How long does a booking last? (booking lengths, lengths by party size and the gap after)

Set the standard booking length for online, your team, walk-ins and the waitlist, longer lengths for bigger parties, letting customers choose their length, and the turnaround gap after a booking.

How long a booking holds its table is set on Settings → Bookings → How long a booking lasts (/dashboard/settings/booking-length). Owners, Admins and Managers can open it. Which wins: "A length by party size beats a length the customer picks, which beats the drinks-only length, which beats the standard length."

Standard length

Standard booking length is how long a booking holds its table when no other rule decides — one number for each way of booking, any length in 5-minute steps from 15 minutes to 12 hours (95 minutes and 1 hour 50 are fine):

• Online and your team — default 90 minutes. Bookings your team adds start from the same length.
• Walk-ins — default 90 minutes. Only used while Enable walk-ins is on.
• Waitlist (*Available on Complete*) — how long a waitlist party keeps its table once seated; default 90 minutes. Only used while Turn on the waitlist is on.

A length you already have is never rewritten; it's only rounded to 5 minutes when you change it.

Under More options: Drinks booking length — a shorter length for drinks-only bookings, when you offer food and drinks-only bookings separately (0 = the same as your standard length). Available on Plus plan and above. A drinks-only booking your team adds gets the same length as one made online — your party-size lengths first, otherwise this one — and keeps it when you change its time or party size.

Length by party size

Available on Plus plan and above. Switch on Duration by party size to give bigger parties more time. The first time, a starter set is created: 1–2 guests → 90 mins, 3–4 → 120, 5–8 → 150, 9–99 → 180. Edit each rule's Min, Max and Duration — any length in 5-minute steps — remove one with the bin button, or click Add rule.

• Rules are checked in order and the first match wins, so keep the ranges tidy — the page warns you about overlapping ranges.
• A party bigger than your largest rule gets that rule's length, so a big table is never given less time than a smaller one.
• A party size no rule covers gets your standard length — the page warns you about gaps like that.
• If a day's opening hours are shorter than a rule's length, the page warns that the day can never take bookings of that size.
• If your team has set a custom length on a booking by hand, that length stays put when the customer changes their party size on the manage-booking page.

The rules are used for online bookings and bookings your team adds. Who else gets these lengths has a switch for Walk-ins and one for the Waitlist (*Available on Complete*): switched off, a walk-in or waitlist party gets its own standard length above.

Customers choose their length

Available on Plus plan and above. Switch on Customisable booking duration to let customers pick how long they book for on your booking page. The first time, a starter list is created: 1h, 1h 30m, 2h, 2h 30m, 3h and 4h. Change the list in Duration options shown to customers: type a length (any length in 5-minute steps, from 15 minutes to 12 hours) and click Add, or remove one with its ×. You can offer up to 12. Remove an option and nobody can book for that long.

While Duration by party size is on, customers don't get a length picker — the party-size rules decide the length instead, and the page says so. Use one or the other: the picker to let customers choose, or party-size rules to decide for them.

Lengths that wouldn't finish before you close are greyed out in the picker rather than hidden, so customers can see the option exists and simply won't fit today.

The gap after a booking

• Turnaround time (*Available on Plus plan and above*; default 0) — how long a table needs between one party leaving and the next sitting down, to clean and reset. It applies everywhere: the times customers see online, the checks when your team adds or moves a booking, walk-in placement, and when a waitlist customer is told their table is ready. 0 means no gap.

Under More options:

• Apply turnaround time after cancellations and no-shows (*Available on Complete*; off, and off is recommended) — a table freed by a cancellation or no-show normally goes straight to the next waitlist party, because nobody sat there. Switch it on to make those tables wait the turnaround gap too. Nothing happens here while your turnaround time is 0.
• Auto-trim duration on clear — when a table is marked as cleared, the booking shortens to the time the customers were actually seated, which frees the rest of its time on the timeline straight away. Every plan. (It used to live on Display and layout.)

Click Save changes when you're done.

Special dates, and if your plan changes

A special date can have a Booking length of its own, on Settings → Bookings → Special dates — any length in 5-minute steps, for online bookings and your team's on that date (walk-ins keep their walk-in length). On that date it replaces your standard, drinks-only and party-size lengths, and customers don't pick their own. See What's different about Christmas Day? (Special dates).

If your plan changes to one without lengths by party size or turnaround time, they stop applying — to online bookings and to your team's booking screens alike, so the two always agree. Your saved settings are kept, and come back with the plan.

Related: Where are my booking rules? (Booking rules at a glance) · When can customers book? · How many guests can book at once? · Which table does a booking get? · How do I set up and seat walk-ins?