How to Take Class Bookings Online in 5 Steps

Moving class bookings online usually means replacing some mix of a paper sign-in sheet, a group chat, and a spreadsheet with one link students can use themselves. Here's the setup in order, whether you teach solo or run a studio or community center.

What do you actually need to take bookings online?

At minimum: a shareable booking link, a schedule with real dates and capacity, and a way to confirm the booking landed. Everything else — passes, check-in, waitlists — builds on top of those three.

Step 1: Set up your branded booking link

Your booking link is the one you'll share everywhere — in your Instagram bio, a text thread, a flyer QR code, or your own website. It should carry your name or business, show your upcoming classes, and let someone reserve a spot with the least friction possible. In Kahal, every organization gets a branded link the moment you set up your account: a student opens it, signs in passwordlessly (a magic link or Google — no password to invent), and books — so this step doubles as your setup step, not a separate project.

Step 2: Add your classes and set a recurring schedule

Enter each class as a template: a name, duration, space or location, and instructor. From that template you set a recurrence — for example, every Tuesday and Thursday at 6pm — and the system generates the individual sessions on the calendar automatically. This matters because re-typing "Yoga, Tuesday 6pm" into a calendar every single week is the single biggest source of scheduling drift and double-bookings.

A few things worth deciding at this step:

• One-off classes (a workshop, a trial session) versus recurring ones — most tools support both, and you'll likely use both.
• Which space or room each class happens in, if you manage more than one.
• Who the instructor is, so schedule changes and cancellations route to the right person.
• Whether the class is covered by a membership, sold as a drop-in, or paid per session — this affects what a student sees when they book.

Step 3: Set a capacity limit and turn on a waitlist

Every class needs a maximum number of spots — the size of your room, your equipment, or just what's sane to teach well. Set that number on the class, and let the booking page enforce it: once it's full, new bookers should see a waitlist option instead of a "book" button that quietly overbooks the class. When someone cancels, whoever runs the class should be able to offer the freed-up spot to the next name on the list in a click, not by texting down a list by hand.

Step 4: Let students book without creating a password

The single biggest drop-off point in online booking is the sign-up form. Asking someone to invent a password to book a single yoga class is where a lot of bookings get abandoned. Passwordless sign-in — a magic link sent to email, or a Google login — lets a student book in the time it takes to tap a link, and it's what Kahal uses for exactly this reason. The student still gets a proper account behind the scenes (so their booking history and any pass they hold carries forward), they just never have to remember a password to use it.

Step 5: Turn on automatic booking confirmations

Once a booking is made, the student should get a confirmation immediately — by email at minimum — so they're not wondering whether it went through. It should require no action from you once it's set up: the confirmation fires the moment the booking is made, not whenever you next remember to check.

What about getting paid for the class?

This is where the answer depends on where you are. If you're in Israel, Kahal takes online payments directly and issues automatic tax receipts through local gateways. Outside Israel, international card payments are on the roadmap but not live yet — so for now, you'd run your bookings, schedule, capacity, waitlist, and check-in inside Kahal, and collect payment through whatever method you already use (cash, a card reader, a separate payment link), with integrated online payments to follow. Either way, none of the booking mechanics above depend on how you get paid.

How do these five steps fit together?

In order: set up your branded booking link, build your class templates and recurrence, cap capacity and enable a waitlist, switch sign-in to passwordless, and turn on automatic booking confirmations. Do those five and the rest of class admin — who's coming, who's on a waitlist, who showed up — mostly runs itself. For the tools that do all five in one place, see our guide to class booking software, and if you plan to sell packs of classes rather than charge per session, read about passes and memberships next.

Ready to set this up? Start free — no card required.