A bookable calendar
Services, durations, staff members and working hours. A slot exists only if the staff member and the service both fit in it.
CASE STUDY
Example buildFirst VersionBooking & Scheduling, Version One
Ships in weeks, not months: online booking, reminders and payments for a local service business.
- Type
- Booking site
- Build time
- 6–8 weeks
- Platforms
- One shareable link, any browser
- Starts at
- ₹60,000*
This is an example build. Tavzuran is a new studio with no client work to show yet. This page describes how the project would be scoped and built — the same thinking you would get on a real one. Nothing here is a past client, and no number on this page is a result.
The price follows the feature list. The number above buys everything scoped on this page. Take features out and it comes down — the shortest route to a smaller number is a shorter list, and deciding what to drop is what the free call is for.
THE SITUATION
What's actually broken.
A salon, clinic or studio books appointments over WhatsApp and by phone. Double bookings happen. No-shows are absorbed silently. The front desk cannot take a booking and serve a walk-in at the same time.
This is the clearest example of what a first version is for. The whole thing is small enough to be genuinely useful in a few weeks, and every week it runs teaches the owner something they would otherwise have guessed at.
Bookings arrive by WhatsApp, phone and walk-in
Double bookings happen and cost goodwill
No-shows are absorbed silently
The desk cannot book and serve at the same time
VERSION ONE
What we'd build first.
Every item here earns its place by being something a real user would miss on day one.
Public booking page
One link, shareable on Instagram and WhatsApp. No app to install and no account to create.
Reminders
A message 24 hours and 2 hours before. This alone typically moves the no-show rate more than anything else in the build.
Deposits
Optional prepayment for slots that get abandoned. Turned on per service, not globally.
Front-desk view
Today at a glance, plus the ability to block time and add a walk-in in two taps.
DELIBERATELY NOT IN V1
What we'd leave out.
Not because these are bad ideas. Because each one is designed better once the first version has told you something.
- Inventory and product sales.
- Staff payroll and commission calculation.
- A customer mobile app. A booking link works better than an app someone installs once and deletes.
UNDER THE HOOD
How it's put together.
- Everything
- One Next.js app — the booking page needs to be public and fast, and the admin side is small enough to live in the same codebase
- Database
- Postgres, with the availability rules enforced in the database so two people cannot take the same slot
- Reminders
- A scheduled job plus a WhatsApp or SMS provider
- Payments
- A gateway, for deposits only
HOW IT RUNS
Week by week.
-
01
Week 1
Services, staff, hours and the rules for what counts as an available slot.
-
02
Weeks 2–5
Booking page and the front-desk view.
-
03
Weeks 6–8
Reminders, deposits, and live with real customers.
THE HARD PART
Two people, one slot
Every build has one problem that decides whether the rest of it matters. This is that problem, written out.
This is the smallest build on the list and it still has one genuinely hard problem: two customers opening the booking page at the same moment and choosing the same eleven o'clock with the same stylist.
The naive version checks whether the slot is free and then writes the booking. Between those two steps the other customer does the same thing, both checks pass, and you have a double booking that the software created — worse than the paper diary it replaced.
The fix is to make the database refuse it, with a constraint that cannot allow two bookings to overlap for the same staff member, rather than relying on application code to check first. That is a small amount of work done early and an unpleasant amount of work done late, which is why it belongs in week one.
BEFORE A PRICE EXISTS
What we'd ask you first.
A quote given without these answers is a guess. These are the questions that actually move the number.
- 01What services do you offer, and how long does each actually take?
- 02How many staff, and can any of them do any service?
- 03What share of customers are walk-ins versus booked?
- 04Do you want deposits, and on which services?
- 05Is there an existing customer list, and in what shape?
AFTERWARDS
How we'd know it worked.
Agreed before the build starts, so there is something to judge it against other than whether it looks nice.
- Around a third of bookings arrive through the link within a month.
- Zero double bookings, because the database will not permit one.
- No-shows fall measurably once reminders are running.
- The front desk can serve a walk-in without losing a phone booking.
BEFORE YOU START
Worth knowing.
This is the shape of build that starts at ₹20,000. What moves the price is the number of staff-and-service rules, whether payments are involved, and how much of the existing customer list has to be imported.
Websites and apps start at ₹20,000*. Final pricing depends on features and project scope. Third-party costs — cloud hosting, domains, external libraries, APIs, app-store fees and any other paid service — are billed separately and are not included.
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Read the case studyWant this built for your business?
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