WPBookster Review: How This Plugin Can Help You Create a Booking Website
Are you looking for the WPBookster review? If you are, keep reading this article. Here, we will show you the best things about this plugin and why Bookster would be an ideal option for you.
Before moving forward, let’s see what you should look for in appointment booking plugins.
What to Look for In a WordPress Booking Pugin
When choosing a WordPress booking plugin, there are several key features to consider:
- User-friendly Interface: A booking plugin should be easy to set up and manage for you and your customers. It should have an intuitive interface that lets you quickly configure booking forms and manage bookings.
- Customization Options: The plugin should offer various customization options to match your brand and website design. This includes customizing booking forms, confirmation emails, and booking pages.
- Calendar Integration: A good booking plugin should integrate with popular calendar services like Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and Outlook Calendar. This allows you to manage your schedule and avoid double bookings easily.
- Payment Gateway Integration: If you plan to accept payments for bookings, look for a plugin that supports popular payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and WooCommerce Payments.
- Email and SMS notifications: The plugin should send automated email and SMS notifications to you and your customers to confirm bookings and remind them of upcoming appointments.
Now you know what to look for in a WordPress booking plugin. In the next section, we will show you what WPBookster offers.
WPBookster: An Introduction
When you are looking for a feature-rich WordPress plugin that will help you easily create an online appointment booking website, you should check out WPBookster. WPBookster is a freemium WordPress plugin created by the same team behind plugins like YayMail, YayPricing, YayCurrency, and so on – YayCommerce.
Some WordPress appointment booking plugins offer complex configuration options, while others limit their features according to their pricing plans.
Here, Bookster will offer all the features of a typical appointment booking system. Below, we will show you the main features that make Bookster unique.
WPBookster Features
The main features of the WPBookster plugin are:
- Compatible with most third-party themes and plugins
- Lightweight
- Easy-to-use UI
- Unlimited agents
- Unlimited services
- Online payment gateway integration
- Email notifications
- Custom filtering options
- Detailed analytics
- Easy embedding
Let’s take a close look at each feature.
1. Compatible with Most Themes and Plugins
WPBookster plugin is compatible with most third-party themes and plugins. You can use any plugin or theme on your website, and the WPBookstyer plugin will not cause any issues. However, if you think the plugin is not working well with a custom theme or plugin, you can contact customer support.
They will help you solve the issue.
2. Lightweight
Since Google is using website speed as one of the ranking factors, you need to ensure your website will be optimized for speed. Thankfully, the WPBookster plugin comes with lightweight code. So, there won’t be any performance issues.
3. Easy to Use
You do not need any technical knowledge to use the plugin. It comes with an easy-to-use interface. From there, you can check out how much revenue you have generated so far, all the agents, the services you are going to offer, the major customization options, and so on.
4. Unlimited Agents
If you represent a huge brand with multiple clients, you can create as many agents as you need on the website. All you need to do is go to the agents’ screen on the WPBookster settings, and you can create new agents there.
While you create new agents, you might want to choose their availability and timing accordingly. You also need to assign the custom services to agents during the configuration.
5. Unlimited Services
Similar to agents, you can have unlimited services on your website.
The categorization feature will help you organize the services well. Under each service, you can choose the pricing, duration, and visibility. You also have the option to enable/disable custom services based on your preferences.
6. Online Payment Gateway Integration
If you go to the add-on settings, you can see the online payment gateway integrations.
As you can see in this screenshot, you can integrate Stripe and PayPal with the website. You can collect the money directly from your PayPal or Stripe account if someone needs to pay for their services. Alternatively, you can also enable the option to pay locally.
This way, customers can pay for the service when they visit the local store.
7. Email Notifications
When you run a customer-centric business, you should send proper customer notifications. WPBookster can help you send timely notifications to your customers.
You can see the available configuration options by going to the notifications settings.
With the available tags, you can create a custom email template.
8. Custom Filtering Options
The filtering option available in the WPBookster plugin is compelling.
If you need to find specific appointments, you can filter the results based on a custom date range, appointment booking status, payment, agent, service, etc.
This will help you find appointments with ease.
9. Detailed Analytics
You can check the analytics tab if you need to know how your business is doing.
There, you will see data regarding
- The total revenue
- Appointments
- Canceled case
- New customers
And so on. This way, you will understand how much money you have made.
10. Easy Embedding
To embed the appointment booking form, you can use a dedicated shortcode. This way, you do not need to use any coding methods. The shortcode can be added to your posts, pages, or custom post types. Also, since the shortcode can be inserted via Gutenberg or the Classic Editor, it would be simple.
Support and Documentation
The author provides limited support if you use the WPBookster plugin’s lite version. When you need help with the plugin, go to the support forum on the WordPress plugin repository and create a new topic there.
One of their support staff will respond to you. If you are using the plugin’s premium version, you can get priority support. This means all your questions and issues will be solved quickly.
Regarding documentation, WPBookster has a dedicated section for the content.
As you can see in the image, they have categorized it into sub-options like:
- Getting started
- Management
- Records
- Administration
- Addons
- Other Links
You can review each article to understand more about the features and learn how to use them.
Pricing
Bookster is a freemium WordPress plugin. The lite version of the tool can be downloaded from the WordPress plugins repository. The premium version can be purchased from their official website.
They have three premium pricing options.
- $39 a year – 1 Website License
- $79 a year – 3 Website Licenses
- $399 a year – Unlimited Website Licenses
Based on your preferences, you can choose a plan. For example, the first plan is enough if you have only one website and need only one subscription. If you plan to use a booking system on multiple websites, consider upgrading the plan to something else. You can complete the payment with your credit card or PayPal account.
Since all the subscriptions come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, your purchases are safer. If you do not like the product, you can claim a full refund.
Get Started with WPBookster
If you plan to use the plugin’s free version, you can click this link:
For the premium version, go here:
How to Create an Appointment System with WPBookster
This section will show you how to create an appointment booking website with the WPBookster plugin. We will use the plugin’s free version for this tutorial. The first thing you need to do is install and activate WPBookster on your website. You can do this directly from your WordPress backend.
Once you have completed the activation, you will be redirected to the setup wizard.
As you can see in the screenshot, you can add the basic features there. Once configuring those, move to the next stage, where you can choose the work days and times.
Now, choose the service types you need to offer. You can list as many services as you need.
Next, create the agents.
Now, the plugin will show you the dedicated shortcodes to display the forms.
You can embed them on your front page to display the booking form.
That’s it!
This is how you can create an appointment booking system with the WPBookster plugin.
Conclusion
When you need to create an appointment booking website, you have multiple options. A dedicated system can generate the website, or WordPress can be used with a booking plugin. In this article, I have shown you why WPBookster is one of the best plugins.
As you can see, the plugin comes with many features that will help you run a perfect online appointment system. You can add as many agents and services as you need, and the calendar integration would come in handy while people make bookings.
So, we highly recommend checking the plugin out.
Would you choose WPBookster for your website?
Let us know in the comments.
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