Palaestral and Square Appointments

Every Square plan includes an online booking website, a Book Now button for your website, a QR code and an embeddable booking widget.¹ Square can add a Book Now button to an Instagram account, a Facebook page or a Google Business Profile.¹ Class booking, with single or recurring classes and a set capacity, is on Square Plus and Square Premium.² A waitlist for popular services is on Square Plus and Square Premium.¹

Palaestral

Palaestral gives you a page under your own name, at palaestral.com/i/your-name, that lists the next 14 days of times anybody can book. You set a lesson's days and hour once, and its times are made 120 days ahead in the lesson's own time zone. A private lesson has one seat and a small group has more. A full time takes a queue of two places for every seat, and a freed seat is held for the next person in line. A client books with a name and an email address, with no account and nothing to install, and can move their own booking up to three times while cancelling would still refund it in full.

Payments go through Square, at processing fees that vary with the Square plan you choose.¹ As of October 20, 2026, an online card payment costs 3.3% + 30¢ on the Square Free plan and 2.9% + 30¢ on Square Plus and Square Premium, and an in-person tap, dip or swipe costs 2.6% + 15¢, 2.5% + 15¢ and 2.4% + 15¢ across the three plans.¹ A manually entered or card-on-file payment costs 3.5% + 15¢, and a card issued outside the United States adds 1.5%.¹ Square says you can transfer funds to an external bank account the next business day without a fee, or instantly for a fee.¹ A cancellation policy with no-show fees charged to a card on file is on Square Plus and Square Premium.¹

Palaestral

With Palaestral, a client's card is charged by Stripe on your own Stripe account: the money is yours, and any 1099-K is issued in your name. Palaestral's pricing is set before signups open in January 2027, and nothing is charged before then. Stripe bills its processing to your own Stripe account, which sets the rate you pay; Stripe's standard US card rate is 2.9% + 30¢ a charge as of October 20, 2026.⁴ A client pays exactly the price you list, and nothing is added to it. Your money never sits with Palaestral on the way; the one part that passes through is a studio's share, where you teach at a studio that keeps one. A chargeback is raised against your Stripe account and answered from your own Stripe dashboard.

Square Plus and Square Premium offer a prepaid series of services or classes, applied at checkout when a customer redeems it.¹ On every plan, Square can require payment in advance and send contracts to clients automatically when they book.¹ Square's Appointments page says forms and contracts can be received from clients during booking and kept together.³

Palaestral

Palaestral sells a membership at a price a month for a number of visits or unlimited ones, which a member can pause for up to 90 days with nothing charged. A lesson pack is a number of lessons used as they are booked, and any pack can be bought as a gift whose lessons never expire. A client can also make a lesson weekly and keep their place. A booking is confirmed only once your waiver is signed for every person on it, and anyone under 18 is signed for by a parent or guardian. A signed waiver is kept for five years, or a child's until they are 20, whichever is later, and nobody can delete one before then, you included.

Square creates a customer profile automatically every time a sale is made and tracks purchase history, on every plan.¹ A profile can hold a client's preferences, birthdays, documents, images and files.³

Palaestral

Palaestral keeps one record for each client of what they booked, signed and paid and the lessons they have left. Your notes after a session are on the client's record when they come back, kept 24 months from the day each was written, and only you see them: a studio you teach at sees its own schedule and who is booked into it, and none of your notes. Once a client has come on three different days, Palaestral lists them for you when they fall well behind their usual gap, and that list sends nothing.

Square syncs its calendar with Google Calendar on Square Plus and Square Premium.¹ Square says the sync blocks off personal events to avoid double-bookings.³

Palaestral

Palaestral publishes your teaching schedule as one calendar address you subscribe to once from Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook. It flows one way, out: a change in Palaestral reaches your calendar, and no calendar is signed into or read. No client's name, note or price reaches it. Palaestral reads no calendar, so it knows only the lessons booked in it: what it refuses is two of your Palaestral lessons at once, at any of the places you teach.

As of October 20, 2026, Square lists its plans per location a month: the Square Free plan with no monthly subscription cost, Square Plus at $49 and Square Premium at $149, beside the processing fees above.¹ Square Plus and Square Premium each have a 30-day trial.¹ A business processing over $250,000 a year can ask Square about custom pricing.¹

Palaestral

Palaestral's pricing is set before signups open in January 2027. Nothing is charged before then. Stripe's card processing is billed to your own Stripe account, and a client pays exactly the price you list.