How to sell services online in the UK: bookings, payments and the rules (2026)

This guide is for anyone in the UK who sells time rather than things: plumbers, cleaners, physios, tutors, dog groomers, design studios, venues. You want customers to book and pay on your own website instead of by phone, WhatsApp or a marketplace. It covers the three ways to sell services online and what each costs, how a bookable service works, what consumer law requires, where VAT starts, and how to price a service. Prices come from the vendors’ own pages and legal points from gov.uk and legislation.gov.uk, all read on 8 November 2026. Disclosure: we build Orbit Commerce, which has service bookings built in, so weigh the Orbit parts accordingly.

What are the three ways to sell a service online?

A booking tool bolted onto a brochure site. The website describes the services; a separate tool takes the appointment and usually the payment. Squarespace pairs with Acuity Scheduling, Wix includes scheduling from its Core plan, and Square Appointments gives one location a free booking website. The tools are mature, but the booking record and the customer’s account live in the tool, apart from anything else you sell.

A marketplace. Treatwell and Fresha list salons and therapists and take the booking and payment; Checkatrade lists trades, holds their reviews and sends enquiries. A marketplace brings people who have never heard of you and charges on their first booking; the profile, reviews and booking history stay on the marketplace.

A shop platform with services built in. A service is a product type on the site that also sells your products and gift cards: one basket, one order list, one set of customer records, one card rate. That is how Orbit works. On Shopify a booking is an app on top; our guide to selling digital products, subscriptions, services and gift cards priced those apps.

Sources, all read 8 November 2026: Squarespace, Acuity, Wix, Square Appointments, Treatwell, Fresha and Checkatrade’s guide for trades. Squarespace’s figures include estimated VAT; Orbit’s are ex VAT.

How does a bookable service work on your own website?

What you set up. On Orbit you set a duration in minutes or hours, and places per slot: 1 for one-to-one work and more for a class. You also set notice in hours, a gap in minutes between bookings, and a cancellation fee from 0 to 100% with your policy in plain words, both shown on the product page. Service hours, with a time zone, are set once for the shop. Tiers are variants, each with its own price.

What the customer does. They pick a date and time on the product page, pay the full price at checkout like any other order, and get a confirmation email with a calendar file. My Bookings in their account has Reschedule, Cancel and Download ICS: Reschedule offers only free slots for the next 30 days, and Cancel shows your policy and the refund after any fee before they confirm, with the money going back to their card.

What you see. The dashboard has a month calendar and a list, a drawer per booking with customer details and the order, a button to block time, and Mark complete or Mark no-show afterwards (bookings page).

Staff, deposits and free visits. The full price is paid at booking, and a deposit agreed by hand is a draft order with a payment link. Give each person or room its own service, so every booking names who or where. The calendar file in the confirmation email puts the appointment in the customer’s calendar with its own reminder, and a regular books each visit when they want it. A free quote or viewing comes in as an enquiry through the contact form.

What does the law say when you sell a service online to a consumer?

Two laws do most of the work: the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 for selling at a distance, and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 for the service itself. This is general information, not legal advice.

The 14-day cancellation right

A consumer who books a service on your website can cancel for any reason within 14 days of the day they book (regulation 30, checked 8 November 2026); goods run from delivery, as our UK returns law guide explains. If the appointment falls inside those 14 days, regulation 36 applies. You must not start unless the consumer expressly asks. If they ask and then cancel part-way, they owe a proportionate amount. Once the service is fully performed the right is lost, provided they asked and acknowledged losing it. If you never gave the cancellation information, they pay nothing, even if you did the work. In practice this takes one sentence the customer agrees to before paying, repeated in your terms and confirmation email: they ask you to start, and accept that the right to cancel ends once the service is done.

Services with no cancellation right

Regulation 28 excepts “accommodation, transport of goods, vehicle rental services, catering or services related to leisure activities, if the contract provides for a specific date or period of performance”. So a cookery class on a named Saturday has no 14-day right. Nor does an urgent repair or maintenance visit the consumer asked for, though extras sold on that visit can still be cancelled. Whether a treatment or lesson counts as leisure is a judgement; take advice before relying on it.

What you must say before they pay

Gov.uk lists the information to give before the order, including the price with all taxes, how to cancel and when the right is lost, whether reasonable costs still apply for a service used before cancellation, a standard cancellation form and any deposit conditions (gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026). Give it in a form the customer can keep. Miss the cancellation information and they can cancel for 12 months.

The service itself

Every service contract includes a term that you perform it with reasonable care and skill (section 49). What you say about the service, if the consumer takes it into account, binds you (section 50). A reasonable price and time apply where none was agreed (sections 51 and 52). If you fall short the consumer can require a repeat at no cost or a price reduction (sections 55 and 56). None of it can be excluded (Chapter 4, checked 8 November 2026).

Can you charge a cancellation fee for a service?

Yes, within limits. Inside the 14-day period a consumer gets their money back less a proportionate charge for a service already started at their request, and no term of yours overrides that. Outside it you may keep a sum, but Schedule 2 of the Consumer Rights Act lists as potentially unfair a term that keeps sums paid when the consumer does not go ahead, with no equivalent compensation if you cancel (paragraph 4). It also lists a term requiring “a disproportionately high sum in compensation” (paragraph 6). A fee that reflects your actual loss, stepped by the notice given, is safer than one that keeps everything. State it, with the time windows, on the booking page and in the confirmation.

On Orbit the fee is a percentage with your policy beside it, applied whenever a customer cancels from their account, with the refund shown first. It applies whatever the notice, so match it to your policy and, where your policy or the law gives the customer more, refund the difference by hand from the order; the card processing fee on the original payment stays with the processor.

Do you have to charge VAT on services?

Only once you are VAT registered, which is compulsory when your taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000, or you expect it to in the next 30 days. You register within 30 days of the end of the month you went over (gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026). Once registered you charge the standard rate, currently 20%, on most goods and services (gov.uk), and consumer prices must include it.

One exemption matters to many sole traders: private tuition. HMRC’s VAT Notice 701/30, section 6.1, last updated 27 January 2025, exempts tuition given by a sole proprietor or partner in a subject taught regularly in a number of schools or universities. Tuition delivered by teachers you take on is standard-rated. If this is your first trading income, our guide to whether you need to register a business covers the £1,000 trading allowance, which comes long before VAT.

How do you price a service on a page?

Three ways. A fixed price: one price, one button, for anything with a known length and scope, such as a 60-minute treatment or a boiler service. A “from” price with tiers: “from £45” must be a price a customer can actually book, because what the page says is a term of the contract under section 50. The tiers are variants of one service, each with its own price. A tier that takes longer is a separate service, because the length belongs to the service. A quote: for work that needs a look first, the page shows past jobs and an enquiry form, what is booked and paid for is the survey or consultation, and once the price is agreed a draft order and a payment link collect the deposit or balance. Whichever you use, put the duration, what is included, any call-out charge and the cancellation policy above the button.

What do card fees come to on a week of bookings?

Take a sole trader on Solo with 20 bookings in a week, all paid by UK personal Visa or Mastercard at 2% + 25p.

That is 2.4% of the week’s takings. Over four such weeks the card fees are £125.60 and the plan £25, so £150.60 on £5,280 of bookings, or 2.9% all in. A UK business card costs 3.3% + 25p on Solo; every rate is on the payments page, and what a payment gateway really costs has the longer sums.

Marketplace, booking tool or your own shop: the comparison

Guides for each kind of service business

This guide covers what every service business has in common. These guides take one trade or one decision at a time.

• Plumbers, electricians and heating engineers: fixed-price jobs that are booked and paid for online.
• Cleaning firms: regular, deep and end-of-tenancy cleans with the price up front.
• Dog groomers and daycares: bookings with the pet shop beside them.
• Physio and sports injury clinics: appointments, cancellations and the words you can use.
• Tutors, music teachers and driving schools: lessons booked one at a time.
• IT support firms: monthly plans, one-off fixes and hardware on one website.
• Design and marketing studios: fixed-price packages sold from your own site.
• Squarespace with Acuity, Wix Bookings or Orbit: what each does with an appointment.
• Checkatrade, MyBuilder or your own website: what a trade keeps from each.
• Quote forms and price calculators: getting the job details before the phone call.
• Phone orders, invoices and deposits: taking the payment with a payment link.

Where Orbit fits

Orbit Commerce is a UK hosted shop platform with service bookings on every plan, from £25 a month on Solo (£19 a month billed yearly, ex VAT), with a 14-day free trial and no card. Add a product with the Service type, set its length, places, notice, gap and fee, and the booking lands on your calendar the moment the customer pays, at your plan’s card rate with nothing added per booking (bookings). The same checkout takes cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Klarna, with one published card rate per plan (payments, pricing).

Gift cards are a product too, emailed to the recipient, and live chat is an add-on from the plugin store with a free plan and paid plans. The theme store has themes built for services businesses: Charter, for accountants, consultants and tutors selling packages, consultations and guides, and Parlour, a booking-first theme for barbers and salons that also sell products. Book a call if you want to talk through your set-up before you start.

Questions people ask about selling services online

Can a customer cancel a service they booked online?

Yes, for any reason within 14 days of the day they book, under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. If they ask for an appointment inside those days and then cancel, they pay for what was supplied, and fixed-date leisure services are exempt. Give the cancellation information before they pay, or the period runs for 12 months.

Can I charge a cancellation fee for a service?

Yes, once the 14-day right has passed or does not apply, if the fee is stated clearly before booking and reflects what you actually lose. Inside the 14 days a consumer gets a refund less a proportionate charge for service supplied at their request, and a term that keeps everything risks being unfair under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Do I charge VAT on services in the UK?

Only once you are VAT registered, which is compulsory when your taxable turnover passes £90,000 in any 12 months (gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026). From then you charge 20% on most services and show consumer prices including it. Private tuition by a sole trader or partner in a school or university subject is exempt under VAT Notice 701/30.

How do I take a deposit for a booking?

On Orbit the customer pays the full price when they book, and a deposit you agree by hand is a draft order sent as a payment link that works for seven days, with the balance as a second order or a payment-due invoice.

Do I need a booking system, or is a contact form enough?

A contact form is enough while every job is quoted. Once you sell anything at a fixed price for a fixed length of time, a booking with payment removes the back and forth and the time is paid for before it is held. Keep the form for free first chats, quotes and viewings, which come in as enquiries.

Build one service in the 14-day free trial, no card required: set a duration and a price, book it yourself, cancel it from the account and watch the refund arrive.