How to take bookings for group fitness classes and bootcamps

If you run group fitness — bootcamps, small-group PT, a yoga or pilates class, a circuit session — you've probably hit the same wall. Most booking tools were built for one-on-one appointments. They assume one slot equals one client. So the moment you want ten people in the same 6am session, the software fights you: it either lets one person 'book' the slot and locks everyone else out, or you give up and run the whole thing off a spreadsheet, a group chat, and a lot of mental arithmetic about who's actually turning up.

It doesn't have to be like that. This is a practical guide to what good class booking looks like, and how to set it up so clients book their own spot, you always know who's coming, and nobody ends up double-booked or stranded.

Why most booking software can't do group classes

The core problem is the one-slot-one-booking assumption baked into appointment software. A 1:1 tool protects against double-booking by hiding a time the second it's taken — which is exactly what you want for a massage or a haircut, and exactly wrong for a class. For a class you want the opposite: the slot should stay open and keep accepting bookings until it's full.

That single design decision is why so many trainers end up managing classes manually, and why platforms that do offer group events often lock them behind a premium tier — Calendly's group events, for example, are paid-plan only, and several others treat classes as a paid add-on.

What class booking actually needs

Strip it back and a group session needs a handful of things to run itself:

• Capacity — a maximum number of spots per session, so a 10-person bootcamp closes at ten.
• Spots-left visibility — clients should see how many places are left as the session fills, which also nudges them to book before it's gone.
• A roster — one clean list of who's actually booked into each session, not ten separate appointments you have to eyeball.
• No-show and late-cancel handling — the same protection you'd want for any booking, applied per attendee.
• Online support — if the class runs over video, everyone needs the same link, not ten different rooms.

Setting up a group class (the 5-minute version)

In BookAndGo, a group class is just a normal service with one extra setting. Here's the whole flow:

• Open Services and create (or edit) the service you want to run as a class — say 'Sunrise Bootcamp', 45 minutes.
• Set the 'Group class — max attendees' field to your capacity, e.g. 10. That's the only difference between a 1:1 service and a class.
• Put it on your schedule like any other service. Each start time becomes a session clients can book into.
• Share your booking link. Clients pick the session, see '7 spots left', and book their own place.

Once people start booking, the session shows you a live roster — who's in, and a count like '7/10 booked' — right on the appointment. No tallying, no chasing the group chat to find out numbers.

Running classes online

Online group training is where booking software usually falls apart, because per-booking video links mean every attendee gets a different room. For a class, everyone needs to land in the same place.

If your class runs online, BookAndGo puts every attendee in the same meeting room automatically — one shared link, whether you use a fixed Zoom/Meet room or an auto-generated one. Each client gets that link in their confirmation, and they all join the same session. Nothing to coordinate.

No-shows, cancellations, and keeping sessions full

Group sessions live and die on attendance. Because each attendee is a real booking, the usual tools apply per person: automated SMS and email reminders before the session, no-show tracking, and configurable late-cancel notice windows. When someone cancels a spot, it reopens for the next person — so a popular class refills itself instead of running half-empty.

What it costs

Group classes are included on every BookAndGo plan — including the free one. We took the view that classes are core to how gyms, trainers, and studios work, not a premium upsell, so there's no separate tier or add-on to unlock them. You set a capacity on a service and you're running classes.

As your class business grows you'll naturally use more of the paid features — SMS reminders to every attendee, taking payment for class spots, multiple instructors — but the group scheduling itself never sits behind a paywall.

The short version

If you're running group fitness off a spreadsheet, the fix is a booking tool that treats a class as a class: one session, many spots, a clear roster, and a shared link for online sessions. Set a max-attendees number on a service in BookAndGo and you've got exactly that — on any plan.