A no-show costs you the hour twice. Once because nobody sat in the chair, and again because somebody else wanted to and you told them it was taken. The second cost is the one people forget, and it is the one a deposit is for.
What a deposit actually does
A deposit is not about the money. Twenty dollars against a two-hour appointment does not cover the hour. What it does is change the moment of commitment. A booking made with a name and a phone number is a plan. A booking made with a card is a decision, and people keep decisions at a different rate than they keep plans.
The number that matters is not how much you charged. It is how many people who booked with a deposit still turned up, and how many who booked without one did. Watch both for a month and let the numbers decide.
Before the chair, not after the no-show
Most studios that lose money to no-shows already have a no-show policy. It is written on a sign, or in a story on their profile, or said out loud at the end of the appointment. It says something like a missed appointment will be charged in full.
The trouble is the word will. It describes a thing you have to go and do, afterwards, to a person who has already stopped answering. Nobody enjoys that call, so most of the time it does not happen, and the policy is a sign.
A deposit turns the same policy into something that already happened. The money is with you before the day. If they arrive, it comes off the total. If they do not, your terms say what happens to it, and those terms were shown to them and accepted at the moment they booked. There is no call to make.
How it works on Turnexify
Per service, you choose no deposit, a fixed amount, a percentage of the price, or the full price up front. A consultation might be free to book. A four-hour piece might ask for a hundred dollars. It is your call, service by service.
When a client books a service that asks for one, they pay it on a secure Stripe or Square page before the booking is confirmed. Your cancellation policy is on the same screen: the free-cancel window, what a late cancellation costs, what a no-show costs. They accept it there, and what they accepted is saved with the booking: your terms, the free-cancel window, and the fees, as they stood that day.
The money goes to the Stripe or Square account you control. We never hold it. If someone cancels inside your window and you want to refund, that is a button in your dashboard, not an email to us.
Setting the amount
Two rules of thumb.
- Make it enough to feel like a decision and not enough to feel like a risk. For most services that is somewhere between a fifth and a third of the price.
- Round it. Fifty, not forty-seven. A deposit is a small ceremony, and a round number reads as a policy rather than a calculation.
Then watch your no-show rate for a month. If it dropped, leave it alone. If it did not, the number is not the problem and it is worth asking what is.
A card on file, for the fee
If you would rather not ask for money up front, you can ask for a card instead. The client adds it when they book, nothing is charged that day, and the no-show and late-cancel fees you set are spelled out right there. If they do not come, you mark the visit as a no-show and the fee is charged to that card. If they cancel inside your window from their link, the late-cancel fee is charged the same way.
It works with Stripe or Square, whichever you connect, and it can sit alongside a deposit or replace it. Either way the decision happens at booking, which is the part that changes behaviour.
Ready to put this to work?
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