Choosing a reservation fee, full payment or patient choice

One setting decides what patients pay when they book online. It applies to your whole clinic. Go to Settings, Clinic, find Online booking policy, and choose from Payment at online booking. Press Save booking policy when you are done.

The three choices

• Booking reservation fee only. For a single treatment, the booking takes its own reservation fee or your default fee if it has none. For several treatments in one visit, the fixed fee is the highest effective fee, rather than the sum. (see Payment at booking). The balance is settled in clinic.
• Full payment. The patient pays the whole treatment price up front. If a treatment has no price set, that booking takes the reservation fee instead.
• Patient chooses. At checkout the patient sees Pay reservation fee now and Pay in full now, each with the amount shown, and picks one.

Things worth knowing

• A treatment whose own fee is set to 0 is free to book, so no reservation fee is taken for that treatment. Other treatments in the same visit can still require a fee. See Setting booking reservation fee amounts.
• Full payment uses the treatment's price. A treatment shown with a from price is never charged in full online: those bookings take the reservation fee only, whichever choice you make.
• A treatment that is free to book but has a price is charged in full when you choose Full payment. Only choose Full payment if that is what you want.
• All three need your Stripe account connected. Without it, the treatment payment cannot be collected online. A separately configured patient-paid Booking fee can still be collected by the platform.

Which should you pick?

Booking reservation fee only is the safe default: it cuts no-shows without asking patients to commit the full amount to an unfamiliar checkout. Full payment suits low-cost, fixed-price services. Patient chooses is a good middle ground once your regulars trust the page.