Most booking apps fail to meet unique business needs — but yours doesn't have to. With no-code tools, you can create a fully customized booking app in just a few hours.
In this article, we’ll explain:
- The best no-code tools for creating a booking app.
- How to tailor your app to your business needs.
- Tips for launching and optimizing your app for success.
Let’s kick things off by exploring the benefits of a custom booking app for your business.
What a Booking App Can Bring Your Business
When you build your booking app, you can streamline your business's reservations into one place. This means no more picking up the (old-fashioned) phone, fumbling through your paper planner, and penciling in an appointment.
Plus, you’ll also be able to customize your booking app, making it on-brand and matching it to your own needs and tastes.
Here are just a few business types that can benefit from a booking app:
- Massage services
- Nail salons
- Hair salons and barber shops
- Personal trainers/gyms
- Life coaching services
- And many more
Chances are, creating a custom-made booking app for your service business can make your life easier while boosting your bottom line.
Preparing to Build Your Booking App
Creating a booking app, like any other creative pursuit, takes planning. So before you start building, ensure you have prepared the following:
- Wireframes (digital blueprints) of your app: Like an engineer, you’ll need to draw up plans for your app before you begin building. Wireframing allows you to do this on a digital, online platform like Figma, a renowned design tool, and mock-up your app’s blueprints.
- A list of features: Besides booking times and appointments, what other functionalities do you want your booking app to include? For instance, you can have a chatbot for direct client communication, a connection to Stripe to process payments painlessly, or an integration with QuickBooks to track your revenue.
Jot down all these features so you will remember them when it’s time to build your booking app.
- An Adalo account: Adalo is one of the most simple and powerful no-code app builders available today. It offers enough features to breathe life into any booking app idea for any business need.
- Adalo’s drag-and-drop interface is super easy: You’ll be able to use your cursor to customize pieces of your app to your liking. Start with a template, add new screens, change colors, and rejig the layout to create the booking app you’ve always wanted.
The App Parts That You’ll Build
Every app has 3 major pieces, and Adalo comes pre-packaged with each one. Don’t worry; you’ll be able to customize each one, so the final product is your very own creation. Here’s what you’ll be building when you create an app with Adalo:
- Your frontend: Your booking app’s screens, buttons, pictures, text boxes, and anything else that your clients will see or touch make up your frontend.
- Your backend: Think of the backend as your app’s control center, working behind the scenes. It lets you know when clients schedule appointments, connect with third-party applications, pull up screens, and more.
- Your database: This part looks and functions like a spreadsheet, storing and organizing all the info you and your clients input into your app. You might find the following in a booking app’s database:
- Client names
- Availability times
- Appointment types
- Client history
- Payments
How To Create a Booking App: Our Guide
Step 1: Download Adalo’s Booking App Template
Adalo has a few dozen templates that provide the foundations for building many different app types. Adalo's booking app template is conveniently preloaded with features for reserving appointments, creating a calendar, taking payments, and more.
You can plug in all your designs, features, and functionalities so that your booking app template becomes a unique booking app.
Step 2: Customizing Your App
We know you want to craft and tailor your booking app to reflect your tastes and brand aptly, and Adalo makes that possible. Here are the tools found in Adalo’s app-building interface that you’ll be using:
- The Horizontal Ribbon: This ribbon extends horizontally across your screen’s top. It contains functions for previewing your app and accessing your Adalo account.
- The Building Canvas: Located at the center of your app-building interface, the Building Canvas works as your digital easel. You’ll see all your booking app’s screens (pages), and you’ll be able to move around and resize pictures, elements, and text boxes.
- The Editing Dashboard: This part of the app-build interface is on the left-hand side of your screen, extending from the top to the bottom. It essentially works as your toolbox, as you’ll find functions to:
- Add new elements, pictures, and screens
- Connect with integrations
- Change color schemes
- Edit your database
- Publish your app to the web and app stores
Configuring Screens and Components
You can get started customizing your booking app by following these simple steps:
- First, push the “Screens” button, which looks like a screen. Select the screen you want to edit, or scroll to the bottom and create a new screen.
- Find the “+” inside the colorful circle at the top of your Editing Dashboard. This button stands out because it has all the components like forms, lists, add-ons, and much more. After you’ve found the piece you want, click on it and drag it over to the screen.
You can move the pieces around on your app’s screen and expand and shrink each using your cursor.
- Click the “Colors” button, which looks like an artist’s palette, to customize the color scheme to suit your tastes.
Want to delete a screen? Select the unwanted screen from the “Screens” button, press the 3 vertical dots button to the right of its title, then click “Delete Screen.”
Step 3: Customizing Your Data
Customizing Adalo’s pre-packaged database is simple. Access your database by clicking on the “Database” icon. Here is an overview of all the parts and how to configure them:
1. Collections: These appear as spreadsheets and store data groups. Add new collections by clicking on the “Add New Collection” option at the button of your collections list from your “Database” tab.
Delete collections by pressing the 3 vertical dots and selecting “Delete.”
2. Properties: These are the data stored in your database collections, and they live in the top rows of your database collections. To access Properties, select the collection, and then you’ll see a list of each property.
If you want to add a new property, click the “Add to Properties” button and type in your property name. To delete a property, select the one you want to throw away and press the garbage can button to its right.
3. Records: Your records are essentially data points found inside each collection. Whenever a client creates an account, schedules appointments, pays, or enters any data into your app, it’s stored as a record.
Step 4: How To Preview Your App
After building your app for a while, you’ll want to see how a few screens look as if they were live. The “View App” button on your Horizontal Ribbon’s right-hand side makes this possible. Click this button, then select “Staging Preview.”
This function allows you to see how your app will look on a mobile device.
Pro-tip: Click through your screens and ensure they’re up to par. If not, go back to your building interface and make changes. This will save you time in the long run.
Step 5: Taking Payments for Your App
Adalo offers a Stripe integration that facilitates payments on your booking app. First, visit the Stripe signup page to create an account. Next, return to Adalo’s building interface, select the “+” button in the colorful circle at the top of your Editing Dashboard, and select the “Add Components/Add Screens” button.
Find the Stripe form by scrolling down to “Top Marketplace Components." Drag the Stripe payment form to your desired screen and start making easy payments.
Step 6: Publishing Your Booking App
Adalo lets you publish one version of your app to 3 different places, including the web, the Apple App Store, and the Google Play Store. First, let’s talk about getting your app to the web so your clients and potential clients can find it on Google with their browsers and make bookings.
First, click your profile button on the Horizontal Ribbon. Then, in the “Settings” tab, navigate down to “Domain” and enter your “www.mydomain.com” domain name. If you don’t have a domain, try out GoDaddy.
To finish, click the “Publishing” button on the Editing Dashboard and follow the procedures. When you’re finished, your app will be live on Google!
Preparing To Publish to the App Stores
In addition to web app publishing, Adalo allows you to release your app on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Doing so can get your app some serious traction since both platforms have a combined visitor count of over 1 billion.
Follow these procedures to prepare your app for the app stores properly:
- Competitor research and description writing: Open up the app stores on your mobile device and search for booking apps in your industry. For instance, if you’re a nail salon, type in “nail salon booking.”
Select the top 3 apps in your search result and read through their descriptions. Take note of their keywords while brainstorming synonymous keywords. For example, in addition to writing “nail salon booking,” use synonyms like “manicure booking app” or “nail services.”
Doing this can help your app rank higher in the search results. Importantly, keep your description concise and clear. No one wants to read a verbose app description.
- An icon that matches your brand: Your app icon is super important. It appears on the side of your app’s title in the app store search results and on the mobile devices of people who download it. So make sure it’s marvelous.
If you have a logo that people know, use this as your icon. If you don’t, you’ll need to make one. Don't worry — you don’t need an M.A. in Graphic Design to create a kickass icon — get yourself a Looka account, and you’ll have everything you need to build a pro-level icon.
- Eye-catching screenshots and feature videos: Apple and Google allow you to submit a few screenshots and videos to give folks an idea of how your app functions. It goes without saying, but only provide clear, high-quality shots that show your app in a professional light.
Video clips are super helpful in demonstrating how certain features work. For instance, you play an example of a client booking an appointment and chatting with you to show your app’s ease of use.
Let’s get into publishing!
Google Play Store Publishing
Create an account on the Android developer page and pay the one-time enrollment fee of $25. Importantly, register with Google’s app-testing platform. This helpful feature allows several testers to download your app, test it, and provide feedback.
You must incorporate the feedback you get from the testers into your app. Doing so can help improve your app and possibly avoid rejection from publishing on the app stores.
Once your app is sorted, return to your Editing Dashboard and push the "Publish” button. Follow the Android publishing procedures, and your app could be approved within a few hours to several weeks, depending on compliance with store guidelines and the review process.
Publishing Your Grocery Delivery App to the Apple App Store
Head over to the iOS developer site, create a developer account, and pay the annual $99 fee. Apple has a testing service of its own, Testflight, so make sure to register with them just like you did with Google.
After the testing finishes and you’ve polished your app, return to Adalo, press “Publish,” and follow Apple’s instructions. In as little as a few hours and as much as a few months, your app should be approved by Apple and ready for the Apple App Store.
Next Steps: App Marketing and Maintenance
Ensure that your app always runs like a finely tuned machine. If you find any bugs or crash pages, resolve them at once, or else your clients will be frustrated.
If you want to see how many people are using your app, where they’re from, and how popular your screens are, visit Adalo’s “Analytics” section, which is located on the Editing Dashboard.
You’ll want to ensure all your clients use your app to book appointments, make payments, and more. Invite all your current clients to download your app using text, email, or word of mouth.
If you’re ambitious and really want to market your app, check out our app-marketing promo guide. You’ll find many strategies and tactics to help grow your audience.
Ultimately, when you follow our advice about how to create a booking app and publish one, you’ll have a useful, unique, and branded tool that brings convenience to you, your team, and, most importantly, your clients.
