Styler is made of a few separate pieces. Knowing which is which makes everything else easier to follow — and stops a lot of "where do I do that?" confusion.
The Hub — where you work
The Hub is your side of Styler. Your calendar, customers, services, staff, takings and settings all live here, and it's where you'll spend nearly all your time.
You can open it in a browser, or install the Hub app on your phone. They're the same thing — the phone app shows you the same Hub, so every guide in this help centre applies either way. Some screens are just easier on a bigger screen, particularly anything with a wide table.
👀 Customers never see the Hub. Nothing you write in a note, a block reason or an internal setting is visible to them.
Your booking widget — where customers book
The booking widget is the page your customers use to book with you. You can share it as a link, or embed it in your own website.
It shows what you've made available: your services, the staff who offer them, and the times they're free. Everything a customer sees there is a consequence of your settings in the Hub.
💡 The fastest way to check any change you've made is to open the widget and try to book as a customer would. It's under Settings → Booking Widget → Details.
Your branded app — optional
Some businesses also have their own customer app, carrying their own name and branding, that customers install from the App Store or Google Play. It's a second way to book, plus push notifications and a gallery.
👀 Don't confuse the two apps. The Hub app is for you and your team. Your branded app is for your customers. They're different apps with different audiences.
Whether you have one depends on your plan — ask your Styler Consultant if you're not sure.
How availability actually works
This is the one concept worth understanding early, because almost every "why can't customers book?" question comes back to it.
A time is bookable only when several things line up at once:
The service is available at that location and enabled for online booking.
A staff member is assigned to that service tier and works at that location.
That staff member has working hours covering the time.
They're not already booked, and the service fits in the gap.
👀 Your opening hours aren't a setting. Styler works them out from your staff's working hours — earliest start to latest finish. If nobody is working, you show as closed. See your opening hours, and closing for a day.
If something isn't bookable and you can't see why, work through my availability looks wrong — it's ordered by how often each cause turns out to be the culprit.
How money works
There are two separate things going on, and mixing them up causes real confusion later.
Styler takes deposits and fees online — deposits, no-show fees and late cancellation fees — through Stripe, straight into your own Stripe account.
Everything else you simply record. When someone pays you at the till, you tick how they paid. Styler writes it down; the money never passes through us.
Where to start
If you're setting up for the first time, work through the Setup guide in the Hub — it's the checklist that gets you bookable. Broadly:
Your business details, location and timezone.
Your services, and what they cost.
Your staff, and which services each of them offers.
Their working hours.
Stripe, if you're taking deposits or charging fees.
Share your booking link.
💡 Steps 3 and 4 are the ones people skip, and they're the two that decide whether anything is bookable at all. Don't leave them until last.
See the Quick Start Guide, and every setting in the Hub for where things live.