A booking widget for photographers (free, fits any portfolio site)

Why most scheduling tools don't fit photography

Most scheduling tools were built for sales teams or recurring-meeting professionals. Photography sessions are different: they're one-off, time-blocked, and the booking is usually the first contact with a new client. You don't need round-robin. You don't need a Salesforce integration. You need a clean booking flow on your portfolio site.

A recommended setup

A pragmatic configuration that fits most photography businesses:

• Two event types at launch — e.g., "30-min discovery call" (no fee) and "60-min session planning" (no fee, in-person or video). Don't bother creating an event type per session length yet.
• Weekly availability set to your real consulting windows — say Tue/Thu 10am–4pm. Save your shoot days for actual shooting.
• Buffer time of 15 min before and 15 min after — for travel, prep, and "the call ran long" reality.
• Minimum notice of 24 hours, max advance of 60 days. Stops same-day bookings and far-out tire-kickers.

Where to embed the widget

Best home is your Contact page. Photographers historically use a contact form there — circleit replaces that with a booking flow, which converts much better because the visitor self-selects a time instead of waiting for an email back.

Second-best home: a dedicated /book page linked from your top nav. Treat it as the primary CTA destination from your portfolio.

Step-by-step (Squarespace, but works the same on Wix/WordPress/Webflow)

1. Sign up at circleit.app with the Google account whose calendar you live in.
2. Pick a username. Most photographers use their business name (e.g., greysunstudio).
3. Set your availability and create two event types as above.
4. Open your Squarespace site editor, navigate to your Contact page.
5. Add a Code Block, paste the snippet (with your username).
6. Save. The widget appears on the page.

Detailed Squarespace walkthrough: Add a booking widget to Squarespace.

Deposits and payments (where this gets nuanced)

v0 of circleit doesn't yet collect payments. Two patterns photographers use today:

• Discovery first, deposit later. Use circleit for the free discovery call. After the call, send the client a separate Stripe / Square invoice for their session deposit. This is the most common pro photography flow and works fine with v0.
• Booking is the deposit step. Use circleit for the booking, then immediately send a deposit invoice that locks in the slot. If the deposit isn't paid in 24 hours, you cancel from circleit's dashboard.

Built-in Stripe payments are on circleit's v1 roadmap. If this matters to you, tell us — what we hear from photographers shapes what ships first.

Things you probably don't need (yet)

• Round-robin scheduling — you're one person.
• SMS reminders for free-tier — your discovery call clients are usually serious enough that email is sufficient. We'll add SMS for paid plans.
• Multi-staff — same.
• Webhooks / Zapier — wait until you have ~100 bookings/month and a specific automation in mind.

What your clients see

When a potential client lands on your Contact page, they see your widget. They click "Book a discovery call," see your available slots in their timezone (no math required), enter name + email, and they're booked. Their calendar gets an invite. Yours gets a new event with the attendee's email and notes. You both can cancel or reschedule via links in the confirmation email — no logins, no apps.