Photography Studio Booking

This walkthrough covers the client booking journey, studio owner setup and listing management and the admin path for approving new studio owners.

1. 01

   Browse & discover

   Clients browse studios and filter by keyword, city, price and equipment. Bookable studios appear first, while Coming soon studios stay easy to preview. Each studio page covers the description, hourly rate, equipment, optional photographer add-on, additional equipment, studio rules, location and gallery. On Bookable studios, clients can add an optional photographer if they want one, then start a booking. On Coming soon studios, booking stays hidden until the owner finishes payment setup.

   

   

   

   

2. 02

   Book a session

   On bookable studios, clients pick a date in Europe/Belgrade time, then choose a start time in 30-minute steps and a duration. The summary shows the total for the selected duration, including an optional photographer add-on. Before checkout they can leave a note, must accept the cancellation policy and continue to payment, with a 15-minute hold on the slot while they pay.

   

   

3. 03

   Bookings & payment states

   If payment isn’t finished yet, the bookings page shows the session as awaiting payment, with an option to complete payment while the hold is still active. Once payment succeeds, the booking is confirmed, with session details, a pricing breakdown and cancel options based on the studio’s refund rules.

   

   

4. 04

   Become a studio owner

   Any client can apply to list a studio from their account. The application captures business name, country, city, address and description. After submit, an admin reviews the request before the account is upgraded and a draft studio is created.

   

   

5. 05

   Owner setup & publish gates

   After approval, owners work through an onboarding checklist until the listing is ready to publish. Publishing makes the studio visible as Coming soon so clients can discover it. It becomes Bookable only after payouts are connected, so going public and accepting paid bookings are two separate steps.

   

   

6. 06

   Studio listing tools

   From the studio dashboard, owners build out the full listing: profile and description, pricing and refund rules, location on the map, gallery, equipment and studio rules, plus an optional photographer add-on. The screens here focus on the gallery with cover-image ordering, confirming the map pin and setting up the photographer offer clients can add at booking.

   

   

   

7. 07

   Availability engine

   Owners control when the studio can be booked. They set weekly opening hours, date overrides, blocked times for private use and rules like how far ahead clients can book and how much gap to leave after a session. Confirmed bookings and unpaid holds on a slot both count, so clients only see times that are truly free.

   

   

8. 08

   Owner booking operations

   Owners can review upcoming, past and all bookings for their studio, with client contact details on each booking. Cancel and refund follow the same cutoff rules clients get.

   

   

9. 09

   Admin applications

   Admins review pending studio-owner applications in a simple queue. Approving creates a draft studio, upgrades the applicant to studio owner and sends an email. Rejecting archives the application and emails the applicant. If needed, the admin can also include a rejection reason.

   

   

I built the app with Next.js App Router, React Server Components and Server Actions on Vercel, backed by Supabase Auth, Postgres, Storage, RLS and pg_cron. Payments use Stripe Checkout with Connect Express per studio, confirmation is webhook-driven and Resend handles transactional mail. Mapbox powers geocoding and the studio map.

• Publish is not the same as bookable

  Owners can publish a finished listing before payouts are fully connected, so the studio can show up as Coming soon. Booking and checkout unlock only after payouts are ready, which means studios stay discoverable while onboarding without taking online payments before they can receive them.

• Treating time as the inventory

  Unlike a product store, the inventory here is open time on the calendar. Availability is built from weekly hours, date overrides, blocked times, confirmed bookings and unpaid holds that still reserve a slot. Before a booking is created, the app runs an overlap check against confirmed sessions and active holds. A Postgres GiST index on confirmed time ranges adds a second safeguard, so two paid bookings cannot share the same studio at the same time.

• Confirming payment before a booking is final

  A booking only becomes confirmed after Stripe reports that payment succeeded, so the calendar does not treat a session as sold too early. When an owner finishes payouts setup, Stripe also notifies the app. That is what moves a published studio from Coming soon to Bookable. If a booking is cancelled in time, the client gets a full refund under the studio’s rules.

• Clear roles and data access

  The app has three roles: client, studio owner and admin. Clients only see their own bookings, owners only manage their studio and its bookings and admins only handle applications. Access is enforced in the app layer and with database row-level security, so one account cannot reach another role’s data.

• Preventing double bookings under payment delay

  Approach: When a client starts checkout, the chosen time is held for 15 minutes. That hold counts as taken in overlap checks, a scheduled cron job clears expired holds and the client can finish payment before the hold runs out.

  Result: The slot stays reserved during payment, but it opens again if the client never completes it.

• Publish versus bookable for marketplace payouts

  Approach: Publishing a listing and accepting paid bookings are separate steps. A studio can appear as Coming soon once the listing is ready. It becomes Bookable only after payouts are connected and synced.

  Result: Owners can start getting discovered, then turn on online booking as soon as they can receive payouts.

• Safe owner onboarding through admin approval

  Approach: New studio owners apply first and wait for an admin decision. Approval creates a draft studio, upgrades the account and sends an email. Rejection archives the application and notifies the applicant.

  Result: Only approved applicants become owners. They land in a real draft studio instead of an empty account.