Getting started
From zero to a live booking link.
Six steps. Your booking page goes live about two minutes in, at the end of step 2, as long as you keep the starter services your trade comes with. Setup takes about ten minutes, plus however long Stripe takes to verify you.Read the whole thing pre-signup to know what you're in for, or open it in a sidebar tab post-signup and tap through.
Sign up + tell us about your business
Email + Apple / Google. No card required. The wizard is eight short screens: your business name and trade, your hours, your service area, your booking-page look, your confirmation message, and payouts. Your booking page goes live about two minutes in, at the end of step 2, as long as you keep the starter services your trade comes with. We pre-fill the starter menu for the trade you pick; "Something else" ships without one, so you add the first service yourself.
Sign upConnect Stripe
Stripe runs the payouts through a Stripe Connect Standard account, which means the account is yours: your Stripe login, your Stripe dashboard, your disputes. The flow is hosted by Stripe (you'll see their UI) and asks for your legal name, your business details, and the bank account you want payouts sent to. It may also ask you to verify your identity. How long it takes depends on your country and business type. After approval, deposits + balance taps + payouts all flow direct to your bank, no platform skim.
- Standard Stripe rates apply: 2.9% + 30¢ online, 2.7% + 5¢ in-person.
- We never see card numbers or bank details: Stripe holds those.
- Status surfaces on your setup checklist when Stripe finishes review.
Set your service catalog + pricing
Each service has a name, duration, price, and (optionally) a deposit %, a rinse window, and add-ons. The booking page renders these as bookable slots. Edit pricing anytime: past bookings keep their original price.
Manage servicesSet your hours + travel zones
Business hours per day-of-week tell the booking page which slots to offer. Mobile artists also configure travel zones (concentric drive radii with per-zone fees) and a drive-buffer-minutes value that adds padding before and after each appointment for windshield time.
- Studio-only: just hours.
- Mobile: hours + travel zones + drive buffer.
- Hybrid: both, plus the house-call hero on the booking page.
Claim your handle (or a custom domain)
Your booking URL is goldenhourhq.com/book/your-name, and that is the one setup shows you: claim or change the slug from Settings. A yourname.goldenhourhq.com subdomain turns on for the same page shortly after you claim the slug. Want it on your own domain (book.yourbrand.com)? Point a CNAME at us and we provision a TLS cert via Cloudflare. All of them reach the same page; the custom one feels more premium when handed to a customer.
Claim your handleShare your booking link
/app/share gives you the link, a QR code (download as SVG for print), an embed snippet for your Squarespace / Wix / WordPress site, and a Book-now button HTML. Pick whichever fits the channel.
- Instagram bio: paste the URL.
- iPhone share sheet: open the URL once, then Add to Home Screen.
- Existing website: drop the auto-resizing iframe snippet next to your About section.
After you go live
Four things worth doing in week one.
None are required: the booking link works without them. But each one compounds, and most artists who finish all four within their first week stay much longer.
Set up automated SMS + email
Confirmations and 24-hour reminders fire automatically: no setup needed. Optional: review-request 12h post-appointment (Settings → Review & rebook nudges), win-back at N days lapsed (Settings → Retention), birthday SMS (same page).
Customize your intake form
Default questions match your vertical (e.g. spray-tan asks about Fitzpatrick + recent UV exposure). Add or remove from Settings → Intake. Answers show on the appointment detail page with an AI one-line summary at the top of the client card.
Turn on the wedge features
Masked-number chat (Settings → Messaging) so customers never see your real phone. Inventory tracking (/app/inventory) for spray-tan solution + consumables. Photo workflow with consent + watermark. Each is opt-in.
Subscribe to product updates
We ship in public: every week's drops show up on /changelog. Subscribe via RSS at /changelog.xml or just bookmark the page. Active build means the answer to "can it do X?" changes month to month.
Ready when you are.
Sign up takes a minute. You can finish the rest at your own pace: the dashboard will hold its hand out until each step is done.