Frequently Asked Questions

SmarterCalendar is an all-in-one platform designed for small service businesses — salons, barbershops, consultants, personal trainers, therapists, contractors, and more. It gives you online appointment booking, automated SMS reminders, client management, a professional website, and billing tools all in one place.

If you accept appointments, you can use SmarterCalendar to save time, reduce no-shows, and grow your business without juggling multiple apps.

Getting started takes about 5 minutes:

1. Go to smartercalendar.com/signup.php and choose your plan.
2. Choose whether to use a free subdomain (e.g. yourbusiness.smartercalendar.com) or connect your own custom domain (Standard and Pro plans).
3. Enter your business details and complete checkout.
4. Log in to your dashboard and follow the setup checklist — add services, set your availability, and customize your booking page.

Your booking page goes live immediately and you can start sharing it with clients right away.

Yes — all plans include a free trial period so you can explore the platform before being charged. No credit card required to start exploring. You'll only be billed when your trial ends and you choose to continue.

From your admin dashboard, go to Services in the sidebar. Click Add Service and fill in the service name, description, duration, and price. You can add as many services as you need and reorder or hide them at any time.

Each service you create will automatically appear on your public booking page for clients to select.

Yes. Go to Team in your admin dashboard to invite staff members. Each team member gets their own login with role-based access:

• Administrator — full access to all settings and features
• Manager — can manage appointments, clients, and content but not billing or account settings
• Team Member — limited access to their own schedule and assigned tasks

Clients visit your booking page (your custom domain or SmarterCalendar subdomain), choose a service, pick an available time slot, and enter their contact information. The booking is confirmed instantly — no phone calls or back-and-forth needed.

You can share your booking page link anywhere: your Instagram bio, Google Business profile, email signature, or your website.

Yes. In your dashboard, go to Schedule and you can block off specific days or time ranges — for vacations, personal appointments, lunch breaks, or anything else. Blocked time won't be available for online booking.

Yes. Go to Google Calendar in your dashboard settings to connect your Google account. Once linked, your SmarterCalendar appointments will sync to your Google Calendar automatically, and existing Google events can block availability to prevent double-booking.

From your Schedule or Dashboard, click on the appointment and select Reschedule or Cancel. You'll have the option to notify the client automatically by SMS and/or email when you make changes.

Clients can also self-cancel using the link included in their confirmation message, if you have that option enabled.

You can mark the appointment as a no-show in the dashboard. Automated SMS reminders (sent 24 hours and/or 1 hour before the appointment) significantly reduce no-shows. You can customize reminder timing in your Settings.

SmarterCalendar automatically sends SMS appointment confirmations, reminders, and follow-ups to your clients using your dedicated phone number. You can also send manual text messages directly from the dashboard, and clients can reply — all managed in one inbox.

No additional SMS service subscription is required — messaging is included in your plan.

By default, reminders go out:

• Confirmation — immediately when an appointment is booked
• 24-hour reminder — the day before the appointment
• 1-hour reminder — one hour before

You can customize which reminders are enabled and their timing in Settings → SMS Reminders.

Yes. All replies from clients appear in your Text Messages inbox in the dashboard. You can respond directly from there, and clients will see replies from your dedicated business number — not a personal phone.

Live chat (available on Standard and Pro plans) adds a chat widget to your booking page so website visitors can ask questions in real time. You'll get notified in your dashboard when someone starts a chat, and can respond from the Chat section.

No. On the Starter plan your booking page is hosted at a free subdomain like yourbusiness.smartercalendar.com, which you can share and use right away. No domain purchase needed.

If you want your own branded address like www.yourbusiness.com, that requires the Standard or Pro plan and a domain you own (purchased separately from a registrar like GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc.).

To connect your own domain, you need to point it to our servers by updating your nameservers at your domain registrar. See the Nameserver Setup section below for step-by-step instructions for GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains, and others.

Once nameservers are updated and propagated (usually 1–24 hours), log in to your SmarterCalendar dashboard and go to Settings → Domain to enter your domain name. We handle the SSL certificate automatically.

Yes, absolutely. You do not need to buy a new domain — just update the nameservers on your existing domain at your current registrar. Your registrar is whoever you purchased the domain from (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains, Squarespace, etc.).

Yes. SSL certificates are issued and renewed automatically for all sites — both subdomains and custom domains. There is nothing you need to configure.

DNS propagation is the time it takes for nameserver changes to spread across the global internet. After you update your nameservers, the change doesn't take effect everywhere instantly — it rolls out gradually.

Most users see changes within 1–4 hours. In rare cases it can take up to 48 hours. During this time your site may load from either the old or new servers depending on your location.

This depends on your setup. When you point nameservers to SmarterCalendar, we take over DNS for your entire domain — including email (MX records). If you use a third-party email provider (Gmail / Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoho, etc.), your email will continue to work because we carry over the necessary DNS records.

Point your domain to the following SmarterCalendar nameservers:

Every registrar is slightly different, but you're always looking for one of these:

• Nameservers or Name Servers
• DNS Settings → Custom / External Nameservers
• Domain Management → DNS tab

If you can't find it, search your registrar's help center for "change nameservers" or contact our support team — we're happy to guide you.

SmarterCalendar offers three plans:

• Starter — Core scheduling and SMS features with a SmarterCalendar subdomain. Perfect for getting started.
• Standard — Everything in Starter plus a custom domain, live chat, webmail, and more client management tools.
• Pro — All Standard features plus advanced analytics, priority support, and the highest SMS volume limits.

See the full feature comparison on our Pricing page.

Go to Billing & Subscription in your admin dashboard. You can upgrade at any time — the change takes effect immediately. When downgrading, the change takes effect at your next billing cycle.

Note: downgrading from Standard or Pro to Starter will disable features that require a higher plan (custom domain, live chat, webmail, etc.).

Yes. You can cancel at any time from Billing & Subscription in your dashboard. Your account remains active until the end of your current billing period. We do not offer prorated refunds for partial months.

If you cancel within your trial period, you won't be charged.

We accept all major credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover). Payments are processed securely — we never store your full card details on our servers.

Yes. A receipt is emailed to your account email address after each successful payment. You can also view and download your full payment history from Billing & Subscription in your dashboard.

On the login page, click Forgot password? and enter your account email address. You'll receive a reset link within a few minutes. Check your spam folder if you don't see it.

You can also change your password while logged in by going to Profile in your dashboard.

Go to Profile in your admin dashboard to update your name, email address, and password. Business details like your business name, address, and phone number can be updated in Settings.

Yes. All data is transmitted over encrypted HTTPS connections. Passwords are hashed (not stored in plain text). We do not sell your data or your clients' data to third parties.

For full details, see our Privacy Policy.

Yes. From your dashboard you can export appointment history and client information. If you need a full data export, contact our support team and we'll prepare a complete export for you.

To permanently delete your account, contact our support team and we'll process the deletion within 2 business days. Please note that account deletion is permanent and cannot be undone — all your data including appointments, clients, and settings will be removed.