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What happens if they cancel, already decided
Leave knowing your deposit, cancellation window, and refund are already decided and written down, without clashing with consumer protection law, ready to paste on your site before you take the first booking.
By Yodai · Published September 6, 2026 · Updated October 12, 2026
There's something worth deciding before you take the first booking: what happens when someone cancels. Someone books with you for Thursday at eleven. Wednesday night they text: "I can't make it, can you refund what I paid?" You have nothing written down, so you decide on the spot, phone in hand, with the client waiting for an answer. That time you give in. The next week the same thing happens with another client, and this time you don't. Two identical cases, two different answers, and you come off looking like you're winging it instead of running a business.
Your cancellation policy isn't a legal paragraph you fill in to check a box. It's the answer you already have ready before the question shows up. You decide it once, write it once, and apply it the same way in week one and week one hundred.
Why before you charge, not when they complain
Cancellations are one of the most common complaints, and one of the few that are almost entirely avoidable with a sentence written down ahead of time. If the client sees the rule before paying, they don't argue with the rule when you apply it: they argue when it catches them by surprise. And if you yourself aren't clear on it, every cancellation turns into a brand-new negotiation that costs you time, and usually money.
- 1The deposit
How much you charge at booking and when. It can be a flat amount, say $15, or a percentage of the service, say 30%. Without a deposit, some of your slots get taken by people who never show up, and you don't get that time back. - 2The free cancellation window
How many hours or days ahead someone can cancel without losing anything. 24 hours is reasonable for a one-on-one appointment; a week if the slot is hard to fill, like an event or a spot in a group class. - 3What happens if they don't notify you or show up late
Decide whether they lose the whole deposit, whether they're charged for the full service, or whether they can reschedule once at no cost. Pick one rule and apply it to everyone, not just the client you like the least. And if the client is an individual and you keep their deposit when they cancel, make the rule work both ways too: it's only fair to pay them a similar amount if you're the one who cancels, and in some states that's required by consumer protection law.
- One sentence, no table: cancel on time and you get a full refund; cancel late and you get nothing.
- The client understands the rule without asking twice.
- You don't have to calculate anything when it's time to apply it.
- You refund a different percentage depending on how much notice they give: say 100% with a week's notice, 50% with two days, 0% the same day.
- It feels fairer to clients who cancel with plenty of notice.
- It needs a clearly explained table, or it raises more questions than it answers.
Which one should I pick: If your slot is for a single person and you can't easily fill it, like a consultation or a one-on-one class, pick all or nothing: the lost slot doesn't come back, so there's no middle ground worth defending. If you're selling spots in a group that you can fill with someone else, tiered windows work better because the real cost of each cancellation is lower.
And if it's not an appointment, it's a purchase
If instead of an appointment you sell a product or a service that's paid in full up front, the question changes: it's not "how late can they cancel for free?" but "do they get their money back if they never use it?" For packages and bundles of sessions, write down when they expire and what happens to sessions that go unused. For a service that hasn't started yet, a full refund is usually the fair call if they give enough notice. And both here and with deposit-based appointments, if an individual buys from you and pays remotely (through your site, by phone, or by message), consumer protection law generally gives them 14 calendar days to cancel without giving a reason, with exceptions like food or entertainment tied to a fixed date: if nothing has started, they get a full refund, and if the service already started at their request, they only pay for the part delivered. Your policy can give them more, never less.
- The deposit, the free cancellation window, and what happens if they don't show, all decided before your first booking.
- The rule chosen, all or nothing or by time bracket, depending on whether your slot is easy to fill or not.
- The exact wording of the policy, written the way you'd actually say it to a client, ready to paste onto your site.
- After this, it's time to put it all in place: four pages, one link each.