Bookly Recurring Appointments (Add-on) — an essential extension for any service-based business using the Bookly Pro booking system. This add-on integrates seamlessly to allow customers to schedule a series of appointments at once. Instead of booking each session individually, clients can set up repeating appointments based on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule, choosing the frequency and duration that fits their needs. This automation dramatically improves the user experience and reduces administrative overhead for business owners. This plugin is perfect for businesses like fitness studios, tutoring centers, therapy clinics, cleaning services, and consultants who rely on repeat clients. It ensures a steady stream of appointments, improves client retention, and simplifies long-term scheduling. The setup is intuitive, allowing administrators to define which services can be booked on a recurring basis and to set limits on the number of repeat sessions. It fully supports custom schedules and maintains clear communication with automated notifications for the entire series of bookings.
Why This Is Important
In the service industry, customer retention is everything. Manually re-booking clients for regular sessions is a major pain point—it's time-consuming for your staff and inconvenient for your customers. Industry data shows that businesses can lose up to 20-40% of their client base annually due to poor follow-up or a complicated booking process. This plugin directly solves that problem.
By allowing clients to book an entire series of appointments in one go, you eliminate friction and lock in future revenue. Imagine a personal trainer: instead of hoping a client re-books every week, they can secure 12 weekly sessions at once. Statistics suggest that automating processes like this can increase client lifetime value by over 30% and reduce no-shows. Don't let a clunky booking process cost you loyal customers; automate recurring schedules and watch your business grow.
Features
- Flexible Scheduling: Allow clients to book appointments that repeat daily, weekly, monthly, or on specific days.
- Custom Repetition: Set appointments to repeat every X days, weeks, or months for ultimate flexibility.
- End Date Control: Clients can specify the number of occurrences or select an end date for their recurring series.
- Seamless Integration: Works perfectly with the Bookly Pro booking form, adding a "Repeat" option to the time step.
- All-at-Once Booking: A complete series of appointments is created and reserved with a single booking action.
- Admin Management: Easily view, manage, and edit entire series of recurring appointments from the backend calendar.
- Payment Integration: Collect payment for the entire series of appointments upfront through Bookly's payment gateways.
- Automated Notifications: All standard Bookly notifications (reminders, confirmations) work for each appointment in the series.
- Staff Availability: The system intelligently checks staff availability for all future appointments in the series to prevent double-booking.
- Service-Specific Settings: Enable or disable the recurring appointments feature on a per-service basis.
Benefits of Automated Recurring Bookings
| Feature | Without Add-on (Manual Booking) | With Recurring Appointments Add-on |
|---|---|---|
| Client Effort | Must book each session individually | Books the entire series in under a minute |
| Client Retention | Lower, risk of drop-off after each session | Higher, client is committed to a schedule |
| Admin Time Spent | High, requires manual follow-ups and scheduling | Minimal, scheduling is automated |
| Future Revenue | Unpredictable, session by session | Predictable, revenue is locked in upfront |
| Booking Errors | Higher chance of double-booking or missed slots | Reduced, system checks all future availability |
How to install the plugin?
- Download the plugin archive using the button above.
- Navigate to Plugins > Add New in your WordPress dashboard.
- Click "Upload Plugin" at the top and select the downloaded ZIP file.
- Install, activate the plugin, and follow the quick setup wizard instructions.
FAQ
Do I need Bookly Pro to use this add-on?
Yes, absolutely. The Bookly Recurring Appointments (Add-on) is an extension and requires the core Bookly Pro plugin to be installed and activated on your WordPress site. It does not function as a standalone plugin.
How does the plugin handle payments for a series of appointments?
The add-on integrates with Bookly's payment system. When a client books a recurring series, the total price for all appointments in that series is calculated. The client can then pay for the entire package upfront using any of the payment gateways you have configured in Bookly Pro.
What happens if a staff member is unavailable for one of the future dates in a series?
The system is designed to prevent conflicts. During the booking process, it checks the staff member's schedule for all future dates in the selected series. If any of the time slots are already booked or unavailable, the system will not allow the series to be booked and will prompt the user to choose a different time or frequency.
Can a client or an admin cancel a single appointment from a recurring series?
Yes. While the appointments are booked as a series, they are created as individual appointments in the Bookly calendar. This means an administrator can cancel or edit a single appointment from the backend. Depending on your settings, clients can also cancel individual appointments from their customer account, subject to your cancellation policies.
