Booking software for multiple providers
Booking software for multiple providers on one installation: per-person hours, capacity, and the resource question nobody asks first.
self hosted booking multiple providers payments reads like three requests in one line, and it is.
A clinic with four practitioners, a studio with visiting teachers or a garage with two bays is not
one diary with more rows in it. Each provider has their own hours, their own services and their own
customers, and the person searching wants all of that in one installation they control.
Three different meanings of multiple providers
The first meaning is staff: several people employed by one business, taking bookings for that
business, paid by that business. One diary, several columns.
The second is independent practitioners sharing a roof. They rent a chair or a room, keep their own
client list and their own takings, and the shared thing is the premises rather than the trade.
The third is a marketplace: many sellers, one booking site, money split at the point of sale.
These look similar on a screen and are completely different underneath, because the second and third
raise the question of whose money it is. It is worth knowing which one you are before shortlisting
anything.
What owning the copy changes
For the first meaning, owning the software removes the meter. Slotly is licensed by the
number of sites you run it on rather than by the number of calendars inside it, so a fifth
practitioner costs nothing and a seasonal sixth costs nothing twice. The customer records, the
appointment history and every provider's hours live in one database on a server you chose, and the
whole booking history leaves with you as a CSV or a database backup whenever you want it.
Try the Slotly demo ↗Live, on sample data, no sign-up.
For the second meaning, owning the software is also what makes the arrangement workable: one
installation, one set of hours per person, and a shared booking page that sends each customer to the
right practitioner without any of it passing through a third party who charges for the privilege.
What to look for
Availability defined per person, not per business. Per-weekday hours including split shifts,
prep and cleanup buffers, blackout dates, minimum notice and a booking horizon -- set per
practitioner, so the page only ever offers what that person can take.
A conflict guard that survives a race. With several providers, the same slot is offered many
times over in a day. Slotly blocks a double booking at the database level with a serialised
transaction and a unique slot key, and the same guard covers the public form, the owner API and the
agent door alike.
Capacity where a session is shared. A class with a ceiling is a different object from a one-to-
one appointment, and a tool that treats every slot as exclusive cannot hold a group.
A feed per practitioner. Token-guarded read-only .ics feeds, one per person, let each provider
subscribe from their own phone. Revoking one token turns that feed dark and leaves the rest alone.
Deposits per service, with your own payment page. The deposit is quoted on the booking page and
paid on a provider page you control; no card number reaches your server.
The limits, stated plainly
The honest boundary is the third meaning. Slotly runs one business per installation and is not built
for a multi-vendor marketplace: there is no per-provider payout, no commission split and no separate
login through which a practitioner administers only their own column. Money is never processed at
all, so it cannot be divided.
The constraints the engine understands are the person, the service and the clock. There is no
separate room or equipment object, so if a second scarce thing -- a treatment room, a lift, a
machine -- is what actually limits your day, that is a constraint the booking engine does not know
about and you carry in your own head or in your hours.
Calendar feeds run one way, so a practitioner's private diary elsewhere does not block a slot here.
The autumn clock change offers the repeated wall-clock hour once rather than twice. And the rota
itself is a different job: planning who works which shift next week, with weekly hours totalled to
the minute, is Rostera, not this.
Questions people ask
Can two practitioners offer the same service at different lengths?
Services and hours are configured per person, so the same named service can sit on two different
availability patterns without the page confusing them.
Can a practitioner administer only their own bookings?
Not as a separate scoped login. Roles exist for the team, and the owner sees everything; a per-
provider console limited to one column is not part of the product.
Does adding a fifth or sixth provider change the price?
No. The licence counts installations, not calendars or people, and there is no per-booking charge
because no booking passes through anybody else.
Where to look next
The product page is Slotly, with the whole feature record and the limits in the
product's own words. The side-by-side sets it against what the rented services offer,
and the multi-practitioner alternatives page is one starting point if you
already pay for one of them. For what those services charge, read the observatory:
each figure is quoted verbatim beside the date it was read and a link to the page it came from.
Prices are on the observatory; read them on the date shown there.