Setup guide

The five-minute version

1. Sign up with your business name and email.
2. Answer the setup questions — what you do, and how you like to be booked. This fills in sensible starting points for you.
3. Add what you offer and when you’re free — your services and your hours.
4. Publish your site. Until you publish, only you can see it.
5. Share your link — put it in your social profiles, or print your QR code.

Everything below is optional detail. You can change any of it later, as often as you like.

Create your account

Go to Sign up and fill in four things:

• Business name — the name clients will see at the top of your page.
• Site address — the end of your link, for example tsoona.com/yourname. Leave it blank and it’s made from your business name. You can change it later.
• Email — where booking requests are sent, and what you log in with.
• Password — at least 8 characters.

It’s free to build and preview your site, and no card is needed to start. If you have an offer code (from a card or a link), it’s applied on the sign-up page automatically.

The guided setup

Right after signing up you land on Set up your booking site. It asks two questions first:

• What kind of business you run — tattoo artist, barber, nail tech, photographer, maker, and so on. This picks starter questions for your booking form and example services, so you aren’t starting from a blank page.
• How clients book you — either they pick a time from your open hours, or they send a request and you offer a time. Pick-a-time suits haircuts and anything with a set length; send-a-request suits custom work.

Then it walks through the main sections one at a time. Open any section, make your changes, and press Save & finish at the bottom. Nothing is lost if you leave — you can reopen the guide whenever you like, and everything in it can also be changed from your dashboard.

Your site (Edit Site)

Edit Site in the top menu is where you control what your public page says and looks like. It’s split into cards:

Your site

Shows whether your site is live. Press Publish site when you’re ready for clients to see it, and Unpublish to hide it again. This is also where you change your site address and open your QR code — a printable code that takes anyone who scans it straight to your booking page. You can put your own logo in the middle of it.

While your site is published it’s also listed in our directory, where people can search for businesses like yours. Untick List my site in the directory if you’d rather not be listed.

The basics

• Business name and Your name — shown at the top of your page.
• Kind of business — tattoo artist, barber, photographer and so on. It’s shown with your listing in the directory, and people can filter by it.
• Tagline — one short line under your name, like “Custom tattoos · by appointment”.
• About — a few sentences about you and how booking works.
• Address — where clients come. It appears on your page with a map link, and in appointment emails. It’s also needed before you can send announcement emails.
• Notification email — where new booking requests are sent.
• Time zone — so every time shown to you and your clients is right.

Look & feel

• Profile picture — your photo or logo.
• Colors — background, text, main color and accent. If a combination would be hard to read, the page tells you and adjusts it slightly when you save.
• Font style — a few ready-made looks to choose from.
• Large screens — on a computer, show your page as one wide column, or as two columns with your work on the left and the booking form on the right.
• How your open times appear and time format — the style of the time buttons, and 12-hour or 24-hour times.

Links & socials

Your Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook, YouTube and website. Whatever you fill in shows as buttons on your page.

Portfolio

Show your work at the top of your page. You can add images, a YouTube video (paste the link) or an audio clip. They appear as a gallery that clients can flip through.

Events

Announce something with a date — a guest spot, a pop-up, a flash day. Events show in a banner at the top of your page until they’re over.

Booking form

Choose what clients tell you when they book. Name, email, phone and the time are always asked. On top of those you can:

• Add your own questions — a short answer, a long answer, or a dropdown of choices — and mark each one required or optional.
• Let clients attach a reference photo.
• Also accept design files — 3D models and CAD drawings — if you’re a maker or machinist.

Appointment reminders

Pick how long before an appointment clients are reminded automatically — from 12 hours to a week ahead — or turn reminders off. Reminders cut down on no-shows.

Invoices

Turn invoices on if you bill clients. You can add a business phone, a tax ID and standard notes that appear on every invoice.

Consent form

If clients need to sign something before their appointment, switch on Email the consent form to clients. Start from a built-in template (general, tattoo, beauty or photography) or write your own. Clients read and sign it on their phone, and the signed copy is kept with their booking.

When you can be booked (Availability)

On the Bookings page, the Availability section controls when clients can book.

How clients book

• They pick a time — your page shows your open times and clients choose one.
• They send a request — no times are shown; clients say what suits them and you offer a time.

Weekly hours

The quickest way to open your calendar. Choose the days you work and your start and end times, and those hours repeat every week. You also choose how far ahead clients can book.

One-off day

For a single date. Add specific session times, open the whole day for clients to request a time, or mark it as a day off so nothing can be booked.

Existing appointment

Already have something booked — by phone, in person, an old client? Add it here so the time is blocked and nobody else can take it.

When clients are flexible

Clients can say “I’m flexible” instead of picking a time. You choose what they’re asked: anytime, a month, or a range of dates — and which one is offered first.

What you offer (Services)

Also on the Bookings page. A service is something a client can book. For each one you set:

• Service name — for example “Haircut” or “Flash tattoo”.
• Length — how long it takes, so the right amount of time is blocked. Tick Variable length if it changes each time, and set the real length when you confirm.
• Price range — optional. Show one price or a from–to range.
• Deposit — on the Pro plan, an amount to collect up front for this service.
• Description — a line or two about what’s included.
• Limited-time dates — optional. Show the service only between two dates.
• Group class — for something several people book together, like a workshop. You set the number of seats and add the session dates.

Services are optional for clients unless you switch on require a service. With it off, clients can also choose “Something else” and describe what they want.

Handling bookings (Requests)

Every booking is a card on the Bookings page. Cards sit in five columns, and move from left to right as things happen:

• New — just arrived. You haven’t looked at it yet.
• Pending — you’ve seen it and it’s waiting on you.
• Waiting on client — you’ve asked them something, or sent a deposit request.
• Upcoming — confirmed, with a date and time.
• Completed — done.

Opening a card

Click a card to open it. At the top are the client’s details — when, name, email, phone, and their answers. Click the small pencil (✎) beside any detail to correct it.

Activity

The Activity list is the whole history of the booking: what the client asked for, what you did, and every email or text between you. When a client asks for a time, their request shows with three buttons:

• Accept — confirms it. The client is told, and the time is blocked. If you take deposits you’re asked whether to request one.
• Edit time — offer a different date or time.
• Decline — turn it down, with an optional note.

Writing to a client

Type in the box at the bottom of the card. Send emails the client (or texts them, if texting is on and they agreed to texts). Save note keeps a private note only you can see. When the client replies, their answer appears on the card and the card is flagged.

Move to

The Move to buttons put a card in another column by hand — for example straight to Completed for a walk-in.

Clients who need more than one visit

Tick Needs multiple sessions on a card and, after each visit, the client is invited automatically to book the next one.

Other tools on the Bookings page

• Search — find any booking by name, email, phone or notes.
• Add a booking yourself — the + on a column adds a client you’re already talking to.
• Print calendar — a printable view of your upcoming appointments (for subscribers).

What your clients see

1. They open your link and see your page: your work, your about section, your events and the booking form.
2. They fill in the form, choose a service and a time (or say they’re flexible), and send it.
3. They get an email confirming you received it, with a private link to manage their booking — to change or cancel it without calling you.
4. When you accept, they get the details and a calendar invite, plus the consent form to sign if you use one.
5. Before the appointment they get your reminder.

Clients never need an account or an app.

Your client list

Clients in the top menu lists everyone who has ever booked with you. Open a client to see all their bookings, the documents they signed and the photos they sent, and to send them a follow-up message. From the list you can also:

• Export CSV — download your client list as a spreadsheet.
• Email all clients — send an announcement to everyone. Each one carries an unsubscribe link and your business address, so add your address under Edit Site first.

Emails & texts

Automated messages

Four messages go out on their own: when a request is received, when you approve it, a reminder before the appointment, and when a booking is canceled. Under Emails & texts you can rewrite the wording of each, see a preview, and send yourself a test.

Text messaging (Pro)

On the Pro plan you can turn on texting. You get your own texting number, and you can:

• Send confirmations and reminders by text as well as, or instead of, email.
• Text back and forth with a client from their booking card.

Only clients who tick “Text me about my booking” on your form are ever texted, and they can reply STOP at any time. Your plan includes 250 texts a month; you can choose to stop at that limit so there are never extra charges. Each text on a card shows whether it was delivered, and if a text can’t be delivered it’s emailed to the client instead.

Getting paid

Taking payments is part of the Pro plan. Under My Account → Take client payments, connect a Stripe account — it takes a few minutes. Money goes straight to you; Tsoona never takes a cut.

• Deposits — set a default deposit, or one per service. When you accept a booking you can request it, and the booking confirms itself once it’s paid.
• Request payment — from any booking card, send the client a secure link to pay a deposit or the full amount.
• Record a payment — note cash or another payment you took in person, so the card shows what’s been paid.
• Invoices — build an invoice with line items and print it or save it as a PDF.
• Tips — clients can leave a tip from their booking link.

Plans and your account

• Free to start — build and preview your whole site without paying.
• Basic — $5/month — your live booking site, unlimited bookings, automatic reminders, your client list and the printable calendar.
• Pro — $10/month — everything in Basic, plus client payments and text messaging.

Choose or change your plan under My Account → Plan & payments. You can cancel any time.

Refer a friend

On the same page you’ll find your own link (and a QR code for it). Anyone who signs up with it gets their first month of Basic free. When they start paying, you get a free month too — on a paid plan that’s the price of a month of Basic off your next bill. There’s no limit to how many you can earn.

Under My Account → Login & security you can change your password and turn on two-factor authentication, which asks for a code from your phone when you log in. It’s worth doing.

Running a shop

If several artists work under one roof, the Shop page lets one person pay for everyone. You invite each artist by email; they keep their own login, their own page and their own clients, and you see who’s in each seat. Each seat can be Basic or Pro.

If you get stuck

At the bottom of every page there’s a link that says Found a bug or have an idea? Tell us. Write what happened and it comes straight to us. You can also email admin@tsoona.com.