Booking essentials
Deposit or No-Show Fee? How to Protect Bookings From No-Shows
By Bruno Melani, founder of Gaplessly · · 6 min read
The short answer
Take a deposit when one no-show costs you a lot: a big group, a long service or a set menu night.
Save a card and charge a no-show fee later for everyday bookings, where a payment step at booking would lose you more clients than no-shows do.
A deposit is money in hand but adds friction; a saved card adds none, but the fee only arrives if the charge goes through.
What a deposit does, and what it costs you
A deposit is paid when the client books and comes off the bill on the day. If they cancel late or never arrive, you already have the money. Nobody has to chase anything.
The cost is the payment step. A client booking at 11pm on their phone now has to find their card, and some won't. You never see the bookings you lose this way, which makes the cost easy to underestimate. A deposit also has to be refunded when someone cancels in time, so it creates work on the good bookings as well as the bad ones.
What a saved card does
With a saved card, the client enters their card details when they book but pays nothing. If they cancel late or don't arrive, you charge the no-show fee to that card afterwards.
Booking feels almost the same as booking with no protection at all, which is the point. The catch is that the fee is a charge you make later, not money you hold. The card can be declined, cancelled or out of funds, and then the fee is only a request. Tell the client before you charge, and leave room for illness and emergencies. Our cancellation policy template covers that wording and what Australian law allows.
When to use each
Ask how much one empty booking costs you, and how hard it is to fill again at short notice.
- Take a deposit for large groups, set menus, event nights, long colour or treatment appointments, and anything you prepare for in advance. One no-show here costs enough to justify the extra step.
- Save a card for everyday bookings: a table for two, a 30-minute cut, a regular client. Each one is cheap to lose, and easy booking matters more.
- Use neither if no-shows are rare for you and your bookings fill again quickly. A reminder message may be all you need.
Many venues only ask for a deposit above a certain group size, so a table for two books freely while a table for twelve pays up front.
How much to ask for
Start from what the empty time costs you, not from what feels firm. For a restaurant that is usually an amount per guest; for a salon or clinic, a share of the service price keeps a short service and a long one in proportion.
A no-show fee can also rise as the notice gets shorter: nothing with a day's notice, part of the fee for a late cancellation, the full fee for not turning up. A late cancellation still leaves some chance to fill the time; a no-show leaves none.
Keep the fee close to your real loss and show it before the client books. Our cancellation policy template explains why, with what the ACCC says about unfair terms.
What card fees do to a small deposit
Card fees are a percentage plus a fixed amount, and the fixed part weighs most on small payments. Stripe's standard online card fees in Australia are 1.65% + A$0.30 for domestic cards and 3.5% + A$0.30 for international cards. On a A$20 deposit paid with an Australian card, that is A$0.33 plus A$0.30, so A$0.63 in fees, about 3% of the deposit. The same deposit on an overseas card costs A$1.00, or 5%.
A saved card involves no payment at booking, so there is no payment to pay a fee on. Fees apply only to the no-show charges you actually make.
Stripe's standard Australian online card fees on one payment, read 6 October 2026, rounded to the cent
A$10
- Domestic card fee
- A$0.47
- Share of deposit
- 4.7%
- International card fee
- A$0.65
- Share of deposit
- 6.5%
A$20
- Domestic card fee
- A$0.63
- Share of deposit
- 3.2%
- International card fee
- A$1.00
- Share of deposit
- 5.0%
A$50
- Domestic card fee
- A$1.13
- Share of deposit
- 2.3%
- International card fee
- A$2.05
- Share of deposit
- 4.1%
A$100
- Domestic card fee
- A$1.95
- Share of deposit
- 2.0%
- International card fee
- A$3.80
- Share of deposit
- 3.8%
Deposits and saved cards in Gaplessly
In Gaplessly you choose one of the two for your business: deposits or a saved card. A deposit can be one fixed amount per booking, an amount per guest, or, for appointments, a percentage of the booking. You can ask only for groups above a set size. The client sees the amount before they book. If they cancel with at least the notice you set, the deposit goes back to their card; later than that, you keep it.
With a saved card, the client sees the no-show fee before they book, and nothing is charged when the card is saved. A fee is never charged automatically: an admin on your team charges it after a no-show or late cancellation, and can try again if the card is declined. Up to 6 fee tiers let the fee rise as the notice gets shorter, never above the fee the client was shown.
Deposits and saved cards come with Growth and Pro (Venue Growth and Venue Pro for venues), or as an add-on for A$14.99 a month plus GST on Solo and Venue Starter.