Booked and paid, from one link.
Calen gives you a page at calen.nl/yourname where people pick a time that is really free and, if you charge, pay as they book. This is what they see.
An example booking page, not a real host. Yours carries your name and your colour.
How it works
One booking, screen by screen
A 45-minute paid session, followed from your link to your balance. The pictures are drawn from Calen’s own screens, with an example host.
They open your link
One address with your name on it: your photo, a short introduction and everything people can book with you.
- Offer as many kinds of session as you like, free or paid. Each has its own link to share.
- Prefer to check each request first? Turn on approval and you accept or decline each one. For a paid session your client pays first, and you then accept or decline.
- You set the length, from five minutes to twelve hours, and whether you meet by video, by phone or in person.
- Switch on a payment page and people can pay you an amount without booking anything — a deposit, or a balance.
Example: a host’s public page.
They pick a time that is really free
Your hours, your days off, your notice period and the bookings you already have are worked in before anyone sees the calendar.
- Their clock, not yours. Times appear in your client’s own time zone. One picture here is the same Thursday seen from London.
- One time, one person. Two people can never take the same slot. The second person is told it has just gone.
- Using Google Calendar? Connect it and the timed meetings already in your diary are left out as well. Calen asks only for your events, and you can disconnect at any time.
Example: two details of the time picker from the first picture.
They pay as they book
For a paid session the form ends at the checkout. Calen confirms the booking when the payment provider reports the payment, not when the browser comes back, so a closed tab loses nothing.
- They pay by card through Stripe, on the provider's own page. Calen never sees a card number.
- The time is held for 20 minutes while they pay, and released if they do not finish.
- Hand out discount codes: a percentage or a fixed amount, on all your paid sessions or just some.
- Price in US dollars, euros, pounds, Canadian or Australian dollars. Add a price in a second currency and your client chooses; nothing is converted.
- Your clients never need an account to book or to pay.
Example: the booking form for a paid session. A phone number and a note for the host, both optional, are left out of the drawing, and a client’s own details are drawn as grey bars.
Both of you get it in writing
The page they land on and the email they receive say the same thing, in their time zone. You are emailed too.
- From their booking link they can add it to a calendar, move it or cancel it, with no account. If they have already paid, moving it costs nothing.
- The confirmation comes with a calendar invite that opens in any calendar app.
- A reminder email goes to both of you about a day ahead.
- With Google Calendar connected, the booking lands in your calendar with your client invited. Leave the video link blank and it gets its own Google Meet link.
Example: the page a client lands on, and the subject of the email that follows it.
That is all your client does. No account, no email back and forth.
Create your pageYour side
Meanwhile, on your side
The same booking, seen from your account: who is coming, and the rules you set once so that you are not asked again.
Example: your Bookings screen. Clients’ names and notes are drawn as grey bars.
- Where you asked to approve, you accept or decline in one click. No invite goes out until you accept.
- See who is coming, what they wrote and what the session costs, in your own time zone.
- Your dashboard adds it up: what you earned this week, this month or this year, after the fee, and who is up next.
You set the rules once
- Working hours
- Set them once, lunch break included. Nine-to-five stays nine-to-five when the clocks change.
- Days off
- Taking a day off, or working different hours one Friday? Add an exception for that date.
- Buffers
- Keep breathing room between meetings: set a buffer on a session and Calen keeps that gap clear around it.
- Notice
- Nobody can book you at five minutes’ notice, or a year ahead, unless you say so.
- Time away
- Away or fully booked? Close your calendar with one switch. Your page stays up.
- Your look
- Add your photo and pick your colour; your booking pages wear it, in light and in dark.
Getting paid
Calen takes the payment, shows you the sums, and pays you when you ask.
There is one arrangement, and it is the same for every host. Calen takes its fee out of each payment you take — a paid booking, or a payment through your payment page — and your rate is shown in your account before you take one.
- Taken
- Calen fee
- is taken off
- Refunded to payers
- is taken off
- Already paid out
- is taken off
- Requested, not yet paid
- is taken off
- Available
- is what is left
These are the lines your account shows, one balance per currency, never added together. The fee is shown as its own figure on your Payments screen, your dashboard and your balance, so the figure you read as earned is already yours.
- A free booking
- No payment is taken and no fee is charged.
- A paid booking
- Your client pays the price you set. Calen collects it, keeps its fee and adds the rest to your balance.
- A refund
- You refund all or part of a payment from your Payments screen. It goes back the way it was paid and comes off your balance. Money that has already been paid out to you, or that a payout request of yours is waiting on, is refunded through us.
- A payout
- You ask for it; a person at Calen checks the request, sends it to your bank account and emails you. It is not instant.
Questions
Questions people ask first
Including the ones where the answer is no.
What does Calen cost?
Calen takes a fee out of each payment you take — a paid booking, or a payment through your payment page — and nothing from a free booking. Your rate is shown in your account, under Settings, Getting Paid, before you take one, and the fee is shown as its own figure on your Payments screen, your dashboard and your balance.
How do I get my money?
Payments land in Calen’s account and your share shows as a balance, one per currency. Add your bank details, press Request payout, and a person at Calen makes the transfer and emails you. The form asks for an IBAN, and the transfer is not instant. From your first payment on, every month has a statement in your account that you can print: each payment, the fee, refunds, payouts and your balance at each end. It is a statement of your account, not a tax invoice.
Can I take payments through my own Stripe or PayPal account?
No. Every payment is taken through Calen’s own account with the payment provider and settled to you by payout.
Do my clients need an account?
No. They book with a name and an email address, and choose a country when there is something to pay. A tick box offers them an account, and leaving it empty changes nothing.
What happens when someone cancels?
They can cancel or move a booking from their own link until it is over, and the time opens up again at once. Cancelling does not refund by itself: you refund all or part of a payment from your Payments screen, and refunding a future booking in full also cancels it.
Which calendars does it work with?
Google Calendar, one per account. Timed events in it close those hours on your page, unless you marked them free or declined them, and confirmed bookings are written into it with your client invited. All-day events do not block time. Every confirmation also carries a calendar file that opens in any calendar app. There is no sync with Outlook or Apple Calendar.
Do bookings come with a video link?
You can paste your own meeting link into a session and it goes out with every confirmation. Or connect Google Calendar and leave the link blank: each confirmed booking then gets its own Google Meet link. Calen does not create Zoom or Teams meetings.
Which currencies can I charge in?
US dollars, euros, pounds, Canadian dollars and Australian dollars. You type the price in each currency you want to offer and your client chooses; nothing is converted.
What do you do with my clients’ details?
Use them to run the booking: the confirmation, the reminder, the receipt. Calen has no ads, no analytics and no tracking scripts, and so no cookie banner. Card numbers go to the payment provider and never reach Calen.
Can I leave?
Yes, from Settings, Erase account, without asking anyone. Before you confirm, the screen lists what is erased and what is kept. Kept are the bookings and payments you took, with your name removed; your payouts, with the bank details recorded on them; your event types, which come off your page but are not deleted; and bookings you made with other hosts, which are their records.
What does Calen not do?
It is one person’s calendar: there are no teams, no group sessions and no recurring series. Reminders are emails, not text messages. Clients get a receipt, not an invoice, and tax is yours to handle. The booking page cannot be embedded in another site or put on your own domain, and everything on it is in English.
Your page, at calen.nl/yourname.
Addresses are first come, first served. Sign up with your email or with Google, set your hours and share the link.