You are the artist and the front desk, and only one of those can happen while the machine is running. Picktime puts the consultation, the deposit and the session on a page people book from, so an idea that lands at midnight is a booked consultation by morning rather than a message you get to on Thursday.
Blu InkBook online
Consultation30mFree
Flash piece2h$220.00
Custom day6h · 14 days’ noticeBook
Next freeWed 11:00Fri 10:00Sat 12:00
Booked online
12:04 AM
The idea that landed at midnight
Deposit
$55.00
25% of the flash, taken at booking
Drawing days
Not bookable
Mondays and Tuesdays stay shut
Booking software for tattoo artists earns its place at the exact hour you cannot answer, which is most of the working week. Every one of these takes a job off you then, without letting anybody book a day you have not agreed to.
A half-hour talking about an idea and a six-hour day in the chair need different lengths, different prices and different rules. List both, and let people pick the one they actually need rather than asking you which it is.
A custom design is hours of work made for one person’s arm, and it cannot be sold to anybody else. Take a fixed deposit or a percentage as they book, so the drawing time is paid for before you spend it.
Placement, size, cover-up or fresh skin, age, medication, references. On the paid plans you ask it on the booking form in your own words and it arrives attached to the booking, instead of coming back across nine messages over four days.
A week guesting somewhere else is its own place with its own hours. People in that city see those days and only those days, and nobody at home books you into a week you are not in the country.
Nobody books an independent artist by walking in, so the hours are entirely yours to set. The ones that matter most are the ones that stay shut.
Set the days you tattoo and the days you draw, and set how far ahead a custom session has to be booked, so nothing lands on Thursday that you would have needed Tuesday to design.
Flash can stay bookable at short notice while custom work cannot, because they are different services with different rules rather than one diary with a note on it.
A sleeve is four sittings and the fourth one has to pick up exactly where the third stopped.
Every session a client has had, the notes you took and the references they sent stay on their record, so somebody coming back for the next panel is one person with a history rather than a name you half recognise in a message thread.
Book the next sitting before they get off the chair; on the paid plans it repeats at the same hour, with a reminder going out on its own before each one.
Sunday evening, and you are four hours into a design for Thursday. It is a cover-up, so it is drawn around what is already on the arm and it will not fit anybody else. The person it is for asked for two changes on Friday and has not answered since.
There was no deposit. Asking for one over messages means asking for a bank transfer and then asking again, and it is the request that makes people go quiet. So the four hours are unpaid, and they are the smaller half of it. Thursday is a whole day held open on books that only have four working days in them.
Tattoo appointment booking software takes that off the messages, and Picktime is the free version of it. People book the consultation themselves, the deposit goes through while they are booking, and a day somebody gives up is a day you find out about.
4 hrDrawing a cover-up nobody has paid for
1 of 4Working days in the week, held for nobody
Put in what you actually offer (a consultation, a flash piece, a half day, a full day), each with its own length and price. Set the hours you tattoo, and leave the drawing days out of them.
Charge a fixed deposit, a percentage or the whole price, set differently for each one, so a consultation can stay free while a custom day cannot be booked without paying for the drawing. Say how late a session may be moved.
The booking page is a link, so it goes in your Instagram bio, in the caption under a piece you just finished, and behind a QR code at whatever studio you are working out of this month.
Twenty past nine on a Wednesday, four hours into a back piece, and the phone goes.
The free plan is a plan, not a trial. There is no date at which it stops, no card to add, and nothing that quietly turns off in a fortnight.
A booking lands in the calendar you already have open, and the paid plans sync it both ways, so it moves there when it moves here. Deposits run through PayPal on the free plan and through Stripe or Square on the paid ones, so the money arrives where your money already arrives, and the booking link sits on the profile people are looking at your work on rather than on a website you have not built.
Picktime runs in a phone browser as well as a laptop, and there are iOS and Android apps, so you can look at next Thursday from the station rather than from a desk you do not have.
Picktime is free tattoo booking software for an artist running their own books, and it covers the parts of the job that are not the tattoo: online payment, invoicing, bookings taken around the clock, and a record of every customer.
You get a customised booking page with a public link of its own, so somebody can put themselves in your book at three in the morning when you have no website at all, and appointments for yourself or for anyone you work alongside sit on one online calendar rather than in a paper book or an appointment pad.
On the paid plans, recurring bookings cover a piece that takes several sittings and automated reminders by email or text tell the client well in advance when the next sitting is, so nobody arrives on the wrong day.
Part or full payments run through a PayPal account you connect, or Stripe or Square on a paid plan, so a deposit is taken as the booking is made rather than chased afterwards.
Customer data, payments and the whole week’s schedule live in one place, which is what a tattoo artist otherwise keeps across a phone, a notebook and a direct-message inbox.
The one that takes the deposit and asks the questions, because those are the two jobs a studio’s front desk does and a solo artist has to do between sessions. Picktime puts a consultation and a session on the same page as separate bookings and takes a deposit as either is booked, free for one artist. Collecting placement, size and medical answers on the form is on the paid plans.
Most run a tattoo scheduling app alongside a direct-message inbox, and the deposits and the no-shows are what fall down the gap between them. Picktime replaces the inbox half: the link goes in the bio, the deposit goes through as they book, and the session lands in the calendar you already use.
Picktime’s free plan covers a booking page of your own, consultations and sessions as separate services, a PayPal deposit taken as they book and a record for every client, with no card and no end date. Your own booking questions and reminders are on the paid plans. It runs in a phone browser, and there are iOS and Android apps if you would rather have it on the home screen.
Yes, and on a custom piece that is the point. Charge a fixed deposit, a percentage or the full price through PayPal, or Stripe or Square on a paid plan, set per service, so a custom day cannot be booked without paying for the drawing while a consultation stays free.
Yes, on the paid plans. The form asks whatever you need before you agree to a piece (placement, size, cover-up or fresh skin, age, medication, what they are referencing) in your own wording, and the answers arrive attached to the booking rather than scattered through a message thread.
Yes. Set how far ahead each service has to be booked, so a custom day needs a fortnight while a flash piece can be taken this week, and set the days you draw on as hours nobody can book at all.
Yes. Each place you work from keeps its own hours and its own booking page, so a guest week appears on exactly the dates you are there and disappears afterwards, and nobody at home books you into a week you are away.
Artists and chairs Several artists, several stations, and a guest in for a fortnight who needs both.
See tattoo studio scheduling
Sittings A date, a deposit and a shoot list, agreed without a fortnight of emails.
See photographer scheduling
Trials and days A trial months before the day itself, both held against one person’s diary.
See makeup artist schedulingFree forever for one artist. No card, no trial clock, and your booking link can be in your bio this afternoon.
Google Calendar
Stripe
Square
PayPal
Facebook