Help & FAQ

Besmi is an all-in-one booking platform built for independent beauty professionals — lash artists, nail techs, estheticians, hairstylists, and more. You get one custom branded link that handles bookings, client management, payments, SMS/email reminders, and an AI receptionist. Think of it as your entire front desk in one link.

Solo beauty professionals and small 1-3 person teams. Besmi was built by a lash artist, trainer, and supplier alongside a software developer and AI architect — both business owners who saw firsthand how the existing tools are either too expensive, too confusing, or built for big salons with front desks. If you're running your business from your phone and your DMs, this is for you.

Sign up at besmi.com — it takes about 5 minutes. Create your account, add your services with prices and durations, set your working hours, customize your booking page, and share your link. That's it. Your clients can start booking immediately.

You can use Besmi entirely from your phone's browser at besmi.com. We also have native iOS and Android apps available that add push notifications and Tap to Pay (NFC) for in-person card payments directly on your phone.

Yes! Clients don't need to sign up or download anything. They visit your link, pick a service, choose a time, and enter their name and email or phone number. That's it. They can verify with a quick email or SMS code.

Yes — completely free during early access. No credit card required. No hidden fees. No trial period. Just sign up and start using it.

Monthly subscription plans are coming — that's how we'll keep Besmi sustainable long-term. The commitment hasn't changed: we built this for the solo artist working from home, the two-chair studio, the small business pouring everything into their craft. Plans will be priced for that reality — not chains with corporate budgets. Anyone signed up during early access will be honored with introductory pricing when plans launch.

When you accept card payments, the total processing fee is 4.5% + $0.50 per transaction. This includes Stripe's standard processing fee (2.9% + $0.30) — Besmi keeps the difference (1.6% + $0.20). For example, on a $100 service, fees are $5.00 total, so you'd receive $95.00. Cash, Venmo, Cash App, and Zelle payments have zero fees.

No. During early access, the only costs are payment processing fees when you accept card payments. SMS and email notifications, the AI receptionist, custom branding, analytics — all included. No per-booking fees, no monthly minimums.

Card payments (credit/debit via Stripe), Tap to Pay (NFC — your phone becomes a card reader), Cash App, Venmo, Zelle, and cash. For card payments, you'll connect your own Stripe account so money goes directly to you.

Your phone becomes a payment terminal. Open the Besmi app, tap "Checkout" on an appointment, select Tap to Pay, and have your client hold their card, phone, or watch near the back of your device. Works with physical cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and NFC-enabled devices. No extra hardware needed. Available on iPhone XS+ (iOS 16.4+) and NFC-capable Android devices.

You can require deposits as a flat amount (e.g., $25) or percentage (e.g., 50%) of the service price. When a client books, they'll see a "Pay Deposit" link. The deposit goes to your Stripe account, and at checkout you just charge the remaining balance. Deposits are shown as a line item so everything is transparent.

Yes. From the dashboard, open any paid appointment and hit the refund button. You can issue full or partial refunds, and the money goes back to the client's card. The appointment status updates to "refunded" automatically.

Each business connects their own Stripe Express account. Go to Settings → Payments → "Connect with Stripe" and complete the onboarding (bank account, identity verification). Stripe handles payouts, tax forms (1099), and transaction history. You can manage everything from your Stripe Express dashboard.

Stripe handles payouts directly to your bank account. The default schedule is rolling payouts (typically 2 business days after a payment), but you can customize your payout schedule from your Stripe Express dashboard.

Clients visit your link (besmi.com/your-name), see your services with prices and durations, pick a time from your available slots, and submit a booking. You can either auto-confirm bookings or require manual approval from your dashboard.

You set your working hours per day (e.g., Mon-Fri 9am-6pm), buffer time between appointments, blocked dates for vacations, and blocked time slots for lunch or personal time. Besmi automatically calculates available slots based on all of this, plus any existing bookings. You can also set minimum lead time (e.g., must book 8+ hours ahead), a max booking window (e.g., 60 days out), or use Custom Slots mode to define exact appointment times instead of auto-generated slots.

Yes. Connect your Google Calendar from Settings → Calendar. When a Besmi appointment is created, it automatically creates a Google Calendar event with the service name, client info, and appointment times. This prevents double-booking across your calendars.

Day view, 3-day view, week view, 30-day view, and an agenda (list) view. Appointments are color-coded by service category, and you can see status overlays for pending, cancelled, and no-show appointments at a glance.

If you have the AI receptionist enabled, clients can text to reschedule or cancel (you control whether the AI is allowed to do each). You can also handle reschedules manually from the dashboard.

It's an AI-powered SMS assistant that automatically responds to your clients' text messages. It knows your services, pricing, availability, and each client's history. Clients text your Besmi number and the AI handles bookings, reschedules, answers questions, and sends appointment info — even at 2am.

Book new appointments (checks your real availability), reschedule existing appointments, cancel appointments (always confirms first), share your working hours and service info, answer common questions, and check a client's upcoming appointments. It cannot process payments, share other clients' info, or make health claims.

Yes. You choose a name for your AI (e.g., "Jessica") and pick a personality: Professional (polished and courteous), Bubbly (warm and friendly with occasional emojis), or Direct (efficient and to-the-point). You also control permissions — whether the AI can reschedule and/or cancel appointments.

Absolutely. In Dashboard → Messages, you can see all AI conversations in real-time. Toggle any conversation from AI to you, and you'll respond directly via SMS. Toggle it back when you want the AI to take over again.

No limits during early access. The AI keeps messages short (under 300 characters when possible) and always uses the client's first name for a personal touch.

Name, email, phone, birthday, custom notes, total lifetime spend, appointment count, first and last visit dates, and optional fields like lash style preference. Everything updates automatically as clients book and pay.

Yes. Go to Dashboard → Clients → Import, and upload a CSV file with your client data. You can also add clients manually one at a time.

Besmi sends automatic reminders via SMS and/or email at 24 hours and 2 hours before each appointment. You can toggle each reminder type on or off, customize the timing, and edit the message templates with merge tags like {clientName}, {serviceName}, {date}, and {time}.

Booking confirmation (pending or confirmed), appointment reminders (24h and 2h), booking declined notification, and payment receipts. All sent via SMS and/or email based on your notification settings.

Extremely. You control colors (primary, secondary, background, text, buttons), fonts (7 options), button styles (fill, outline, soft-shadow, hard-shadow, glass, gradient, and more), corner shapes (rounded, square, pill, soft, leaf), backgrounds (solid, gradient, or image), and the full page layout with drag-and-drop modules.

Building blocks for your booking page. You can add, remove, and reorder: Profile Header, Booking Widget, Link Buttons, Social Links, Text Blocks, Photo Gallery, Image Blocks, Intake Forms, and Separators. Think of it like a page builder — your page looks exactly how you want it.

Yes. The Appearance editor shows a real-time phone mockup preview on the right side as you make changes. You can also switch to a full Preview tab to see exactly what clients will see.

Yes. Go to Dashboard → Discounts → Add Code. Create percentage discounts (e.g., 20% off), fixed amount discounts (e.g., $15 off), or free service codes. Set optional limits like max total uses, per-customer limits, date ranges, minimum spend requirements, and restrict to specific services.

Clients enter a code during checkout or booking. The discount is validated in real-time — checking if the code is active, within date range, applicable to the selected service, and not over the usage limit. The discounted price is shown clearly (e.g., "$75 → $60 with code WELCOME20").

Add-ons are extra services clients can add during booking — like lash sealer, brow tint, or under-eye treatment. You set a name, price, and duration for each. They can be tied to specific services or offered as standalone bookable items.

Yes. Create custom intake forms with pre-built templates for Lash Artists, General Beauty, or Hair Salons — or start from scratch. Forms support short and long text, dropdowns, checkboxes, single and multi-select, date pickers, photo uploads, and digital signatures. Embed them on your booking page or share as a link.

Input fields: Short Text, Long Text, Dropdown, Checkbox, Yes/No, Single Choice, Multi Select, Date, Photo Upload, and Signature. Display-only fields: Section Heading (to group related questions under a topic) and Description (multi-line instructional text or disclaimers above a set of fields). Display-only fields don't collect input — they just structure the form so it reads cleanly.

Yes. Any field can be set to only appear when a previous yes/no, checkbox, dropdown, single-choice, or multi-select field has a specific answer. Example: only show "Describe your allergy" if the client checked "I have allergies." Configure this in each field's expanded settings under Visibility.

Dashboard → Form Builder → Responses shows everything sorted by date. Each response can be linked to a client record so the intake history follows the client. You get notified by SMS and email when a new form is submitted.

Digital aftercare instructions you create once and share with clients after their appointment. Build cards for different services (lash extensions, brow lamination, etc.) with your own care instructions. Clients get a clean, branded page they can reference anytime.

Yes. Go to Settings → Dev for ready-to-paste embed snippets. You get two options: a full iframe that drops the booking flow directly into your page, or a popup overlay that opens when clients click a button. Both work on WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, custom HTML, React — anywhere. The ?embed=1 parameter strips the Besmi header for a clean inline experience.

No. The embed snippets work without authentication — they just load your public booking page in an iframe. API keys are only needed if you're building a fully custom booking experience that talks to the Besmi API directly.

Yes — that's exactly what the Besmi API is for. Read services and availability, create and update appointments, list customers, fetch your business profile — all from the same data that powers Besmi itself. Full reference at besmi.com/developers.

Sign in to Besmi, open Settings → Dev, click "New key." Give it a name ("Website integration," "Agency dashboard," etc.), and the key appears once — copy it immediately. Besmi only stores a hash, so if you lose the key you'll need to generate a new one. Revoke keys at any time from the same screen.

Today's endpoints (under /api/v1/): read business profile, read services and categories, get availability slots, list and filter appointments, create and update appointments, list customers. Webhooks for real-time events (appointment.created, etc.) are on the roadmap — email developers@besmi.com if you need them on a timeline.

No — never put a Besmi API key in client-side JavaScript. Each key authenticates as your entire business. Treat them like production credentials: keep in environment variables on your server, never commit to git. For browser-facing flows, route the request through your own server which holds the key.

Revenue over time (line chart), appointment count, average revenue per appointment, completion rate, payment method breakdown (pie chart), and revenue by service. Filter by today, this week, this month, last 30 days, or all-time.

Yes. Tips are tracked separately in your analytics dashboard. You can see total tips alongside total revenue and per-appointment averages.

Product sales are tracked alongside service revenue in your analytics. You can see total retail revenue, units sold, top-selling products, and product revenue as a percentage of total.

Yes. After a completed appointment, Besmi automatically sends the client a review request via SMS and email (configurable from Settings → Notifications). They click a magic link that drops them into a clean review form — no account or password required.

Approved reviews are displayed on your public booking page, and you can choose which to feature. The Reviews dashboard at Dashboard → Reviews shows everything (approved, pending, hidden) with full filtering — you control what's public.

Yes. Each review supports a single public-facing response from you. Open the review and click "Reply" — your response appears underneath on the booking page.

No. Review tokens are sent to the client via SMS/email and don't require a Besmi account. They click the link, write the review, optionally add a photo, and submit — that's it.

Yes. Add products at Dashboard → Products with name, description, photo, price, and stock count. Products can be sold during appointment checkout (added as line items alongside the service) or browsed on your public page if you enable the Product Grid module on your booking page.

Yes. Each product has an optional stock count that decrements with every sale. Set a low-stock threshold to get reminders when you're running low. Untracked products (no stock count) work fine for digital goods or made-to-order items.

Yes if you enable the standalone Product Grid module on your booking page — clients can browse and purchase retail directly through your link. Otherwise, products are sold during checkout when settling an appointment.

Yes. As part of setup you can claim a dedicated Besmi phone number — a real, working number where your clients can text and call. All inbound SMS routes through Besmi (so the AI receptionist can respond automatically), and you can send manual messages from the Messages dashboard.

Inbound calls forward to your personal phone (you set the forwarding number in Settings → Phone Number). Voicemails are not yet stored — clients are encouraged via SMS auto-reply to text instead.

It's additive — your clients see your Besmi number on the booking page, your reminders, and your receipts. Your personal number stays private. Many pros use the Besmi number as their public business line.

Free during early access. When subscription plans launch, the dedicated number will be included in the base plan.

Yes. All connections use HTTPS encryption. Card payments are handled entirely by Stripe — Besmi never sees or stores full card numbers. Your data is isolated in Firebase with security rules that enforce business-level access control. API requests require authenticated Firebase ID tokens.

All data is stored on Google Cloud (Firebase/Firestore) infrastructure. Images are stored in Firebase Cloud Storage with ownership-based access controls.

Yes. Users can request data deletion by contacting support@besmi.com. We comply with data deletion requests in accordance with our privacy policy at besmi.com/privacy.

No. We never sell, rent, or share your personal data or your clients' data with third parties for marketing purposes. Data is only shared with service providers essential to running the platform (Stripe for payments, Twilio for SMS, SendGrid for email).