.

Classes and class series

To run group sessions, create a class with a maximum number of participants; leaving it blank or zero turns it back into a regular service. The default is eight people, and an existing appointment type cannot become a class. A pottery studio with ten wheels should set the maximum to ten, because the default silently turns away two paying students per session. Class times are added to the calendar by hand. A class series sells several sessions at one price, clients sign up for every date and pay up front, and the series closes once the first class passes. Use series for courses.

Set hours, limits and how slots are offered

Set regular weekly hours for each calendar. Each day's field accepts up to 250 characters, so split shifts fit, and hours can alternate every other week for rotating schedules. "Availability is always set in Acuity", even when calendars sync, so enter real hours, not ideal ones. Override a single day without changing your regular hours, or set temporary hours that revert when they end. Block time for breaks, holidays and travel; weekly blocks can repeat until an end date, though blocked time does not affect classes. Add the year's holidays now.

Limits and padding

Decide how far ahead clients can book, how much notice you need, and how late they can cancel or edit. Limits apply to the whole account or per calendar, and calendar limits override global ones. Match the limit to your policy. If your policy asks for 24 hours of notice but the limit allows changes up to two hours before, clients will reschedule late with the system's blessing. Padding adds buffer time: a 30-minute service with 15 minutes of padding blocks 45 minutes. A mobile massage therapist with 60-minute sessions and 30 minutes of travel padding can be booked for at most five sessions in an eight-hour day, not eight.

Resources, groups and pooled calendars

Resources limit how many bookings can use a room or piece of equipment at once across calendars, so tie wash stations, treatment rooms or pedicure chairs to the services that need them. They do not work across calendars in different time zones. Availability groups give sets of services their own hours on one calendar, for consultations in the mornings and treatments in the afternoons; skip them if all services share hours. Pooling lets clients choose any available staff member, and round robin picks the calendar with the fewest appointments that day. Look busy and minimize gaps, which hide open slots, are best tried after launch.

Make the scheduling page look like yours

Open the style editor to set colors, fonts and your logo. Acuity can generate a color palette from an image, and the button and accent color also applies to email notifications; on Squarespace, a toggle matches your site styles. Keep contrast high. Then pick a template. The monthly layout is best for clients booking more than a week ahead, the daily layout shows the next five days, or two on a phone, and the classes layout lists sessions but blocks recurring bookings. Preview each on a phone before choosing.

You can change most of the text on the scheduler, such as the word appointment or field labels, from a computer browser. Use your clients' words. Finally, choose how time zones behave: times locked to your business zone, the business zone with an option to change, or the client's detected zone. Staff notifications always use the business zone, and clients cannot edit a time zone after booking. Online businesses should detect client zones.

Add forms, policies and reminders

Create intake forms in the Intake Form Questions panel and attach them to services. There is no limit on questions, each can run to 255 characters, field types include text, drop-down, checkbox, yes/no, file upload and address, and uploads take one file up to 5 MB. Ask only what you need. A tattoo studio that asks for placement, size, reference images and allergies can quote and prepare before the client arrives. Show your cancellation policy and require a checkbox agreeing to it, but plan another tool for electronic signatures. The confirmation page can carry a message per service, such as directions or parking.

Emails, texts and follow-ups

Acuity sends confirmations, reminders, follow-ups and order emails, each with a template you can edit per service, though not during a trial. Clients get up to three reminder emails, one on by default, and reminders can go out as little as one hour before. A 24-hour reminder suits most services. On Standard and Premium, add one text reminder per appointment, up to 300 characters, from 15 minutes to 14 days before ^[3]. Until your business is verified, default texts go from a general number. Start verification early.

Follow-ups go out from about 14 minutes to 365 days after the visit. Starter allows one per appointment, while Standard and Premium allow up to six, so use one to ask for a review and another to invite a rebooking. Sent follow-ups are not recalled if you later mark a no-show. With one reminder a day ahead and another two hours before, a client who books on a Monday for Friday hears from you twice in the last day. That is usually enough.

Connect payments, packages and subscriptions

Open the Payments panel and connect Stripe, Square or PayPal. PayPal can pair with Stripe or Square, but Stripe and Square cannot both be connected, and only one account per processor is allowed ^[4]. If you plan to sell memberships, connect Stripe or Square from the start. Subscriptions need a card stored on file, and switching processors later makes every active subscription fail until clients re-enter cards. On an embedded scheduler, register your domain with Stripe for Apple Pay and Google Pay. Then decide whether clients pay in full, pay a deposit, or leave a card to be charged later.

Deposits can be a percentage or a fixed amount, and Acuity's blog suggests 20 to 50% of the price as a rule of thumb. On a $150 service, a 30% deposit collects $45 at booking. Free services never require a card. Tipping on the scheduler defaults to 18%, with custom tips capped at 50% of the price, while the mobile app has its own setting with a 0% default. Align both. Tipping works only if you take full payment and do not use pay-what-you-want pricing.

On Standard and above, create packages and gift certificates from the Products panel, redeemable for appointments, minutes, dollars or unlimited bookings. Set expirations in days from purchase, because blank means never, and a ten-class pack with no expiration sits on the books as an open promise for years. Subscriptions need Stripe or Square and take a charge frequency, an optional setup fee and up to 23 payments, or no end. Do not edit a sold subscription. Coupons cover services, packages, gift certificates or subscriptions, one code per booking, and they do not reduce deposits. Launch one welcome coupon.

Connect calendars, video and booking channels

Connect Google, iCloud or Outlook so outside events block your Acuity hours. Each user can connect one account per service, initial sync can take about 30 minutes, and Outlook syncs through Cronofy. Free or all-day events often do not block time, so ask staff to enter personal blocks with real start and end times, then test one booking against them. Connect Zoom, Google Meet or GoToMeeting so each booking gets its own link. Video is off by default for new services, each calendar takes one provider, and Google Meet needs the owner and an active Google Calendar sync.

Share your link, or add Acuity to your site as an embedded scheduler, a booking button or a booking bar; on Squarespace, use the Scheduling block. Download a QR code for the page or any service as a PNG for cards and signage. Connect Reserve with Google so clients book from Search and Maps, though approval could take days, and add a Book Now button to Facebook and Instagram. Client accounts are on by default and let clients book faster and check balances. Keep them on if you sell packages.

Import, test and go live

Import existing clients and future appointments from CSV files of up to 500 rows each. Packages, gift certificates, subscriptions and payment details cannot be imported, and imported appointments get reminders but no confirmations. A business moving 1,800 future appointments needs at least four import files and a spreadsheet of prepaid balances to honor by hand. On Standard and Premium, turn on the waitlist for one-on-one services with texts enabled. Then book as a client from a phone and a computer, using private browsing, and check the service list, times, form, confirmation page and calendar invite. Reschedule and cancel it.

For payments, Acuity recommends a real test: a coupon that leaves $2, because "Processing a charge of $2 will minimize the fees you pay". Refund it in the processor, then delete the test client. Subscribe a day or two before the trial ends. That keeps your link taking bookings without a gap and lets you switch on reminders and texts while clients are still few. Send a test reminder to yourself, announce the new page, and watch the first week closely.

Running it day to day

The Calendar panel shows day, week and month views, and labels color-code appointments for staff. Staff can book for clients from the calendar, even outside availability with a warning. Clients reschedule or cancel from their confirmation email within your limits, and canceling cannot be undone, so keep cancellations rather than deletions. Mark a canceled appointment as a no-show, and if you saved card details, collect payment afterward. Reports cover appointments, revenue, forms, add-ons and tips, but refunds made in the processor do not show. Review revenue monthly and export a CSV backup.

The common setup mistakes repeat: hours set in Google instead of Acuity, PayPal alone and then a wish for memberships, one calendar for two people, a blank package expiration. The costliest is the trial gap, because a link shared during the trial stops taking bookings when it ends. Email support runs around the clock, live chat on weekdays. There is no phone support.

The bottom line

Acuity setup is mostly decisions, not clicks: calendars, services, limits and payment rules. Settle those on paper, build during the trial, test on a phone, and subscribe before the trial ends so your link never closes. A well-built account runs itself, and the settings worth revisiting after a month of real bookings are limits, reminders and deposits. Before you commit to a plan, our Acuity pricing guide and buyer's checklist help you size it.