Deposits work brilliantly, but not every business wants to ask for money up front — and not every service is worth the friction. Confirm to hold sits in the middle: when someone books, the slot is held rather than instantly confirmed, and they get a one-tap "keep your spot" link. Tapping it locks the booking in. Ignoring it means the hold quietly expires and the time goes back on sale. A tiny bit of commitment, zero payment setup.

The Confirmations settings, where you turn confirm-to-hold on and set the hold window. — Confirm-to-hold lives under Settings, in Confirmations.

Rosewood Studio

Sally · replies instantly

Lovely — I’ve held Friday 3:00pm for you. Just tap below to keep it 👇

On hold for you

Women’s Cut & Blow Wave

Friday 12 July · 3:00pm · with Liv

Please confirm within 24 hours to keep your spot.

Keep my spot →

The customer sees an honest “held” status and one tap locks it in — no payment, no app.

How it works

The booking is held, not confirmed. The moment someone books a confirm-to-hold service — on your booking page or in the chat — the slot is blocked on your calendar so nobody else can take it, and the customer is told honestly that it's held, not locked in.
They get a one-tap confirm link. It goes out straight away by email and text (following your reminder channel settings), with the held-until deadline spelled out. One tap and the booking flips to confirmed — for a group booking, one tap confirms the whole party.
Unconfirmed holds release themselves. If the deadline passes with no tap, the hold expires, the slot opens back up, and if anyone's on your waitlist for that time they're offered it automatically. You do nothing.

The hold window

You choose how long a hold lasts — the default is 24 hours, and you can set anything from 30 minutes to 72 hours. The deadline is also appointment-aware, so it never works against you:

Booked well in advance — the customer gets your full hold window to confirm.
Booked close to the appointment — the deadline shortens so it always lands at least 30 minutes before the start time, leaving the slot time to be re-sold if they don't confirm.
Booked at the last minute (within about an hour of the start) — there's no time for a confirm round-trip, so the booking just goes through normally with no hold at all.

Turning it on

1. Open Business setup

In your dashboard, go to Settings ▸ Business setup and find the Confirm to hold section.

2. Switch it on and pick your window

Set "Confirm to hold for new services" to Confirm to hold and choose the hold window in hours. Services you add from then on use that setting.

3. That's it

Bookings for those services are now held-then-confirmed. Customers see a "Tap to confirm within 24h to hold" note on the booking page before they book, so nobody's surprised.

Confirm-to-hold vs deposits

They're siblings, and you can use both across your service list. A deposit is the stronger commitment — real money against the booking — and suits your big colour and treatment appointments. Confirm to hold costs the customer nothing and suits everything else. One rule to remember: if a service has a deposit set, the deposit wins — that service uses the deposit flow and the hold setting is ignored, so the customer is never asked to do both.

Why it helps Most no-shows aren't malicious — they're bookings made in ten seconds that never felt real. One deliberate tap makes it real. And when someone genuinely doesn't confirm, you find out before the appointment, while the slot can still be filled — not after the chair sat empty. Pair it with reminders and no-show tracking for the full defence.