Guides

From an empty account to taking paid bookings on your website — each guide is a few minutes.

1. Build your first widget

A widget is one estimator + booking flow; most businesses need just one.

Widgets → New widget: give it a name (visitors never see it) and pick a template close to your business, or start blank.
Estimator tab: add your services with base prices, then any fields that change the price (options, quantities, checkboxes).
Booking tab: choose which details to ask for (name and email are the minimum), add custom fields if you need them, and write the confirmation message.
Design tab: colours, font and corner radius to match your site; the live preview on the right updates as you go.
Save. The widget is active immediately — but only visible where you embed it (guide 5).

2. Pricing rules

Each service has a base price. Fields adjust it: a dropdown can multiply or add a fixed amount per choice, a number field can charge per unit (per room, per hour, per kilometre), and a checkbox can add an extra. Rules can be conditional — only applied when another field has a certain value. The price shown to the visitor while they configure is a live preview; the amount actually charged is recalculated on our servers from your saved settings, so nobody can tamper with it in the browser.

3. Availability and calendar

Calendar tab: set your working hours per weekday, the slot length, and any buffer you need before and after a booking. Add blackout dates for holidays. Everything is calculated in your business time zone, so a visitor in another zone always sees times that are really free. Rental-style businesses can switch the calendar to date ranges with minimum and maximum lengths instead of time slots.

4. Connect payments

Settings → Payments. Pick your account currency first — every widget charges in it. Then connect the providers you want to offer:

Stripe: choose your business country and follow Stripe's hosted onboarding; card payments switch on when Stripe activates the account.
PayPal: connect your PayPal Business account; it also powers "card via PayPal".
Back in the widget's Payment tab, switch on the methods you want to offer. A method is shown to visitors only once it is available on the platform, included in your plan, and connected — until then the widget offers pay-in-person.

Money goes straight to your Stripe or PayPal account; we never hold it.

5. Embed on your website

Embed tab: copy the script tag. Paste it into your page where the widget should appear — in a "custom HTML" or "embed code" block on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or Webflow, or straight into the HTML of a hand-built page. It loads in its own isolated container, so your site's styles and the widget's never interfere. Use the Test page in your dashboard to see the exact result before you publish.

6. Manage bookings

Bookings shows everything coming in. An online-paid booking is confirmed automatically; a pay-in-person one is confirmed and waits for you to mark it paid on the day. Mark no-shows and cancellations, add notes, and use the "needs attention" views to see what is awaiting payment or a decision. Analytics shows views, estimates, bookings and revenue per widget over time.

Smart Widget — L. Thomas PR · smartwidget.app@gmail.com