No-Show Cost Calculator
Enter how many appointments you take in a week, what they are worth and how often people do not turn up. The calculator shows the cost over a year, then what changes when you take a deposit.
Your numbers
Missed bookings plus cancellations that came too late to refill.
If you took a deposit
Your own estimate. Leave it equal to your current rate to see the saving from kept deposits alone.
Result
No-shows cost you each year
$9,216
About 144 empty slots a year, or $768 a month.
- No-shows a year with a deposit
- 144
- Deposits you keep
- $2,880
- Still lost after deposits
- $6,336
- Saved each year
- $2,880
Figures are rounded to the nearest whole unit. A kept deposit is counted only up to the value of the slot it replaces.
Stop paying for empty slots
BookingMachine takes a deposit at booking, sends reminders before the appointment and applies your no-show fee when someone does not turn up.
How the cost is worked out
The yearly cost is your appointments per week, times the weeks you work, times your no-show rate, times the average price. If you sometimes fill a missed slot with another customer, that share is taken off, because the slot still earned.
The deposit comparison uses two numbers you control. The first is the deposit you would take. On every no-show you keep it, so it comes off the loss. The second is the no-show rate you expect once customers have paid something up front. The calculator does not assume a figure for that, because it varies by trade. If you are unsure, leave it equal to your current rate and you will see the saving from kept deposits alone.
Finding your real no-show rate
Count the bookings in the last three months that were missed or cancelled too late to refill, and divide by all the bookings in the same period. Include the ones where the customer rebooked later: the original slot was still empty.
Most owners guess low. A rate that feels like one a week is close to 3% on thirty appointments, and that is before late cancellations are counted.
Questions
What counts as a no-show?
For this calculator, count any booked slot that ended up empty too late to refill. That covers customers who did not turn up and those who cancelled inside your notice period.
How do deposits reduce the cost of no-shows?
In two ways. You keep the deposit when someone does not turn up, which offsets part of the loss. And people who have paid something tend to turn up or cancel in good time. The size of that second effect depends on your trade, which is why the calculator asks for your own estimate.
Do reminders help as well?
Yes. A reminder the day before catches people who simply forgot, and gives the rest a prompt to cancel while you can still refill the slot. Reminders and deposits work on different causes, so most businesses use both.
Should I count the time I spent preparing?
If you bought materials or travelled to the customer, yes. Add those costs to the average appointment value, or use the deposit calculator, which treats them separately.
Keep reading
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Stop paying for empty slots
BookingMachine takes a deposit at booking, sends reminders before the appointment and applies your no-show fee when someone does not turn up.