BookingRules – Help

Approved by owner Nov 13, 2026

BookingRules lets you set booking rules for your Wix Bookings site: a booking deadline, blocked dates, and optional prep time between appointments. Rules are checked when a customer books or reschedules online.

Need help? Email ironsidecapital.apps@gmail.com. We reply within 2 business days.

Contents

1. Get started
2. What each rule does
3. Free and Pro
4. What happens when you reach the Free limit
5. Settings
6. Show your rules on the service page
7. Prep time (Beta)
8. Known limits
9. If something goes wrong (fail-open)
10. Your data
11. Uninstalling
12. Support

1. Get started

1. Install BookingRules from the Wix App Market on a site that has Wix Bookings with appointment services.
2. Open BookingRules from your site dashboard. The dashboard page title is "BookingRules".
3. Choose Add booking deadline, Add blocked dates or Add prep time (Beta).
4. Pick which services the rule applies to (all services, or the ones you choose), write an optional refusal message, and save.
5. Test it. Your own bookings and your team's are exempt by default, so test as a customer would (a private browser window) or switch on "Also apply rules to bookings I or my team make" while you test.

Settings can take up to about 20 seconds to take effect after you save.

2. What each rule does

Booking deadline. Stops last-minute bookings with a calendar cutoff. Choose how many days before the session the booking closes (0 = the day of the session) and a closing time, for example "the day before at 5:00 PM". You can limit a deadline to certain weekdays and add more than one deadline window. This is not a rolling "must book at least N hours ahead" rule. Wix Bookings already has its own late-booking setting; BookingRules does not replace it.

Blocked dates. Refuses new bookings for sessions on the dates you choose: a single day, or a first and last day. Tick "Repeat every year" for holidays. Existing bookings are not changed.

Prep time (Beta). Requires a gap of the minutes you choose after the previous booking ends on the same staff member or resource. See section 7.

Every rule has a refusal message you can write, and an "Applies to" choice of all services or specific services. Times are read in each booking slot's own time zone unless you choose one business time zone in the settings.

3. Free and Pro

To upgrade, use the Upgrade to Pro link in the banner on the BookingRules page. The banner title is "Free plan: up to 2 active rules", and it includes the line "Pro: unlimited rules, $7.99/mo or $79.99/yr". Billing is handled by Wix and you can cancel in your Wix account. There is no free trial.

4. What happens when you reach the Free limit

On the Free plan the app enforces your first 2 enabled rules, in the order they are listed.

• When 2 rules are enabled, the Add buttons are disabled and you cannot switch a third rule on. A "Free plan: up to 2 active rules" banner explains why.
• To make room, switch one rule off or delete it, then switch the other on or add a new one.
• A rule that is already saved and enabled beyond the first 2 is not deleted. It stays saved, shows Not active on Free, and is not enforced. If you upgrade to Pro it becomes active again.
• The service page notice only lists rules that are active, so customers are never told about a rule that is not being applied.
• If the app cannot work out your plan, or the last saved plan answer is older than about an hour, it treats the site as Pro so a billing problem never blocks a booking or turns rules off. Opening the BookingRules page refreshes your plan.

5. Settings

• Pause all rules. Turns every rule off immediately without deleting anything. Bookings are never blocked while this is on.
• Also apply rules to bookings I or my team make. Off by default so you can always book for a customer. Turn it on to test your rules yourself.
• Show my rules to customers in the service page notice. Controls what the Booking Rules Notice plugin displays.
• Time zone. By default each rule uses the time zone of the booking slot. You can choose one business time zone instead.

The page also shows a warning that customers can still see blocked times on the booking calendar, and that a refused booking may show a generic error instead of your message.

6. Show your rules on the service page

The Booking Rules Notice plugin tells customers about your deadlines and blocked dates before they book, for example "Bookings close the day before at 5:00 PM." It is not added automatically: you place it yourself on the service page.

1. In the Wix Editor, open the Bookings service page.
2. Add the Booking Rules Notice plugin to the service page.
3. Check it in Preview or on the live site. The editor can show a placeholder instead of the real text, so check the notice on the published service page.
4. Publish the site.

The notice lists only deadlines and blocked dates. It never shows prep time, your refusal messages or your settings. If you turn off the notice setting, the plugin shows nothing. On the Free plan it lists only the rules that are actually being enforced.

7. Prep time (Beta)

Prep time is optional and still in testing. You add it yourself; it is not on by default.

• It checks other bookings on the same staff member or resource around the requested time. If the new booking starts sooner than your prep minutes after the previous one ends, it is refused.
• When you add a new prep-time rule, the starting value is 15 minutes. You can set any whole number from 1 to 720 minutes ("Minutes needed after the previous booking ends").
• It needs the permission "Read bookings - including participants". You approve this when you install or update the app. The app uses only four things from each booking it looks at: the booking id, status, start time and end time. It does not read, store or log names, emails or phone numbers.
• If the permission is missing, or the check cannot finish, the booking goes through unchecked (see section 9).
• It counts as one of your 2 active rules on the Free plan.
• It has been tested with single appointments on one resource. Multi-service bookings are not checked.
• The prep time rule is never shown to customers in the notice.

8. Known limits

• A refused booking may show a generic error. When a rule refuses a booking, Wix may show the customer its standard error and not your refusal message. This is why we recommend the service page notice.
• Blocked dates still show in the calendar. The booking calendar can still show blocked days and times as available. The booking is refused when the customer confirms at checkout.
• Single-slot appointments only. Rules apply to appointment services. Classes, courses and multi-service bookings are not checked, and cancellations are not affected.
• The booking deadline is a calendar cutoff, not a rolling minimum notice of N hours. Wix's own late-booking and cancellation windows still apply.
• The notice plugin is placed manually on the service page (see section 6).
• Rules apply to new bookings and reschedules only. Existing bookings are not changed or cancelled.
• Your own and your team's bookings are exempt unless you turn that on.
• Prep time is a Beta feature.

9. If something goes wrong (fail-open)

BookingRules is built to allow a booking rather than block a sale when it cannot finish a check. If the platform is slow, a permission is missing, the plan cannot be read or anything unexpected happens, the booking goes through. This means a booking that your rules would have refused can occasionally be accepted. If you see that, email us with the date and the service.

10. Your data

• BookingRules does not store customer personal data. To check a rule it reads booking times, the service and staff or resource identifiers, the booking status, whether the request comes from you, your team or a customer, and the number of participants.
• It stores only your rule settings and a small record of your plan (Free or Pro) and when it was last checked, in a private collection on your own site.
• Our logs hold only counts and rule codes, never names, contact details or booking details. Those logs are kept by Wix under Wix's own retention policy.
• We do not send booking or customer data to any server we operate or to any third party. The app runs on Wix's infrastructure; Wix's own terms and privacy policy apply to that processing.
• You can delete your rules at any time on the BookingRules page. To have your stored settings deleted, email ironsidecapital.apps@gmail.com and we will reply within 2 business days.
• Read the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for details.

11. Uninstalling

When you uninstall, rules stop being enforced straight away. We do not delete your rule settings on uninstall: the platform may keep them, and they come back if you reinstall the app on the same site. They contain only your rules and plan record, no customer data. To have them deleted, email us.

12. Support

Email ironsidecapital.apps@gmail.com. We reply within 2 business days. Helpful details: your site name, which rule, the service, the date and time of the booking, and what you expected.