How do I manage my payment options?
About the payment options
The payment options determine how your customers can pay when making a booking. You decide yourself whether they pay directly online by card, in person on site – or have both options to choose from. Flexible payment handling makes the booking process more pleasant for your customers and reduces drop-offs at checkout.
Slotlify offers you two basic options: Pay on site for the classic case where payment only takes place at your appointment or class, and Online payment via Stripe for immediate card payments directly at the time of booking.
Where to find the payment options
You'll find the payment options in your dashboard under Account > Payment options. The Payment options page opens and shows you the Payment methods at checkout section, in which you can activate or deactivate each payment type individually via a toggle switch.
Pay on site
The Pay on site option means that your customers only book the appointment bindingly online, while the payment itself takes place in person on site – for example when visiting your studio, your practice or your class.
This option is particularly well suited for business models where cash, card payment at the terminal or bank transfer before the appointment are common. You activate or deactivate it simply via the toggle switch to the right of the description.
Important: Pay on site is available starting from the Basic plan. In the free Free plan this option can't be activated – here only online payment is available. If you also want to offer your customers the option to pay on site, you'll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Online payment via Stripe
With the Online payment option you accept card payments directly at the time of booking – your customers pay immediately at checkout by credit or debit card. The processing takes place via Stripe, one of the world's leading payment service providers. Payouts go directly to your registered bank account, without any detour via Slotlify.
Online payments have several advantages: you receive the money guaranteed at the time of booking, the number of no-shows decreases, and you save yourself the hassle of handling cash or chasing outstanding amounts.
How to connect your Stripe account
To activate online payments, you need to go through a one-time Stripe onboarding process. To do so, click the corresponding button in the Online payment section and you'll be redirected straight to the Stripe website. There, Stripe will guide you step by step through the setup process.
Among other things, you'll be asked for your company details, your tax identification number and your bank account details. Stripe is legally required to collect this information as it operates as a regulated payment service provider. It's best to have your documents ready – the process usually takes between 5 and 15 minutes.
After successful onboarding, you'll be automatically redirected back to your Slotlify dashboard. There you'll see the green notice Stripe account connected and active. Online payments are enabled. – from that moment on, your customers can pay online by card.
Status of your Stripe account
As soon as your Stripe account is connected, Slotlify shows you the current status directly in the Online payment section. The blue Active label next to the heading confirms that your online payments are ready to go. The green confirmation message below serves as an additional feedback signal.
Should the connection to Stripe be interrupted at some point or should additional information be required, a corresponding message will be displayed at this point. In that case you can submit the missing details via the same route – the Stripe onboarding.
The connection status of your Stripe account
Depending on how far you've progressed in the Stripe onboarding, Slotlify shows you one of three states in the Online payment section.
If no Stripe account is connected yet, you'll see a prompt to start the onboarding process.
If you've started onboarding but haven't finished it, the label Incomplete appears next to the heading, along with an orange notice: Stripe onboarding was not completed. In this state you can't accept online payments yet. Using the Add details button, you return to Stripe to complete the missing information until your account is fully set up.
Once onboarding is successfully completed, the label switches to Active, and you also get insight into your Stripe account directly within Slotlify.
Your Stripe account, right inside Slotlify
As soon as your Stripe account is active, Slotlify shows you key figures directly in the Online payment section, without needing a separate login to Stripe.
You see your current balance as well as your next scheduled payout, including its date. Using See details you can access further information in your Stripe account if needed.
Below that you'll find an overview of your recent transactions, with amount, the paying customer's email address, date, status and payment method. The status shows you whether a payment was successful, refunded, or still incomplete. Using Export you can download this data whenever you need it.
Your payout history is also shown here: a list of all past payouts to your bank account, with date, status, destination account and amount.
This way you keep track of your income and payouts without switching between Slotlify and Stripe.
Using both options in parallel
You can activate both payment types at the same time – this is actually the recommendation for most businesses. Your customers will then see both options during the booking process and can decide for themselves which is more convenient for them. Some prefer to pay immediately online, others prefer cash on site.
If you have only one of the two options active, only this one option is automatically displayed to your customers at checkout. So make sure that at least one payment method is activated so that bookings are possible at all.
How fees work
For online payments via Stripe, transaction fees apply, which are retained directly by Stripe. You can find the current rates on the official Stripe website. Pay-on-site payments are free of charge for you on paid plans, as Slotlify in this case only manages the booking but doesn't handle the payment itself.
Please note: On the Free plan, Slotlify additionally charges a platform fee of 5% per booking. This fee is dropped as soon as you switch to a paid plan – from then on you only pay the regular Stripe fees for online payments. If you handle many bookings through Slotlify, an upgrade usually pays off within just a few weeks.
Good to know
We recommend setting up online payments as early as possible – especially in industries where no-shows are a typical problem. A binding online payment significantly reduces spontaneous cancellations because customers don't even get to treat a booking as "non-binding" in the first place.
If you want to disconnect or switch your Stripe account later, you can do so at any time – either directly via your Stripe dashboard or by deactivating the toggle switch for online payments in the payment options. Your previous transactions and invoices remain unaffected.