Description
Who This Is Built For
Any business collecting appointments through Bookly PRO eventually runs into the same wall: clients book a slot, then forget to show up, or cancel last minute, and there’s no money on the table to show for the time that got blocked off. If your business runs on Authorize.Net rather than Stripe or PayPal — maybe because your bank recommended it, maybe because you’ve used it for years on other parts of your operation — you need a way to connect that existing merchant account to your WordPress booking form. That’s the specific gap the Bookly Authorize.Net (Add-on) fills.
It’s a good fit for clinics, salons, tutoring services, consultants, and repair shops that already process cards through Authorize.Net and don’t want to open a second payment account just to take booking deposits. It also suits businesses in industries where Authorize.Net’s fraud-screening tools and established processing relationships matter more than adding another gateway to the mix. If your booking volume is high enough that a missed appointment actually costs you money, collecting payment at the time of booking changes the math in your favor.
What Bookly Authorize.Net (Add-on) Does
The Bookly Authorize.Net (Add-on) attaches Authorize.Net as a payment method inside the existing Bookly PRO booking form. Instead of just picking a service, a staff member, and a time slot, the client also enters credit card details and pays before the appointment is confirmed. No redirect to an external checkout page, no separate invoice sent later — the payment step happens inside the same form the client is already using.
Because it plugs into Bookly PRO’s existing price logic, the add-on respects whatever price corrections are already configured. If a client selects an add-on service, a specific staff member with a different rate, or a time slot that triggers a surcharge, the final charge sent to Authorize.Net reflects that adjusted total — not the base service price. That matters for businesses with variable pricing structures, where charging the wrong amount at checkout creates reconciliation headaches later.
The add-on also talks to the Bookly Taxes (Add-on), if you have it installed and active. Tax information gets passed through to the payment gateway as part of the transaction, so the amount charged and the amount recorded match what your tax reporting expects. For businesses in jurisdictions where service tax has to be itemized or calculated per region, this removes a manual step that would otherwise mean adjusting invoices after the fact. Like other Bookly add-ons, this plugin is distributed under the GPL license, so you can adapt or extend it within the terms that license allows.
Key Capabilities
- Authorize.Net as a payment option directly inside the Bookly booking form, alongside any other gateways you already use
- Credit card payment collected at the point of booking, not after
- Price correction support, so surcharges, discounts, or add-on service pricing carry through to the actual charge
- Tax data transmission to the gateway when the Bookly Taxes (Add-on) is active, keeping charged amounts and tax records aligned
- A checkout flow that stays inside the booking form — clients don’t get bounced to an external page mid-booking
- Compatibility with the wider Bookly add-on ecosystem, including deposits, custom fields, and multi-location setups where applicable
Getting Results
The practical upside of collecting payment at booking time is fewer no-shows and less time spent chasing payment after the fact. When a client has already paid — or paid a deposit, depending on how you configure Bookly PRO’s pricing rules — they have a reason to show up. Staff also stop having to handle card terminals at the front desk for appointments that were booked online, since the transaction already happened during scheduling.
Setup follows the same pattern as other Bookly add-ons: install it alongside Bookly PRO, connect your Authorize.Net merchant credentials, and the payment option appears in the booking form’s checkout step. Businesses that already run Bookly PRO for scheduling and just need a payment method tied to an existing Authorize.Net account can typically get this running in one sitting, without touching template files or writing custom code.
For businesses juggling multiple services with different price points — say, a spa offering both a quick manicure and a multi-hour package — the price correction handling means you’re not stuck charging a flat rate that doesn’t match what was actually booked. Combined with automated reminders already built into Bookly PRO, the Bookly Authorize.Net (Add-on) WordPress plugin turns the booking form into something closer to a full checkout process, rather than just a scheduling tool that happens to also take names and emails.
Compatibility and Requirements
- Requires Bookly PRO installed and active
- Current version: 3.5
- Compatible with WordPress 6.8.x
- Compatible with WPML for multilingual sites
- Tags: add-on, appointment, authorize.net, booking, bookly, credit card, payments, wordpress
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this add-on replace other payment gateways in Bookly, or work alongside them?
It works alongside them. Bookly PRO can have multiple payment methods active at once, so adding Authorize.Net doesn’t remove Stripe, PayPal, or WooCommerce payments if you already have those configured — clients simply see Authorize.Net as one more option at checkout.
Will the charge reflect discounts or surcharges I’ve set up in Bookly?
Yes. The add-on uses Bookly PRO’s price correction feature, so if a booking triggers a different rate — because of staff selection, add-on services, or time-based pricing — that adjusted amount is what gets sent to Authorize.Net, not the base listed price.
Do I need the Bookly Taxes (Add-on) for this to work?
No, it’s optional. The Authorize.Net add-on functions on its own for basic credit card payments. If you do have Bookly Taxes installed and active, tax information gets included in the data sent to the payment gateway automatically.
Can I use this without Bookly PRO?
No. This is an add-on, and it has no independent function — it requires Bookly PRO to be installed and active, since it plugs directly into the booking form and price logic that Bookly PRO provides.
