Bookster – WordPress Appointment Booking Plugin vs WP Event Manager – Events Calendar, Registrations, Sell Tickets with WooCommerce

Managing appointments through phone calls, texts, and emails is chaotic. You lose track of bookings, double-book appointments, and spend hours on scheduling instead of serving customers. Bookster turns your WordPress site into a 24/7 booking system. 🌐 View All Demos Customers book appointments themselves, see real-time availability, and receive automatic confirmations. You manage everything from one dashboard. 📌 Documentation | Core Pro vs All Access 💫 Perfect For Hair salons and barbershops Spas and beauty clinics Massage therapists and wellness centers Personal trainers and fitness coaches Consultants and coaches Tutors and education services Medical and dental practices Any service business that takes appointments 💙 How It Works Customers visit your booking page, choose a service, pick their preferred staff member, select an available time slot, and book instantly. You receive an email notification and can view all appointments in your calendar dashboard. No more back-and-forth scheduling. 🔥 Key Features (100% Free) Unlimited Bookings & Services Create unlimited services with custom names, descriptions, and photos Set individual duration and pricing for each service Add taxes, fees and discounts to bookings No limits on number of appointments per month Offer service add-ons and upsell options Smart Scheduling Set your working hours for each day of the week Configure different availability for different services Add buffer time between appointments (e.g., 15-minute cleanup) Block off days for vacations or holidays Set minimum advance notice for bookings (e.g., require 24-hour notice) Customer Booking Experience Clean, mobile-friendly booking form that works on all devices Multi-step process: choose service → select staff → pick time → enter details → confirm Customers see only available time slots (no double-booking) Optional customer account dashboard to view and manage their bookings Customers can cancel or reschedule appointments themselves Payment Options Accept cash/check for in-person payment Accept PayPal payments online (customers pay when booking) Stripe integration available via premium addon for credit card payments Mark bookings as paid or unpaid manually Track revenue in the analytics dashboard Automatic Notifications Email confirmation sent to customers immediately after booking Reminder emails sent before appointment Email notifications sent to admin when new bookings arrive Customize email templates with your branding All emails sent automatically – no manual work required Admin Dashboard View all appointments in Bookster → Calendar menu Switch between day, week, and month calendar views Click any appointment to view or edit details instantly Filter appointments by status (confirmed, pending, cancelled) Search for specific customers or appointments Drag appointments to different dates to reschedule Color-coded by service or staff member for quick overview Analytics & Reports Track total bookings and revenue right from dashboard View performance by service (which services are most popular) Monitor individual agent performance Make data-driven decisions about staffing and services Premium Addons (Optional) Upgrade your booking system with these customizable options: Staff Management Add unlimited team members from Bookster → Agents menu Set individual working hours for each staff member Assign specific services to specific team members Let customers choose their preferred agent or assign automatically Track performance and bookings per agent Booking Form Customize booking form steps (reorder, add, or remove steps) Add custom fields to collect specific information Enable recaptcha, brand logo, timezone selector, and more for your booking system. Advanced Features (coming in future addons) Group bookings and classes Recurring appointments Multiple locations management SMS notifications via Twilio Design Toolkit for Block Editor and Elementor Getting Started Adding the Booking Calendar to Your Site Method 1: Shortcode (Works Anywhere) Add [bookster_booking_form] to any page, post, or widget area. Method 2: Block Editor 1. Edit the page where you want the booking form 2. Click the + button to add a block 3. Search for “Bookster” 4. Select the Bookster Booking Form block 5. Publish the page Method 3: Classic Editor Paste [bookster_booking_form] directly into your content. Viewing and Managing Appointments Go to Bookster → Calendar in your WordPress dashboard You’ll see all appointments in calendar format Click any appointment to view details or make changes Use the view buttons at top to switch between day/week/month views Use filters to show appointments based on agents or booking status Creating a Manual Booking (For Walk-Ins or Phone Bookings) Go to Bookster → Calendar Click the + New Appointment button (or click an empty time slot) Select the service and staff member Choose date and time Enter customer information (name, email, phone) Select payment method Click Create Appointment Customer automatically receives confirmation email Troubleshooting Booking calendar not showing on my page Check 1: Verify the shortcode Make sure you added [bookster_booking_form] exactly (with square brackets). Check 2: Clear cache If using a caching plugin, clear your cache: WP Rocket → Clear Cache or similar. Check 3: Theme conflict Temporarily switch to a default WordPress theme (Twenty Twenty-Five) to test. If it works, there’s a theme conflict. Customers not receiving email confirmations Check 1: Email settings Go to Bookster → Integrations → Email tab and confirm email notifications are enabled. Check 2: Check spam folders Ask customers to check spam/junk folders. Add your domain to their contacts. Check 3: WordPress email issues WordPress email can be unreliable. Install an SMTP plugin like YaySMTP to improve email delivery: 1. Install YaySMTP plugin 2. Connect it to Gmail, SendGrid, or Mailgun 3. Send a test email to verify Check 4: Test with yourself Create a test booking using your own email to confirm emails are sending. Time slots not showing as available Check 1: Working hours configured Go to Bookster → Settings → Schedule and verify hours are set for the day in question. Check 2: Agent availability If using staff members, check Bookster → Agents and verify the agent works on that day. Check 3: Minimum advance notice Check Bookster → Settings → General → Restrictions, if you require 24-hour notice, today’s appointments won’t show. Check 4: Service duration If your service is 2 hours but only 1 hour remains before closing time, that slot won’t appear. Double bookings happening This shouldn’t happen with Bookster. If it does: Check 1: Multiple admin users If multiple people manage bookings, ensure everyone refreshes the calendar before creating appointments. Check 2: Contact support If this persists, contact Bookster support with specific examples. PayPal payments not working Go to Bookster → Settings → Payments tab Verify your PayPal email address is correct Confirm PayPal is enabled (toggle should be blue/on) Test in PayPal sandbox mode first Check if PayPal account is verified and can accept payments Review PayPal transaction logs for error messages Calendar showing wrong timezone Go to Settings → General in WordPress Set your city timezone correctly (e.g., “New York” or “Berlin”) Save changes Go to Bookster → Settings and verify timezone matches Clear browser cache and reload Third-Party Services Bookster uses these external services to provide full functionality: FullCalendar.io Purpose: Renders the interactive booking calendar Privacy: No personal data sent to FullCalendar Terms: https://fullcalendar.io/license Stripe.com (Optional – only if using Stripe addon) Purpose: Process credit card payments Data shared: Customer name, email, payment amount Privacy: https://stripe.com/privacy PayPal.com Purpose: Process PayPal payments Data shared: Customer name, email, payment amount Privacy: https://www.paypal.com/privacy When customers make payments, they’re redirected to Stripe or PayPal’s secure servers. Bookster does not store credit card numbers. Support Need help? We’re here for you: Documentation: Visit Bookster’s detailed guides Support Forum: Post questions in the WordPress.org support forum Email & Live Chat Support: Contact us through the Bookster website Video Tutorials: Watch setup videos on our YouTube channel Response time: We typically respond within 4 hours on business days and 12 hours on weekends. We’d Love Your Feedback ❣️ If Bookster helps your business, please leave us a review on WordPress.org! It takes 60 seconds and brightens our day. Click here ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to share your experience. Have a feature request? We’re actively developing new features based on user feedback. Submit your ideas here. Compatibility Works With All Major WordPress Themes: Brandy WP Shadcn GeneratePress OceanWP Divi Avada And thousands more Page Builders: Elementor Gutenberg (Block Editor) Classic Editor Beaver Builder WPBakery What’s Next? After installing Bookster: Run the setup wizard Add the booking calendar to a page Create a test booking to see the customer experience Customize email templates with your branding Share your booking page link with customers Start accepting appointments 24/7! Your new booking system is ready to help you grow your business. Welcome to Bookster! 🚀

WP Event Manager brings you a feature-packed event management plugin that helps you create event listings and manage them all from your WordPress events site effortlessly. It is the ultimate solution for all types of events including in-person, virtual, and hybrid. The superior events plugin users can easily Create an Event, manage Event listing, add an events Calendar, Automate marketing, conduct automated Recurring events, manage event Registrations, and Sell Tickets with QR code,through their WordPress website. The plugin also offers an Organizer App that allows organizers to track all their events along with check-ins and check-outs with their mobiles. Now managing events online has become easy and convenient for everyone including event planners with WP Event Manager(WPEM) as it does not require any coding expertise. The All-In-One events plugin is everything that you need to manage your event listings on your events website. Besides excellent event plugins, the brand also offers a set of WordPress event themes that are responsive, compatible with WooCommerce, and SEO-friendly. 💼 Who Can Use WP Event Manager? WP Event Manager is an easy-to-use, beginner-friendly events plugin that offers a coding-free solution to the users making it a suitable choice for people from different professional backgrounds including: 📣 Event organizers 💼 Business owners 👨🏻‍🏫 Teachers 💪 Fitness trainers 🎸 Music trainers ▶️ Virtual event organizers 🩺 Doctors and more. 🙌 Meet the most user-friendly event management plugin for WordPress: WP Event Manager WP Event Manager offers more than 37 Premium Event Plugins and each of them is developed to fulfill different event management requirements including, Event Calendar, Sell Tickets, Event Registrations, Recurring Events, Event Countdown and more. 🗓️ Create interactive events 📅 Create multiple events: Get the ultimate freedom to create as many events as you want on your WordPress events website. 👀 Choose your preferred view: Display your events in box view or list view to maximize your events exposure. 🔎 Make event search easy: Let visitors search events quickly using multiple event filters. 👏 Empower Your Events With Robust Features 🤝 WooCommerce compatibility: Get WooCommerce compatibility to sell your event tickets with ease and security. 🎪 Frontend event submission form: Allow event organizers to post events on your website by filling up the frontend event submission form. ✨ Discover the key features of WP Event Manager 😎 Easy to use: Anyone who wants to create and manage events on their event website can use it as no coding expertise is needed. 👨‍💻 Developer friendly: Built with a straightforward coding structure making it easy for developers to work with it as per their event business requirements. ⚙️ Customizable: Make changes to the event plugin settings as per your need. ✏️ Field editor: Easily add, edit or delete form fields from your event submission form. 🏷️ Easy event classification: Classify events into different types and categories for better identification. 👁️ Event preview: Get an event preview before going live to make any last-minute changes if needed. 🤖 Page builder compatibility: The events plugin is compatible with major page builders like Gutenberg, Elementor etc. 📊 Detailed event dashboard: Get a detailed dashboard for all your events and make changes to it as per requirements. 📲 Fully responsive: it is fully responsive and it fits well with every screen size. 🎪 Frontend event submission form: GIve event organizers the ultimate freedom of submitting their events on your website. 🔠 Multi-lingual support: Translate the event plugin into your preferred language to offer a better user experience. WP Event Manager comes with 40 inbuilt language translations to make it more convenient for you to use the plugin. It also supports Right-To-Left (RTL) languages as standard, so you can use the plugin for international events. More languages can be added to this list. You can be a contributor to our translation efforts to help us add more languages to it. Click here to be a contributor. 👑 Get More From WP Event Manager With Its Premium addons We offers 37+ premium add-ons for different event management needs. Explore some of our best-selling event addons: 📅 Event Calendar: Enables you to display your event dates and details through an interactive events calendar on your events website. 🎫 Sell Tickets: Allows you to efficiently sell event tickets, share them with attendees through emails and accept payment through WooCommerce. 📇 Event Registration: Helps you manage event registrations through an easily customizable events registration form that your attendees need to fill in. 🔁 Recurring Events: Simplifies your recurring event management process by updating your recurring event dates automatically on your events calendar. 💳 Stripe Split Payment: Distributes the events ticket revenue among the website owner and event organizer making it easy for admins to monetize their events website. 🤑 WooCommerce Paid Listing: Offers a great way to monetize your events website by earning commissions from event organizers for posting their events on your events website. 💻 Expo Networking: Creates engaging virtual exhibitions or events with interactive booths, sessions, and more. 🎦 Zoom: lets you create uninterrupted virtual meets with the power of Zoom where meeting links can be shared directly from the events website. 🎙️ Speaker and Schedule: Displays the names of your event speakers and their speech schedule at your event. The list goes on. Explore the entire list of our event addons here. 📖 Documentation: Simplifying Plugin Usage for Everyone For a detailed user guide, check out our Knowledge base Section on our official website or visit our YouTube channel for tutorial videos on our event plugins. 🙋‍♂️ Support: Quality Assistance for Seamless Event Management WP Event Manager is backed by a friendly and sincere support team who are always ready to assist its users in case of need. The users of WP Event Manager free version get full access to all our documentation, FAQs, and YouTube video tutorials for assistance whereas the paid event plugin owners can reach out to our support team by raising support tickets whenever they face any difficulties with our event plugins. Click here to raise a support ticket if you are facing issues with any of our premium plugins. 🧩 Supercharge Your Events with Powerful Integrations 🚾 WooCommerce integration: Strengthen the payment structure of your event business and sell event tickets freely with WooCommerce. 🎦 Zoom integration: Make your virtual meetings and conferences interruption-free. 📍 Google Maps integration: Display the location of your events on Google Maps on your events website. 📨 Hubspot CRM integration: Manage your events attendee data like a pro with Hubspot integration. 📨 Sendinblue integrations: Synchronize events attendee data and automate email marketing. 📨 Mailchimp integration: Automatically synchronize event attendee information and strengthen email marketing strategies. 📨 Zoho integration: Know your event guests better and send customized emails to them to improve your events marketing style. 📨 Constant Contact integration: Experience email marketing automation and real-time event attendee data synchronization. 📨 Salesforce CRM integration: Simplifying events guest data management and events email marketing. 📨 Active Campaign integration: Manage user data easily with an automatic data syncing facility. 💳 Stripe integration: Allows you to earn commission from your events website without hassle. 📈 Google Analytics: Easily measure the success of your events by tracking event ticket sales and more. 🤖 Elementor: Create an event calendar, sell event tickets, manage event registrations and do more on your events website and place all your website elements in your preferred location by simply dragging and dropping. 🗓️ Google Calendar Integration: Display your events on Google Calendar or any other calendar with our iCAL plugin. 🔖 Boost Ticket Sales with Our Dynamic Ticketing Plugin Sell event tickets, manage registrations and take control of your entire ticketing system with our robust event management plugin: Sell Tickets 🎫 Sell multiple tickets: Maximize ticket sales by offering multiple ticket types including paid, donation and free. 📧 Share digital tickets: Send event tickets in easily downloadable PDFs through emails to buyers. 🔐 Secure payment with WooCommerce: Experience the ultimate comfort of managing ticket transactions through WooCommerce. 📃 Detailed report: Measure the success of your events with a detailed report on your event ticket sales and registrations. 📇 Customizable registration: Create customized registration forms for event ticket buyers to fill in at the time of purchasing tickets. 🔍 QR scan code: Add QR scan code on tickets to simplify the check-in process for both event attendees and event organizers. 👥 Create a multi-vendor marketplace: Transform your ordinary events website into a multi-vendor marketplace where you can earn commission from other event organizers for selling their event tickets on your website 📱 Organizer App: A Game-Changer for All Event Organizers The Organizer app from WP Event Manager brings the best event management solution for event organizers at their fingertips. ✅ Track attendee check-in: Offering event organizers the comfort of managing and tracking attendee check-ins through their mobiles. 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 Manage attendee data: Organizers can manage event attendee data and experience real-time data syncing on all devices. 🛜 Work offline: When offline, it saves all the important event data and syncs it immediately after the connection is restored. 📅 Handle event lists: Organizers get a detailed dashboard for all their past and upcoming events. ▶️ YouTube video of Organizer app 📆 Manage Event Schedules effortlessly with the Event Calendar Making event schedule management super easy with an event calendar that offers much more than an ordinary calendar. 🗓️ Display upcoming events: Attract more audiences to your events website by showcasing event dates on an interactive calendar. 🗓 Calendar widget: Maximize your calendar exposure by displaying it in a widget form. 🚀 Quick Calendar access: let your customers get the details of your events by simply placing the cursor on the calendar at their targetted date. Shortcode calendar view: Display past and upcoming events all on your event calendar with shortcodes. ⊞ Calendar layout: Choose your preferred layout for your events calendar on your website. 🔎 Simplify event search: Show all your events on a calendar to make it easy for website visitors to find events quickly. Use the Event Calendar addon for the best event schedule management on your website. 🏆 Awards and Recognitions The event plugin has received several awards and recognition due to its sheer excellence. Won the 2nd position in Monster Awards 2022 for being the best booking and appointment WordPress plugin. Recognized as one of the Most trusted Indian companies in 2023 by World Brand Affairs. Awarded for being one of the Fastest-growing WordPress product companies at the WASME. Secured a Bronze at WP Awards 2023. Became the first runner-up at the Startup of the Year award. Awarded at the International Business Conclave 2024 for being the Best Event Management plugin for WordPress. Awarded for being one of the top SME Businesses in the IT Services – CMS – Extensions/Plugins category 2024. 🎨 WP Event Manager themes With power-packed event plugins, WP Event Manager has recently launched a set of event themes that are fully compatible with its plugins. Key features of the event themes include: 📱 Fully responsive: Get designs that look good on every screen. 🎫 Compatible with WooCommerce: Sell your event tickets with ease. 🎨 Simple and classy designs: Sleek designs that attract every eye to your events. 🌐 Cross-browser support: Suitable for all types of browsers. 👨🏻‍💻 Friendly support: Get assistance whenever you need. Discover the event themes now! 🌟 Reviews 📢 Join our community Join our Facebook community and Slack community to interact with our users, and share your experiences and queries related to our events plugin. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for regular updates and tutorials. If you are already a user, please share your reviews on WordPress. 👑 WordPress Experts That Featured Us Kinsta: “The WP Event Manager plugin features a lightweight interface and a beautiful user experience. It has caching built-in, a wonderful search module and a completely responsive design.” Hubspot: “WP Event Manager is a WordPress plugin that allows you to add event listings directly to your website. This feature-rich event management plugin lets you add, manage, and categorize event listings in your WordPress dashboard.” WP Mayor: “I was very impressed how fast and easy it was to set up the plugin. After installation, it literally took just two clicks to create the pages and shortcodes for a basic event management system.” WPlift: “WP Event Manager adds full support for event listings to WordPress. It’s like EventBrite, but unique to your WordPress site.” Visual Composer: “WP Event Manager is a user-friendly, scalable and full-featured event management plugin for adding event listing functionality to the WordPress site.” Themeisle: “WP Event Manager is a free WordPress plugin that makes any event look appealing on your site. With it, you can create events yourself and/or give a free hand to other people too.” 💲 WP Event Manager Pricing WP Event Manager offers a flexible pricing structure where addons are available for individual purchases and in bundles. The pricing structure is created in such a way that event businesses of all sizes can access it. The cost of an individual plugin or bundle usually varies based on the number of sites they are being purchased for. To get more details on our event plugin prices and bundles, click here. We also offer paid customization services to our clients. Find out the details from here. ➡️ What Else Do We Have for You? If you have liked our WordPress event management plugin and its features, you can also have a look at our newly launched restaurant management solution: WP Food Manager: It offers a comprehensive restaurant business management solution that covers everything that you need to take your food business online and increase sales. The WP Food Manager package consists of some feature-rich WordPress plugins that help you add various restaurant management functionalities including online food ordering, delivery services, and more. ❓ Frequently Asked Questions Is WP Event Manager compatible with the latest version of WordPress? Yes, we update our plugins regularly based on WordPress updates to ensure that they work well with the latest WordPress version. Can I add multiple types of event tickets with Sell Tickets? Yes, with the Sell Tickets addon, you can sell three types of event tickets: Paid, Free, and Donation. How do I sell tickets to events on my events calendar? The calendar addon from WP Event Manager lets you add an attractive events calendar on your website and for the ticket selling feature, you need to pick the Sell Tickets addon with which you can sell your tickets seamlessly. Does WordPress have a Calendar feature? WordPress does not have a built-in event calendar. However, if you want to add a calendar to your events website, you can easily do that with a specialized calendar plugin like WP Event Manager’s calendar addon. How can I report security bugs? You can report security bugs through the Patchstack Vulnerability Disclosure Program. The Patchstack team help validate, triage and handle any security vulnerabilities. Report a security vulnerability. External Services This plugin connects to external services …