What is Session

Learn what Session is, who it's for, and how it helps you take bookings and payments for your sauna without fighting an appointment tool.

Session is a booking platform purpose-built for saunas and other shared-capacity sessions. Instead of one-to-one appointments, you sell spaces in a session - several people booking the same slot, up to the real capacity of the room. It was built by a sauna operator, so the model matches how a sauna actually runs.

You get your own booking page at your own address, where customers browse your sessions, book, and pay by card. Behind it, an admin dashboard lets you and your team run the whole business - sessions, payments, customers, and reports - in one place.

Built for sessions, not appointments

A generic appointment scheduler assumes one customer per slot. A sauna is the opposite: one session holds many people, and you need to stop overbooking past the room's capacity. Session is designed around that from the ground up.

• Sell spaces in a shared session, with overbooking prevention built in.
• Offer private hire of the whole room and group bookings, each capped to real capacity.
• Price shorter and longer slots that share the same space - for example a 30-minute and a 60-minute booking on the same session.
• Collect digital waivers signed at checkout and verified at check-in, including per-guest signing for group bookings.

What you can do with Session

Session covers the full job of running a booking business, grouped the way the dashboard is:

• Schedule sessions - set up recurring schedules and one-off events, with capacity, duration and price per session and per-instance overrides. Add a booking window, a minimum notice period, and waiting lists that auto-notify when a space opens.
• Take payments - accept card, Apple Pay and Google Pay through your own Stripe account, with tiered price options, add-ons and upsells, discount voucher codes, and refunds, part-refunds and reschedules handled in-app.
• Sell memberships and passes - offer memberships with included-session allowances and member rates, multi-session bundles, and gift vouchers sold straight from your page.
• Manage bookings - your team manages bookings, adds bookings for customers, and checks people in; customers manage their own bookings too, even without an account.
• Run the business - see reports on revenue, occupancy and attendance, set admin and staff roles with limited permissions, export to CSV for your accountant, import your existing data, and connect integrations and webhooks.

Your booking page

Every venue gets a public booking page at its own address. Customers can browse your sessions, book and pay without an account, and your branding sits on top of it. You can:

• Run from multiple locations on one account, with location-aware booking pages.
• Match the page to your brand with your logo and colours.
• Share it through a printable booking poster with a QR code, and install it as an app on a phone home screen.

Pricing

Session is free to set up, with no subscription.

1. 1
   There's a platform fee of 0.5% per paid booking, capped at £100 per month. No card is needed to start.
2. 2
   Stripe's card processing fee (around 1.5% + 20p on UK cards) is separate. It applies on any booking platform and is paid into your own Stripe account.
3. 3
   Community and non-profit saunas can ask about a partnership deal through the Community Sauna Network.

How to get started

1. 1
   Set up your account - create your venue and choose your booking page address.
2. 2
   Connect Stripe so you can take card payments.
3. 3
   Create your first recurring schedule or one-off event.
4. 4
   Set your price options and check your cancellation policy.
5. 5
   Run through the going-live checklist and share your booking link.

Common questions

1. Who is Session for? Venue operators running saunas or other shared-capacity sessions - any setup where several people book the same slot rather than a one-to-one appointment. You run it as an admin, and your team can help as staff.

2. Do my customers need an account to book? No. Customers can book and pay as a guest, and still manage their own booking through a secure link in their confirmation email.

3. How do payments reach me? Card payments are paid into your own Stripe account. You connect Stripe once, then take card, Apple Pay and Google Pay - see accepted payment methods.

4. Can I take payment in person? Yes. You can record an offline or walk-in payment against a booking when a customer pays on your own card machine or in cash.

5. Does it work outside the UK? Yes. Session supports other countries, currencies and timezones - see international settings.