PalaestralQuestions, answered.
Short answers, each with the page that holds the detail.
Getting started
How do I start?
From the Get started page, email yourself a sign-in link — there is no password — then claim your page's address, connect Stripe, and publish what you teach. The link works once, for 15 minutes.
Do my clients need an account?
No password, and nothing to install. A client books from your page with their name and email address, and opens a link sent to that address to sign the waiver, which is how a signature is known to be theirs.
Can I bring my clients with me?
Yes. Upload a spreadsheet of the people you already teach, with your notes and the lessons they have left. Nobody is sent anything unless you ask for the one email that tells them. What you agree to by bringing them over is in the terms.
Payments and fees
What does Palaestral cost?
Pricing is set before signups open in January 2027. Nothing is charged before then. The pricing page works a month through.
Who pays the card fee?
You do, as the merchant. A client pays into your own Stripe account, and Stripe bills its processing to it at Stripe's standard US card rate: 2.9% + 30¢ a charge as of October 20, 2026, on Stripe's pricing page. A client pays exactly the price an instructor lists, and nothing is added to it.
When am I paid?
Stripe pays your balance out to your bank on the schedule your Stripe account sets. Your money never sits with Palaestral on the way.
How are refunds worked out?
On the cancellation terms a booking was sold under, which are copied onto it when it is booked. A client who cancels gets the share their notice earns, a lesson you call off comes back in full, and one called off for conditions returns the share your terms set for conditions. The terms say the rest.
Waivers
What do clients sign?
The waiver you write. A booking is confirmed only once it is signed for every person on it, and for a child by their parent or guardian.
How long is a waiver kept?
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.
Calendars
Does it sync with my calendar?
Your schedule publishes as a calendar address you subscribe to from Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook. It flows one way, out: a change you make in Palaestral reaches your calendar, and nothing your calendar holds comes back.
Your data
Can I take everything with me?
Yes. Ask your account for a copy of everything Palaestral holds about you — every client, note, waiver and payment, as spreadsheets and pages in one file — and close your account when you choose. What closing does, and what is kept, is on the privacy page.
Who can see my notes about a client?
Only you. Your notes about a client, your lesson plans and your payment records are yours. A studio you teach at sees its own schedule and who is booked into it, and none of those.
Can a client ask for their records to be deleted?
Yes. They ask the place they booked with, and its owner erases their record. What a deletion removes and what it keeps, and why, is on the privacy page.
Assistants
Can a client book through their own assistant?
Yes. A client's assistant can find your times and book them under the same rules as your page, and the person still signs the waiver and pays on the page themselves. A client pays exactly the price an instructor lists, and nothing is added to it.