Do you take any percentage of the deposit?

The Bookesto platform fee is not decided or published. Processor fees and any Bookesto fee will be stated before the payment beta opens.

Who is the merchant of record?

The intended UAE design keeps the business as merchant of record and settles to its connected account. Stripe approval and legal review must confirm that flow before launch.

What if I already use Stripe?

The connection flow is not live yet. Eligibility and account requirements will be published after Stripe approves the platform setup.

Can I refund from inside Bookesto?

That is what the capture and refund path is being built for. Until it ships, refunds happen in your Stripe dashboard, where they always would have.

Deposits and no-shows

In build

Attach a cost to not turning up.

Deposit and card-hold policies for owned-channel bookings. Policy resolution runs today; no live charge, refund or payout path is available yet.

Join early access

Stripe approval, legal review, capture, refunds, reconciliation and commercial pricing are launch gates.

In build

The payment architecture is still a gate.

The intended design creates a charge against a merchant-owned connected account rather than pooling customer funds in a Bookesto balance. That intent still needs Stripe approval and UAE legal review. The platform fee is not fixed, and this page will not turn an open commercial decision into a permanent promise.

What runs today

Deposit-policy resolution on a booking record

What does not run

Account connection, charge, capture, refund, dispute and reconciliation

Intended settlement

To the merchant's connected account, subject to approval

Bookesto platform fee

Not decided or published

Processor cost

Published by Stripe and separate from Bookesto pricing

Required evidence

Approved test/live matrix and an end-to-end refund drill

An empty dining room in morning light: one table laid with wine glasses, tumblers and a small vase, with tall windows and more set tables behind it.

Charging a deposit is one of four levers, not the whole answer.

A deposit works when the counterparty is a customer. When the counterparty is a prospect, asking for money inverts the relationship — so commitment has to come from somewhere else. Bookesto treats no-show handling as a sequence rather than a single charge.

Reconfirm or release

A held slot that is not reconfirmed inside the window goes back to the pool automatically

Card hold

An authorisation without a capture — nothing is taken unless the policy fires

Deposit

A real charge, credited against the invoice when the meeting happens

Reroute

No-show outcomes written back to the distributor, so future leads route away from poor show rates

The fourth lever is the one nobody ships. Reminders exist everywhere and payment exists in several products, but no vendor in our survey feeds attendance outcomes back into who gets the next lead.

In build

Policies

Amount

Fixed or a percentage, per meeting type

Cancellation window

Configurable, with a stated cutoff shown to the customer before they pay

Automatic release

On attendance, or on cancellation inside the window

Partial forfeit

A defined proportion retained for a late cancellation

Credit

The deposit applied against the invoice rather than refunded and re-charged

Exemptions

Existing accounts, named domains, or a routing rule outcome

We are not going to quote you a no-show statistic.

Every number circulating on this topic traces back to secondary aggregations of a report we could not open as a primary document. We have no customers, so we have no data of our own either. What we will give you instead is measurement: a show-rate figure with and without a deposit policy, on your own account, so the answer comes from your business rather than from a vendor’s blog post.

In build

Where deposits work today

Deposit rails by region, with the status of each.
Region	Deposit rail	Status
United Arab Emirates	Stripe Connect (Custom)	Planned — pending Stripe platform approval
Everywhere Stripe operates outside the UAE	Your own Stripe account via a restricted key	Planned
Saudi Arabia	Stripe is not available; a second rail is an open decision	Gated
United States	Not a market we sell into	—

Payment methods are cards and wallets, including Apple Pay and Google Pay. Direct-debit rails are not supported.

Questions about deposits

Do you take any percentage of the deposit?: The Bookesto platform fee is not decided or published. Processor fees and any Bookesto fee will be stated before the payment beta opens.
Who is the merchant of record?: The intended UAE design keeps the business as merchant of record and settles to its connected account. Stripe approval and legal review must confirm that flow before launch.
What if I already use Stripe?: The connection flow is not live yet. Eligibility and account requirements will be published after Stripe approves the platform setup.
Can I refund from inside Bookesto?: That is what the capture and refund path is being built for. Until it ships, refunds happen in your Stripe dashboard, where they always would have.

Get the build log and first access

The booking core is live and merchant access is invite-only. Get the changelog as it happens and an invitation when the private beta is ready for your business.

Join early access

No card. Merchant access is invite-only — you get the build log and first access.