Online booking for personal trainers
Your product is an hour of your attention, and you can sell about six of them a day. Everything about how you take bookings should follow from that.
A free 30-minute consultation as the way in, then a paid 60-minute session event type with a fifteen-minute buffer, twelve hours’ notice and a full refund only outside twenty-four hours.
The two hours you lose every week#
A trainer with fifteen regular clients spends a genuinely surprising amount of time on LINE rearranging Tuesday. Someone moves to Thursday, which bumps someone else, and you are holding the whole week in your head while trying to coach.
The second loss is quieter. A client cancels at 06:30 for a 07:00 session. Nobody else is booking a 7am slot at half an hour’s notice, so that hour is simply gone — and because they had not paid, it cost them nothing and you everything.
The setup to start from#
The same clients in the same slots every week, either side of the working day, with a free consultation at the front of the funnel.
| Duration | 60 minutes |
|---|---|
| Minimum notice | 12 hours |
| Buffer | 15 minutes after, to reset equipment |
| Max bookings per day | Six or seven sessions a day is the ceiling |
| Location | In person, or video for programme reviews |
| Payment | Consultation free, sessions paid online |
| Cancellation policy | Full refund 24 hours before, none inside — your hour was held |
Worth asking on the booking form: What are you training for? · Any injuries? · Which gym do you use?
Gym-floor rules differ: some Japanese gyms do not allow outside trainers at all. Put the gyms you can train at in the description, because it is the first thing a prospective client needs to know.
Make the first session free and the rest paid#
Two event types. A 30-minute consultation, free, with short notice, which is what goes in your Instagram bio. And a 60-minute session, paid online, which is what existing clients book.
The free one costs you nothing and removes every reason not to get in touch. The paid one protects the hours that are actually your income.
A cancellation policy that does the arguing#
Full refund outside twenty-four hours, nothing inside it. Written down, shown before the client books and again before they cancel, and applied automatically. You never have to be the person who enforces it, which is the real benefit.
Business Box shows the exact refund to the client before they confirm the cancellation, so there is no surprise and no message to you afterwards. Cancellation policies
Split shifts, because that is the job#
Personal training is 06:00–10:00 and 17:00–21:00, with a dead middle. Put both ranges on each weekday in your availability schedule and nothing will ever be offered at two in the afternoon. Split shifts
Say which gyms you can train at#
Some Japanese gyms do not allow outside trainers on the floor at all, and a client who books expecting to meet you at their gym has wasted both your mornings. Name the gyms in the event description, and ask which one they use on the booking form.
Getting started#
- Sign in at app.marubox.jp with Google or Microsoft. There is no card and no trial clock.
- Create an event type with the settings above. Event types explained
- Connect your calendar so your training hours never gets double booked. Google · Outlook
- Set your real hours, and close Japanese public holidays in one tick. Availability
- Put the link in your bio, or the widget on your site. Adding it to your website
Common questions
How do I stop clients cancelling at the last minute?
Take payment when they book and set a cancellation policy of a full refund outside 24 hours and none inside it. The client sees the policy before booking and the exact refund before cancelling, and it applies itself without you having to raise it.
Can clients reschedule without messaging me?
Yes. Every confirmation links to their own booking page where they can move the session within limits you set — how many times, and how close to the start. Your own diary updates and your calendar follows.
Can I offer online sessions as well as in person?
Yes — a second event type with the location set to Google Meet or Teams. A video link is created with the calendar entry and reaches the client in their confirmation automatically.
Do I need a website?
No. The booking page is a working page with your name, photo and everything you offer. Most trainers put the link in an Instagram bio and never build anything else.
Set this up in about ten minutes
Business Box is free for as long as you like, with no card required — booking pages, Google and Outlook calendar sync, availability, Japanese public holidays and the website widget. Taking card payment for bookings is ¥1,200 a month, tax included, with no commission on what you sell.
Last reviewed 28 September 2026.