Sell appointments, consultations, and coaching calls through SamCart checkout or as an upsell, booked straight into Google Calendar or Calendly.
Calendar Bookings lets your customers select an appointment time as part of the checkout process, or straight after they accept an upsell. Once they pay, the appointment goes straight onto your calendar and your customer gets a confirmation. No follow-up emails, no scheduling back-and-forth.
This feature is ideal for coaches, consultants, and service providers who sell their time — strategy sessions, discovery calls, 1:1 coaching packages, and more.
NOTE: Bookings work with Google Calendar and Calendly. Each product books into one Google Calendar or one Calendly event type.
What Calendar Bookings Does
When a customer purchases a product with Calendar Bookings enabled, they'll complete these steps at checkout:
Step 1: Select their timezone
Step 2: Choose an available date
Step 3: Pick an available time slot
Step 4: Complete contact and payment details
Step 5: Receive a confirmation — a Google Calendar invite sent to both you and your customer, or Calendly's own confirmation email if the product uses a Calendly event type
Availability is checked against your connected Google Calendar or Calendly in real time, so customers can only book times that are open. If no slots are available, customers won't be able to complete checkout. On an upsell, a buyer who finds no open times can continue without booking and book later from their order summary or receipt.
Note: What This Feature Does Not Support (Yet)
- No automated rescheduling — if an appointment needs to change, you'll need to update it in Google Calendar or Calendly and contact your customer directly
- No cancellation management — refunds for canceled appointments must be processed manually through your SamCart dashboard
- No group bookings — each booking is for one customer at a time
- No order bump bookings — bookings can be enabled on main products and upsells, not order bumps
- No pop-up upsell bookings — upsells shown in modal (pop-up) mode don't show the booking step
- No upsell-specific settings — an upsell uses its product's booking settings
Connecting Your Calendar
Before creating a bookable product, connect Google Calendar or Calendly to SamCart. Both are connected from the same page, and you can connect both.
Connecting Google Calendar
Navigate to Marketplace Settings > Bookings and click Connect New Calendar.
Sign in with your Google account, confirm the connection and select Allow.
You should see a Connected status when it's done.
You can can Disable a connected calendar by clicking on the 3 dots to the right. Then just click Disable.
However, you can always Reenable a calendar at anytime! By again, clicking on the 3 dots to the right. Then just click Reenable.
Connecting Calendly
On the same Bookings settings page, click Connect Calendly, sign in to Calendly and approve access. SamCart can then view your event types and their open times, and book buyers into the event type you choose for a product. Buyers pick a time in SamCart's own booking step, not a Calendly embed.
Once connected, the Calendly section lists your event types with their length and a status:
- Available — ready to use on a product
- Has required invitee questions — the event type asks buyers questions they must answer, which SamCart's booking step can't collect. Make those questions optional in Calendly, then resync
- Asks the invitee for a location — the event type asks buyers to supply the location. Choose a location that doesn't need buyer input in Calendly, then resync
- Inactive — the event type is turned off in Calendly
If you add or change event types in Calendly, click Resync Event Types to bring the changes into SamCart.
Calendly plan: Calendly's free plan can't take bookings from SamCart. If you're on it, the Calendly section shows a warning and buyers can't book until you upgrade to a paid Calendly plan. After upgrading, click Resync Event Types to clear the warning.
Disconnecting Calendly: click Disconnect Calendly and confirm. This revokes SamCart's access and removes booking from every product that uses a Calendly event type. Meetings already booked stay on your Calendly calendar.
Note: Outlook, Apple Calendar, and other providers are not currently available.
Once you have connected your Calendar - navigate to Products and create a new product or open an existing one you'd like to make bookable. We recommend using Digital Product as your product type.
Fill in your standard product details — name, description, price — then click on the Bookings tab.
Enable and Configure Bookings
In the Bookings tab, toggle Enable Booking to ON. This makes appointment selection a required step for customers purchasing this product.
Configure Your Calendar Settings
With bookings enabled, you'll see the following settings to configure:
- Booking Calendar — select the connected Google Calendar or Calendly event type to use for this product. When both are connected, the list is grouped under Google Calendar and Calendly. Calendly event types that can't take bookings are shown greyed out with the reason, and inactive ones are left out
- Booking Duration — choose how long each appointment will be (e.g., 1 hour). With a Calendly event type, the duration comes from Calendly and can't be changed here
- Booking Link — optionally add a custom link to include in the calendar invite
- Booking Description — write what will appear in the calendar invite sent to your customer (e.g., "Thank you for booking! I'm looking forward to our consultation. Please have your questions ready.")
- Booking Button Text — the text on the button that takes a customer back to book if they haven't picked a time yet. It appears on the order summary, the receipt email and Customer Hub (up to 40 characters). Defaults to "Book your session"
Set Your Weekly Availability
Define the days and hours you're available each week. Click on any day to set your available hours, add multiple time blocks if needed, or mark days as Unavailable.
Note: Any existing events on your connected Google Calendar will automatically block those time slots from being available to customers. You don't need to manually remove them. With a Calendly event type, customers are only offered times that are open in both your weekly availability here and in Calendly.
Configure Timing Settings
These settings control exactly how and when customers can book with you:
- Booking Window — how far in advance customers can book. Setting this to "14 days" means customers can only see and book appointments within the next 14 days. If you have no available slots within this window, customers won't be able to complete checkout.
- Lead Time — how much advance notice you need. "Same day" allows bookings for today; "2 days" requires customers to book at least 2 days ahead.
- Start Time Increment — how often appointment slots are offered. Setting this to "30 minutes" means slots appear at 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, and so on.
- Buffer Time — how much time you need between appointments. "No cooldown" allows back-to-back bookings; "15 minutes" adds a break between each.
Optional: Show Number of Spots
Toggle Show Number of Spots to ON to display how many appointment slots are available each day (e.g., "9 spots left"). This creates a sense of urgency and can help customers book faster.
Testing Before You Launch: Before going live, place a test order yourself to verify the full customer experience — including time slot selection, checkout, and calendar invite delivery. This is the best way to catch any configuration issues before your customers do.
Don't forget to click Save Changes when you're done configuring your booking settings!
Offer a Booking as an Upsell
You can sell a bookable product, such as a strategy call or onboarding session, as an upsell. Buyers who accept it pick a time straight away, inside your funnel.
- Make sure the product has booking turned on and a Google Calendar or Calendly event type selected (Products > your product > Bookings tab).
- Create or open an upsell that offers that product.
- On the upsell's edit page, the booking card shows which product buyers will book, the calendar it goes to and the session length. Ask buyers to book after accepting is on by default. Below it, Let buyers book later controls whether buyers can skip booking for now.
- Save the upsell and add it to your funnel.
When a customer accepts the upsell and the payment succeeds, they go straight to a booking page to pick a time in their own time zone, or choose Skip for now. Then they continue through the rest of your funnel.
To make buyers pick a time before they continue, turn off Let buyers book later on the upsell. The Skip for now option is then hidden. Customers who decline the upsell, or whose payment fails, never see the booking step.
Note: Booking settings come from the product. To use different hours or durations for an upsell, create a separate product. If the booking card shows a warning (no booking settings, calendar disconnected, or product archived), customers get a normal upsell with no booking step until you fix it.
Booking Later
Customers who skip booking, or close the page before booking, can book later from:
- the Book your session button on their order summary page
- the same button in their receipt email
- their Customer Hub dashboard, if you use Customer Hub
If they've already booked, the link shows their appointment instead. This also covers checkout bookings that didn't go through, for example when a customer paid with PayPal.
Managing and Viewing Your Bookings
All confirmed bookings appear directly in your connected Google Calendar or Calendly, with the time the customer picked. You'll receive notifications based on your existing Google Calendar or Calendly settings.
Go to Orders > Bookings to see every booking with its status and appointment time. Filter by status, or search by order ID or customer name or email.
- Pending — the customer hasn't booked yet
- Booked — the customer picked a time
- Skipped — the customer chose to book later
- Unavailable — the booking can't be made right now because the product is archived, booking is turned off for the product, the calendar is disconnected, or your Calendly plan can't take bookings
Marking a booking as booked: if a customer booked with you outside SamCart, for example straight into your calendar, open the Quick Actions menu on their Pending or Skipped booking, choose Mark as booked and confirm. The status changes to Booked so you don't chase them. This only updates SamCart: no calendar event or email is created, so make sure the appointment is in your Google Calendar or Calendly.
Blocking Time Off: To prevent bookings during vacations, meetings, or any unavailable time, add an event to your Google Calendar, or block the time in Calendly. The system will automatically mark that time as unavailable for customers.
Updating Your Availability: To change your available hours going forward, navigate to your product's Bookings tab, update your Weekly Availability, and click Save Changes. This only affects future bookings — existing appointments are not impacted.
Handling Cancellations and Rescheduling
If an appointment needs to be canceled or rescheduled:
- Update the event in Google Calendar or Calendly
- Contact your customer directly to let them know
- If a refund is needed, process it manually through your SamCart dashboard
Important: Changes made to Google Calendar or Calendly events, including a cancellation in Calendly, do not automatically update or trigger refunds in SamCart. Refunding an order or upsell does not remove the appointment either. Delete or update the event in Google Calendar or Calendly yourself.
Bookings in the API, MCP and Sam
Developers can list bookings with GET /v2/bookings, filtered by order, customer, or status. See Bookings in the SamCart API docs. API keys with limited permissions need the View bookings permission.
You can also ask Sam, or an AI assistant connected to the SamCart MCP (the get_bookings tool), to list your bookings with each customer's booking link. It's a quick way to follow up with customers who haven't booked yet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What happens if I have no available slots during my booking window?
A: At checkout, customers won't be able to complete their purchase until availability opens up. On an upsell, they can continue without booking and book later. To resolve this, try extending your Booking Window to show more future dates, adding hours to your Weekly Availability, or checking your Google Calendar or Calendly for events that could be moved.
Q: Can I offer different appointment lengths (like a 30-minute call and a 1-hour session)?
A: Yes! Create separate products for each appointment type and configure different booking durations and settings for each.
Q: Can I connect more than one Google Calendar?
A: You can connect multiple Google Calendars to your marketplace, as well as Calendly, but each product can only use one Google Calendar or one Calendly event type at a time.
Q: Do I need a paid Calendly plan?
A: Yes. Calendly's free plan can't take bookings from SamCart. Upgrade to a paid Calendly plan, then click Resync Event Types on the Bookings settings page.
Q: Why can't I select one of my Calendly event types?
A: It either has required invitee questions or asks the buyer for a location. The reason is shown next to it. Change that in Calendly, then click Resync Event Types. Event types turned off in Calendly don't appear at all.
Q: Can I change the session length for a Calendly event type?
A: Not in SamCart. The duration comes from the event type, so change it in Calendly and resync.
Q: Will my existing calendar events block booking times automatically?
A: Yes. Any event on your connected Google Calendar automatically makes that time unavailable to customers — you don't need to do anything extra.
Q: Can customers see my other appointments or calendar details?
A: No. Customers only see which time slots are available or unavailable. None of your appointment details are visible to them.
Q: What if two customers try to book the same time slot at the same moment?
A: In rare cases, both bookings may go through simultaneously. If you notice a double-booking, contact both customers right away, offer to reschedule one of them, and reach out to SamCart support to report the issue.
Q: How does the feature handle different timezones?
A: The system automatically converts times based on each person's timezone, so you and your customer both see the correct local time.
Q: Do customers book before or after they pay for an upsell?
A: After. The booking step only appears once the upsell payment succeeds.
Q: Can I turn booking off for one upsell without turning it off for the product?
A: Yes. Turn off Ask buyers to book after accepting on that upsell.
Q: Can I stop customers skipping the booking step on an upsell?
A: Yes. Turn off Let buyers book later on the upsell's booking card and the Skip for now option is hidden.
Q: A customer booked with me directly. How do I stop them showing as Pending?
A: On Orders > Bookings, open Quick Actions on their booking and choose Mark as booked.
Q: What happens if I disconnect my calendar while an upsell is live?
A: Customers get the upsell without a booking step, and the upsell's booking card shows a warning. Reconnect your calendar to turn booking back on. If you disconnect Calendly, booking is removed from every product that used a Calendly event type, so select the event type again on each product after reconnecting.
Q: What if a customer doesn't show up?
A: No-show handling is up to you. SamCart doesn't automatically track attendance or process refunds for missed appointments.