Bookster – WordPress Appointment Booking Plugin vs Yatoon Salon Booking Pro – Square & Vagaro Sync

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! 🚀

A flexible WordPress booking system built for salons, spas, and service businesses. The free version provides a complete local booking workflow, while Pro adds Square integration and advanced operational features. Yatoon has powered daily bookings at a real nail salon for more than a year, connecting a branded customer experience with day-to-day salon operations. Try the live booking demo – no account or installation required. Start booking with Free Square is not required. Local mode runs inside WordPress and gives service businesses a practical booking system without connecting an external scheduling or payment account. Mobile-first booking for services, options, staff, date, time, customer details, and confirmation Services, service variations, qualified staff, business hours, staff schedules, breaks, and closed dates Any Staff assignment and final server-side availability checks to help prevent schedule conflicts Multiple services and guests in one booking journey, with separate staff choices and reference photos Booking calendar, appointment management, client records, notes, and basic reports Email confirmations and configurable booking notifications Secure customer self-service for viewing, cancelling, rescheduling, rebooking, and adding appointments to a calendar Staff Portal schedule view for day-to-day mobile access Service menu, waitlist, form fields, brand basics, privacy tools, and a guided one-click migration from Bookly or Amelia SEO-ready local discovery storefront with portfolio, popular services, multi-location links, private favorites, and quick rebooking Privacy-safe booking-funnel reporting and an installable lightweight customer app for home-screen access Gutenberg blocks, Elementor widgets, shortcodes, responsive layouts, RTL styles, and maintained language catalogs Up to two staff members in the Free plan Grow with Pro Upgrade when your business needs Square, payments, automation, more staff, or broader salon operations. Pro includes everything in Free, plus: Unlimited staff members Two-way Square Appointments synchronization (create, update, cancel, plus incoming Square webhooks), Square online payments, deposits, refunds, sync monitoring, and recovery tools Square POS payment status: an appointment can be marked as paid in Square POS or Tap to Pay so it settles in reports and invoices. Yatoon has no cart, retail checkout, cash drawer, or Terminal API of its own and does not replace the Square POS application Vagaro one-way import plus booking creation: services, staff and availability are read from Vagaro and new appointments are pushed to it. Yatoon does not send Vagaro reschedules or cancellations, there is no Vagaro webhook and no scheduled re-pull, so a change made in either system must be repeated in the other Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook Calendar workflows Stripe and PayPal payment options, deposits, prepayment, invoices, taxes, and refund workflows SMS reminders through Twilio, plus full Meta WhatsApp Cloud API templates for reminders, confirmations, and updates — WhatsApp is the default messaging channel for most customers outside the US, so this alone can raise show-up rates in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East Packages, memberships, gift cards, coupons, loyalty, recurring appointments, waitlist automation, broadcasts, and review requests Verified-appointment review badges and one-customer-at-a-time timed waitlist claim links Advanced customer self-service, including changing services safely Multi-location rules, shared resources, inventory, commissions, server-authoritative dynamic pricing, group classes, reports, and automations Advanced brand controls, operational diagnostics, and priority support Authenticated REST endpoints under yatoon/v1 for bookings (list, create, read, update, cancel), order refunds, and directory data (services, staff, locations, customers). Every route is capability-checked. There is no availability endpoint and no published API reference yet; the routes are intended for your own server-side automation, not as a documented public API Automatic no-show tracking: count how many times a customer has been marked No Show inside a window you choose (3 in 12 months by default) and either require a deposit on their next booking or simply flag them for staff. Flagged customers are listed on the No-show Tracking screen and any of them can be permanently exempted with one click. Requiring a deposit uses the deposit amount and gateway already configured under Payments, so a site with no deposit gateway configured can flag customers but cannot charge them; the screen says so Migration center also imports from LatePoint, on top of the Bookly and Amelia migration already in Free — switching from another WordPress booking plugin keeps your services, staff, and client list Bricks, Beaver Builder, Divi and Brizy elements that place any Yatoon surface (booking form, service menu, catalog, gallery, reviews, customer portal, staff portal, manage booking) into those builders. These adapters wrap the matching shortcode rather than reimplementing the UI, and they are included in the free plugin as well as Pro External providers are optional and require their own accounts, credentials, supported regions, and any applicable provider fees. Features connected to external providers also depend on those providers’ API availability, compatibility, policies, and continued service; provider outages or API changes can temporarily affect the corresponding integration without affecting Local mode. Reliability for real salon operations Yatoon rechecks staff qualification, working hours, breaks, closed dates, existing appointments, and relevant external availability before sensitive booking changes are saved. If confirmation fails, the booking form keeps the customer’s details and provides clear recovery actions instead of forcing the customer to start over. Pro’s Operations health center adds recent sync activity, webhook status, stale-sync warnings, failed background jobs, retry controls, migration status, upgrade snapshots, rollback tools, performance measurements, and a privacy-safe technical summary for support. Add Yatoon anywhere [yatoon_booking] – complete booking form [yatoon_discovery] – indexable salon discovery storefront, portfolio, favorites, reviews, and booking entry points [yatoon_service_menu] – visual service menu with Book buttons [yatoon_customer_portal] – customer self-service portal [yatoon_staff_portal] – mobile staff schedule portal [yatoon_growth_storefront] – Pro package and membership storefront [yatoon_group_appointments] – Pro capacity-based classes and independent attendee reservations Every major shortcode is also available as a native Gutenberg block and Elementor widget. External Services and Privacy Google Maps – www.google.com/maps. The confirmation page displays a lazy-loaded map when a business address is configured. The preview sends the public business address and normal browser connection information to Google; it does not include customer names, email, appointment details or manage tokens. The iframe suppresses the page referrer. Clicking the map opens Google Maps directions to that address. If a consent manager or network blocks the preview, the visible address and directions link remain available. See Google Privacy and Google Terms. Free Local mode performs booking and availability inside WordPress and does not require Square, Vagaro, Stripe, PayPal, Twilio, Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, or Meta WhatsApp. Every external service Yatoon can contact is listed below with what is sent, when it is sent, and the provider’s own policies. Nothing in this list is contacted unless the corresponding feature is switched on by an administrator. Fonts. Yatoon does not download fonts from any remote host, and does not bundle font files either. Choosing a font family under Brand & Colors only adds that family name to the CSS font stack; it changes the booking page only if the active theme or another plugin already serves that font locally. Otherwise the system font is used. Releases before 4.6.2 loaded these families from Google Fonts; that request was removed and was not replaced with self-hosted copies, so a site that depended on it now falls back to the system font. Yatoon push relay (Cloudflare Worker) – https://yatoon-api.yatoon.workers.dev. Optional and disabled by default; it additionally requires the site owner to configure a private worker secret before it will send anything. When explicitly enabled, Yatoon sends a signed, pseudonymous browser push subscription endpoint and a generic event type to this Cloudflare Worker, which relays the notification to the merchant’s own browser or device. It is contacted only when a merchant-facing push notification is actually sent. Customer names, contact details, services, appointment times, and notes are never sent. The endpoint is operated by Yatoon on Cloudflare Workers. See Yatoon and the Cloudflare Privacy Policy. Freemius – https://api.freemius.com. Used for optional account connection, licensing, plugin updates, and the upgrade/checkout screens. Contacted when an administrator opts in, connects an account, manages a license, or checks for an update, and it may receive the site URL, administrator name and email, plugin, WordPress, PHP, and license information required to provide those services. See Freemius Privacy Policy and Freemius Terms. Provider integrations. Each of the services below is contacted only when an administrator has configured its credentials and switched the corresponding feature on, and only while performing the action that needs it. Depending on the workflow, the minimum required booking, customer, staff, catalog, calendar, message, payment, refund, location, and provider-reference data is sent to that provider. Provider credentials are stored encrypted in WordPress; Yatoon diagnostics must not include them. Square – connect.squareup.com, web.squarecdn.com (booking synchronization, payments, refunds, webhooks). Privacy – Terms Vagaro – api.vagaro.com (service, staff and availability import; booking creation). Privacy – Terms Stripe – api.stripe.com, js.stripe.com (deposits, prepayment, refunds, cards on file). Privacy – Terms PayPal – api-m.paypal.com, www.paypal.com (deposits and prepayment). Privacy – Terms Twilio – api.twilio.com, lookups.twilio.com (SMS reminders and phone lookup). Privacy – Terms Google – oauth2.googleapis.com, www.googleapis.com, accounts.google.com (Calendar sync and customer/staff sign-in). Privacy – Terms Google Gemini – generativelanguage.googleapis.com (optional AI assistant). Privacy – Terms OpenAI – api.openai.com (optional AI assistant). Privacy – Terms Anthropic – api.anthropic.com (optional AI assistant). Privacy – Terms Microsoft – graph.microsoft.com, login.microsoftonline.com (Outlook Calendar). Privacy – Terms Meta – graph.facebook.com, www.facebook.com (WhatsApp Cloud API messaging and Facebook sign-in). Privacy – Terms Apple – appleid.apple.com (Sign in with Apple). Privacy – Terms Cloudflare Turnstile – challenges.cloudflare.com (optional booking-form bot check). Privacy – Terms Zoom – api.zoom.us, zoom.us (optional virtual appointments). Privacy – Terms Before any customer text can reach an AI provider, Yatoon requires an explicit one-time consent from that customer and screens the message for sensitive data. The AI assistant is off unless an administrator supplies a provider API key. Site owners are responsible for obtaining required consent, publishing an accurate privacy notice, configuring retention, and complying with the rules of their region and chosen providers.