Online booking is here: packages, events, and an address of your own

TL;DR — Online booking is live. Publish your packages to a booking page, set the hours you actually work, and let clients pick a time that already fits your calendar. Events turn one day into back-to-back slots clients claim themselves. Every booking creates the client, the session, and a draft invoice for you. Booking, Events and your own subdomain are on every plan, including free.

Most photography bookings die in the same place: the fourth message. Someone asks about a family session, you reply with three dates, they come back two days later when one has gone, you offer three more. Nobody is being difficult. It’s just that the two of you are trying to intersect two calendars over text, and one of you is holding a camera most of the time.

Online booking removes that loop. Here’s what it does, and — just as importantly — what it deliberately doesn’t.

Your packages, on a page that looks like yours

A package is a kind of shoot: what it’s called, how long it runs, what it costs, and a cover image. You probably already describe these in a saved note somewhere. Publish the ones you want bookable and they appear on your booking page with their covers and prices.

You don’t have to publish everything. A package can be listed publicly, or kept link-only so you can send it to one client without it showing up for everyone.

Add-ons hang off a package too — a second look, an extra fifteen minutes, a print credit. A client ticks them at booking and they land on the invoice as line items, so you aren’t remembering to add them later.

Only the hours you’d actually say yes to

The point of a booking page isn’t to show a calendar. It’s to show your calendar, minus everything you’d have said no to anyway.

You set a weekly schedule — the hours you shoot on each day. Then you override the weeks that break the pattern, and block out time that’s already spoken for. Sessions you’ve already booked take themselves out automatically, so the same slot can’t go twice.

On top of that, each package carries its own rules:

• Minimum notice, so nobody books you for tomorrow morning. A day, by default.
• How far ahead it can be booked.
• Buffers before and after, so you get half an hour to pack down instead of running straight into the next family.
• A daily cap, if three portraits is your limit no matter what the calendar says.

What a client sees is the result of all of that: a month with some days open and most days not, and a handful of times on the days that are.

Instant, or by approval — per package

Some sessions you’re happy to have taken without a conversation. Others you want to read first.

That’s a setting on each package, not on your whole account. Leave a portrait session on instant and the time is claimed the moment someone picks it. Switch a wedding inquiry to approval and it waits for you.

A waiting request holds nothing and has no countdown on it. There’s no 72-hour clock quietly expiring things while you’re at a shoot — the time stays on sale, the request stays in your list, and you answer it when you get to it. Approving it confirms the session outright.

Events: a whole day, booked without you

Mini sessions have always been a scheduling problem disguised as a marketing opportunity. You post the date, and then you personally allocate twenty slots by direct message.

An Event is one date carved into back-to-back slots that clients claim themselves. Autumn minis at an orchard, a headshot morning at an office, a Santa day. It has its own name, length, price, and venue rather than borrowing a package, because a mini-session day genuinely is its own thing.

You can open and close registration, and show how many spots are left or keep that to yourself. The day fills while you’re shooting the one before it.

The admin is done before you look up

A booking isn’t just a calendar entry. The moment one lands, you have:

• The client record, created if they’re new.
• The session, on your calendar.
• A draft invoice, with the package and any add-ons already on it.
• The contract and questionnaire sent, if you attached them to the package.
• An email to you, so you know it happened.

Your client pays that invoice in the ApertureBook app, on your terms and your due date — so the money stays attached to the record it belongs to, and you set when it’s owed.

Cancelling and rescheduling stay yours

Clients can’t cancel or reschedule themselves, and that’s on purpose.

A booked session is a commitment between two people. A slot released at 2am is one you’d find out about from your calendar, and a session moved without a conversation is a conversation you still have to have. Both are your call, made from your calendar page — where you can see what else that change collides with.

An address that reads like your studio

Your portfolio and booking pages are served at a subdomain of your own:

yourstudio.aperturebook.com

This is on every plan, including the free one. It’s a subdomain of ApertureBook rather than a domain you buy from a registrar — worth being clear about, because “custom domain” usually means something else.

The original link keeps working too. Anything already sitting in a client’s inbox stays live, so switching to the nicer address never breaks what you’ve already sent.

What’s on which plan

Online booking and Events are included on every plan, free included — as is your own subdomain.

If you already pay for contracts or forms, you can attach them to a package at no extra cost — there’s no separate booking paywall on paperwork you’ve already bought.

Getting started

Three things, once:

1. Describe a package. Name, length, price, and any extras.
2. Say when you work. Weekly hours, the notice you need, and the gap you want between sessions.
3. Share the link. Put it in your bio, at the end of a gallery, or in the reply you were about to type.

That’s the setup. Everything after it happens without you.

See how online booking works →