Setting Up Your First Online Booking System: A Step-by-Step Guide
A practical walkthrough for escape room owners who want to start accepting online bookings. Covers what you need, how to set it up, and common mistakes to avoid.
Before You Start
Setting up online booking for your escape room does not require technical expertise. If you can set up a Facebook page, you can set up a booking system. The whole process takes about an hour if you have your information ready.
Before you start clicking buttons, gather these details:
- Your rooms and experiences. Names, descriptions, difficulty levels, minimum and maximum group sizes, and duration for each.
- Your pricing. Per-person pricing, flat-rate pricing, group discounts, any special pricing tiers.
- Your schedule. Which days you are open, what time slots you offer, and any blackout dates.
- Your policies. Cancellation policy, refund policy, age requirements, arrival time expectations.
- A Stripe account. If you do not have one, create it at stripe.com. You will need a bank account and basic business information. Approval is usually instant.
Step 1: Set Up Your Rooms
Start by adding each room or experience to your booking system. For each room, you will typically enter:
Basic information:
- Room name (e.g., "The Vault")
- Short description (2-3 sentences about the theme)
- Difficulty level (easy, medium, hard)
- Duration (60 minutes, 90 minutes, etc.)
Capacity:
- Minimum players (usually 2)
- Maximum players (typically 6-10 depending on your room)
Pricing:
- Per-person price or flat rate
- Any group size discounts
Take your time with descriptions. These show up in your booking widget, so they are often the first thing a potential customer reads about your rooms. Be specific and exciting without giving away puzzle details.
Step 2: Configure Your Schedule
Next, set up your availability. Most booking systems let you create a weekly template and then adjust specific dates as needed.
Weekly template:
- Which days of the week you are open
- Time slots for each day (e.g., every 30 minutes from 10 AM to 9 PM)
- Buffer time between bookings (usually 15-30 minutes for reset)
Room-specific schedules:
- If certain rooms are not available on certain days
- Different time slots for weekdays vs. weekends
- Seasonal adjustments
Tip: Do not offer too many time slots at first. It is better to have fewer slots that fill up consistently than lots of empty slots that make your venue look unpopular. You can always add more slots as demand grows.
Step 3: Connect Payments
Link your Stripe account to your booking system. This is usually a one-click authorization process.
Decide on your payment approach:
- Full payment upfront. Best for reducing no-shows. The customer pays the full amount when they book.
- Deposit only. Collect a partial payment (e.g., $10 per person) at booking, with the balance due on arrival. Good if your pricing is complex or group sizes might change.
- Pay on arrival. No upfront payment. Higher no-show rates, but some venues prefer this for corporate bookings.
Our recommendation: collect full payment upfront whenever possible. Venues that do this see no-show rates under 5%, compared to 20-30% for pay-on-arrival. The math is simple.
Step 4: Add the Widget to Your Website
Once your rooms, schedule, and payments are configured, it is time to put the booking widget on your website. This typically involves copying a small piece of code and pasting it into your website.
For WordPress: Add the code snippet to a page using the HTML block, or install the provided plugin if one is available.
For Squarespace: Use the Code Block or Code Injection feature in your site settings.
For Wix: Use the HTML Embed element on your booking page.
For custom websites: Paste the code snippet wherever you want the widget to appear.
Where to place it:
- Your homepage (above the fold if possible)
- A dedicated "Book Now" page linked from your main navigation
- Individual room pages
The most important thing: make it impossible to miss. A tiny "Book" link buried in your footer is not going to cut it. You want a prominent "Book Now" button in your navigation and a booking widget right on your homepage.
Step 5: Set Up Confirmation Emails
When someone completes a booking, they should immediately receive a confirmation email with:
- Booking date and time
- Room name
- Number of players
- Total amount paid
- Your venue address with a map link
- Parking information
- What to expect (arrival time, dress code, etc.)
- Cancellation/modification policy
- A link to modify or cancel their booking
Most booking systems send these automatically. Review the default template and customize it with your branding and specific venue information. This email sets expectations for the visit, so make it thorough.
Step 6: Test Everything
Before going live, test the entire flow yourself:
- Visit your website and click through to the booking widget
- Select a room, date, and time
- Complete a real booking with a real payment (you can refund yourself after)
- Check that the confirmation email arrives and looks correct
- Verify the booking appears in your admin dashboard
- Test on your phone (most bookings come from mobile)
- Try booking the same slot again to make sure it shows as unavailable
Do not skip this step. A broken booking flow is worse than no booking flow. Customers who hit an error during checkout will not come back to try again.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Setting up too many rooms at once. Start with your most popular rooms. Add the rest once you are comfortable with the system.
Ignoring mobile. Test your booking widget on at least three different phones. What looks great on desktop can be unusable on a small screen.
No buffer time. If your games run 60 minutes, do not schedule back-to-back. You need time to reset the room, brief the next group, and handle late arrivals. Build in at least 15 minutes between slots.
Complicated pricing. If your pricing requires a calculator and a flowchart, simplify it. Customers abandon bookings when pricing is confusing.
Hiding the booking option. Put "Book Now" everywhere: navigation bar, homepage hero, individual room pages, your Google Business profile, your Instagram bio, your email signature.
After Launch
Going live is just the beginning. In the first week, keep a close eye on:
- Are bookings coming through successfully?
- Are confirmation emails being delivered?
- Are there any customer questions or confusion you did not anticipate?
- How does the widget look and function on different devices?
Ask a few friends or family members to go through the booking process and give you honest feedback. Fresh eyes catch things you will miss.
Once everything is running smoothly, you can focus on driving more traffic to your booking page through the marketing channels that work best for your venue.
