How do I take online bookings for my horse business?

Each kind of visit is its own service. A 45-minute barn tour, a 60-minute training evaluation and a 30-minute trim are three services, even if one person does all three.

Use the words your clients use. “Full set” means more to a horse owner than “Farrier service.” Set the length for how the visit really goes, catching the horse included.

On WWC: each service is an event type with a name, a length, an icon and, if you want, a location. Add a price if clients pay online. Clients see your services as cards on your booking page.

Open only the hours you’ll keep. If Mondays are for shoeing at home or hauling to a show, leave Monday off. It’s easier to add times later than to move clients who already booked.

Time between bookings is your cushion. A farrier driving between barns might need an hour. A lesson barn might need 15 minutes to swap horses and riders.

On WWC: weekly hours are one start and end time for each day, plus your time zone. Time between bookings runs from no gap up to two hours, and it applies to every booking. Anything already on your calendar, including visits you add yourself, blocks that time.

There’s no minimum-notice setting, so a client can pick an open time later the same day. If that won’t work for a service, turn on approval for it.

If you do both farm calls and haul-ins, offer both. Clients pick the one they want, and you know where you’re headed before you leave the house.

Put your service area on your website: the towns you cover and which days you’re in each one. Clients can check before they book instead of asking. Online booking won’t check the distance for you, so if people outside your area might book, turn on approval and sort out the route before you confirm.

On WWC: each service has a location, like “At your barn” or “Covered arena,” and an optional details line for things like a gate code, parking, or “Have horses caught and tied.” Clients see both on the service, and the location is in their confirmation. Use the intro on your booking page to ask for the barn address and how many horses, and clients can add it in the notes.

Approval makes sense when you need to know the horse or the rider first, or when a visit has to fit a route. Instant booking works for clients you know and visits with a set length, like a 30-minute lesson.

On WWC: each service either books right away or goes as a request, and clients see which before they pick. A request shows as Needs your OK on your schedule. You also get an email with an Approve booking button that works once. When you approve, the client gets an email saying they’re booked.

From your calendar you can decline a request, or update, complete or cancel any booking.

There are three ways to handle it:

• Pay when they book. The client goes straight to checkout after picking a time. Good for set prices, like a lesson or an evaluation.
• Pay after you approve. If the service needs your OK, the client gets a link to pay once you approve. Nobody pays for a request you turn down, so there’s nothing to refund.
• Pay by link later. Leave payment off the service and send a bill when the work’s done. Good for farm calls where the total depends on how many horses you did.

On WWC: turn on payment for a service and set its price, and clients see “Payment required” on it. Connect your payment account on the Payments page first. For a deposit, or a bill after the visit, make a bill for the amount and email it, or copy the pay link into a text. A pay link works for a week. WWC adds no transaction fee; your payment provider’s own fees apply¹.

A contact form starts a back-and-forth. A booking button ends with a time on your calendar.

Match the words to the visit: “Book a Tour” for a boarding barn, “Schedule an Evaluation” for a trainer, “Request an Appointment” for a farrier who approves each visit. If a service needs your OK, “Request” tells clients what to expect.

On WWC: click a button on your website and choose Booking Calendar as its link. Your booking page also has its own link, so you can copy it from the Scheduling page and text it to a client.

1. Pick a service. Each one shows its length and location, whether payment is required, and whether it books right away or goes as a request.
2. Pick a time. Only open times show, in your time zone.
3. Their details. Name, email and phone, the horse’s name, and notes like goals or the horse’s history. A parent can book for a child, and a client can add anyone else coming along.

Then they see “You’re booked” or “Request sent,” with the day, time and place. They get an email either way, and another when you approve a request. You get an email for every new booking or request, and the client and their horse are saved to your contacts.

The booking page carries your logo and a short intro you write, and it can use your website’s colors. If a client’s signal drops partway through, the page holds on to what they typed and tries again when they’re back online.

A separate booking app works, but it’s one more login, one more bill and one more client list. Calendly’s Standard plan is $12 a seat a month billed monthly, its first plan that takes payments². Acuity, the booking tool Squarespace uses, is $20 a month billed monthly on Starter³, and its intake forms can’t capture e-signatures⁴.

On WWC, your booking page, calendar, contacts and payments sit with your website. $39.99/month. One price for everyone¹. See how it works on the scheduling page.