Things to watch out for with service options

If you want to charge different prices for hair length or stylist grade but switch on per-option pricing without actually filling in the options, the service ends up bookable for free. That's the main thing to watch for when setting up service options.

⚠️ Most common mistake: under Service Management > Edit Service, in the "Price & duration" section, switching the pricing mode from "Fixed price" to "Priced by option" disables the service's own base price and duration fields, and the price saves as zero. If you don't then actually add real sub-options underneath, the service is left on your booking page showing "Price on request" — and a customer can add it straight to their cart with no option selected, effectively for free. If you switch to "Priced by option", you must add at least one sub-option. (Saving with zero options triggers a warning, but doesn't block the save.)

Example: the owner of "Salon de J" hair salon adds a new "Colour" service and, wanting to charge different prices depending on hair length, switches the pricing mode to "Priced by option". So far, so correct. But she plans to fill in the actual options later and clicks Save anyway, ignoring the warning and forgetting to go back and add "Short", "Medium", and "Long" sub-options with their own prices and durations. The result: "Colour" sits on the booking page showing "Price on request" with no duration shown, and a customer can add it to their cart directly — no option picker, no price — and complete a booking. The real problem shows up on the stylist's side — looking at the booking card on the calendar gives no clue at all which length the customer wanted, or how long the appointment should actually take. To avoid this, add the sub-options (Short/Medium/Long) with real prices and durations immediately after switching the pricing mode, and check the booking-page preview before saving.

• "Priced by option" required: customers can only choose options if the pricing mode is set to "Priced by option". (See the warning above first.)
• Duration changes: enter the exact extra duration for each option — getting this wrong can cause overlapping (double-booked) appointments. For example, if the "Long" option on the Colour service above actually takes 90 minutes but is entered as 30, the system will think the slot frees up after just 30 minutes and let another booking land on top of a colour treatment that's still under way.
• Once options are set up, the booking page shows the price as A$50~ (from A$50). Pricing is displayed in Australian dollars (A$).