Getting started with Kowbi

Kowbi is a booking and operations platform for photo, video, podcast, and content studios. The core idea: your clients book themselves, pay themselves, and let themselves in — you get your time back without giving up control.

The three pieces that work together:

1. Booking page. A hosted page clients visit to pick a time, pay, and sign your agreements.
2. Admin dashboard. Where you manage rooms, rates, policies, and see every booking.
3. Kiosk (Starter+). A tablet-based check-in flow for guests, with PIN access, rules acknowledgment, and before/after photos.

Everything flows through Stripe — money goes directly to your Stripe account. Kowbi never holds your funds.

Sign up at kowbi.io/register.

After signup, Kowbi sends you a verification email. Click the link in it. You can keep setting up your studio in the meantime, but you’ll need to verify before you can connect Stripe.

The wizard asks for:

All of this is editable later in Admin → Settings → General.

Go to Admin → Settings → Rooms → Add Room. For each room:

• Name — “Studio A”, “Podcast Booth”, “Cyc Wall.” Keep it short; it appears in dropdowns.
• Hourly rate — the base price. If you want half-hour increments, set hourly to 2× the half-hour rate and set min duration to 30 minutes.
• Capacity — number of people the room comfortably holds. Shown on the booking page.
• Description + photo — optional but worth it. Clients browse rooms visually.

Multi-room setups (linked rooms)

If you offer rooms individually AND as a combined unit (e.g. “Studio A”, “Studio B”, “Studio A + B”), use the “When this room is booked, also block” checkbox when creating each room:

• Studio A → also blocks → Studio A+B
• Studio B → also blocks → Studio A+B
• Studio A+B → also blocks → Studio A, Studio B

This makes availability share correctly across all three options. Deep dive: Setting up rooms.

Admin → Settings → Integrations → Connect Stripe.

Kowbi uses Stripe Connect. You create your own Stripe account (free), connect it to Kowbi, and from then on every booking payment goes directly to you. Kowbi never touches the money — we only take an application fee (0% on paid plans).

Walkthrough + what to do when Stripe asks for business verification docs: Connecting Stripe.

Admin → Settings → Bookings is where the finance side lives:

• Deposit amount — authorized at booking, released after your damage review window
• Cancellation policy — the text clients see and agree to
• Buffers — setup/breakdown time between back-to-back bookings
• Video surcharge, overtime rate, cleaning fee — optional add-ons
• Add-ons (Starter+) — equipment rentals, extra services, backdrop color choices
• Promo codes (Starter+) — one-off discount codes

Deeper reading: Deposits & pricing.

If you also take bookings on Peerspace, Giggster, or another platform, sync both calendars so Kowbi doesn’t double-book you.

Admin → Settings → Integrations → Google Calendar. Point it at the calendar that Peerspace/Giggster write to, and Kowbi will treat those events as busy time.

Setup walkthrough: Google Calendar sync.

Admin → Settings → Rules is where you write the house rules every client has to acknowledge. Common things to cover:

• What’s included vs extra (equipment, cyc, backdrops)
• What’s prohibited (smoke machines, drilling, open flame)
• Overtime policy (automatically charged after grace period)
• Damage policy
• Noise / neighbor considerations

Clients e-sign this at check-in. If you’ve never written one, start with the template language we provide and edit from there.

If you’re going staffless or semi-staffless, set up the kiosk now.

Admin → Settings → Kiosk gives you a kiosk URL. Load it on an iPad, lock the tablet to that URL via Guided Access, and leave it in your studio. Guests check in by entering the PIN from their booking email, acknowledging rules, and (Pro+) taking before-session photos.

Full setup: Kiosk setup.

Admin → Settings → Branding lets you upload your logo and set your primary color so booking confirmation emails match your brand instead of looking generic. Totally optional but makes a difference for first impressions.

More: Email branding.

This is the single most important step. Open your booking page (yourstudio.kowbi.io) in an incognito window and book a session as if you were a customer. Walk through the whole flow:

1. Pick a room, date, duration
2. Fill out your info
3. Pay (real card on a paid plan — you can refund it; Stripe test card on Free)
4. Receive the confirmation email
5. Check in via the kiosk (if applicable)
6. Mark the booking complete in admin

You’ll catch 90% of config problems in this one dry run — before a real client does.

Once your test booking works end-to-end, update your public links:

• Instagram bio — replace existing booking link with your Kowbi URL
• Google Business Profile — add Kowbi as your booking link
• Website — link to your booking page or embed the booking widget
• Peerspace / Giggster — leave as-is; those marketplaces still send clients. Direct bookers now have a better path.

For the first few days, check your admin dashboard once a day:

• Bookings coming in? Confirm each confirmation email actually went out.
• Any booking stuck in weird state? The first few can expose edge cases — reply to the client personally if anything is off.
• Stripe payouts hitting your bank? Confirm your bank got the first payout.
• Any client confusion? Save their emails — those tell you where to improve your booking page copy.