Booking system App/Website recommendation

Adly812

I am part of a fun tennis club and we are looking at developing a website. I am very capable of designing a free Wordpress website which would be perfectly fine for our purposes. However, I am also keen to add a booking app/plug in so players can book a time, day and court. 

Can anyone recommend any free booking apps/ plug ins that might be basic to use and manage ? I understand Wordpress charge when you start to add features. But The booking system does not necessary need to be linked to the website. Thank you 

Neil_Jones

Adly812 said:

I understand Wordpress charge when you start to add features.

Does it?

https://wordpress.org/plugins/booking-calendar/ might do what you want.

If you host Wordpress on your own domain/hosting its a free piece of software save for the costs of the domain and the hosting.

Adly812

I tried that .. as I have my own website on Wordpress and when I tried to select that plug in, it suggested I needed to upgrade my plan ?

dan958

Adly812 said:

I tried that .. as I have my own website on Wordpress and when I tried to select that plug in, it suggested I needed to upgrade my plan ?

You may have skipped this part

Neil_Jones said:

If you host Wordpress on your own domain/hosting

and are just using the free 'WordPress.com', rather than the self hosted version.

Neil_Jones

Adly812 said:

I tried that .. as I have my own website on Wordpress and when I tried to select that plug in, it suggested I needed to upgrade my plan ?

Well I just installed it into a local Wordpress installation I have (it runs on my own computer as a project) and worked absolutely fine.

If you're hosting your website through wordpress.com, they will charge you for that and the plug-ins.  See https://wordpress.com/pricing/ - " Install plugins" is only on the Business and eCommerce options.  Or are you hosting it somewhere else?  If you have your own hosting (mytennisclub.com for argument's sake) there should be no charges for Wordpress use as the software itself is open source and 95% of the plug-ins are free, some with pro options.  As I say there will be charges for your web hosting of it (if you're not hosting through Wordpress themselves) but beyond that, nothing else, unless your choice of host has some T&C against plug-in use or the way they've set their systems up.

Adly812

I think I get it. But I’d have to pay for a website host if I wanted to use the free Wordpress plug in for the booking app ?

Is there any way I could build a website for free and have a booking system app/plug-in for free ?

Neil_Jones

Adly812 said:

I think I get it. But I’d have to pay for a website host if I wanted to use the free Wordpress plug in for the booking app ?

Is there any way I could build a website for free and have a booking system app/plug-in for free ?

There is "free" hosting available.  But it will be cluttered with adverts and it will almost certainly not allow Wordpress if that's your main drive.

There is this which does have a free option: https://simplybook.me - but it gets capped at 50 booking a month.  But it runs on their website.  Depends whether you trust this company with data of when you're all going to play tennis.

The other option is of course is to build your own calendar template, and reupload the calendar file every time you add a new appointment to it .  Which gets tiresome, irritating and will almost certainly result in double booking somewhere down the line.

Adly812

Thank you I’ll have a look at simply book me.
but from what I have learn here, if my club will pay for the hosting of their website domain then it’s probably a Wordpress plug in. That might allow the booking system for free it seems. 

Thank you