For a small UK business running courses, classes or activities, the best booking system is one with no monthly fee that you can run from your phone. With LetsReg there are no subscriptions and no fixed costs. You pay as you go: £1 (+ VAT) + 3.9% on paid bookings, and free events are always free. Bookings, payments and attendees stay in one place.

What “best” means for a small business

If you are running classes, courses or activities on your own, “best” doesn’t mean the system with the most features. It means the one that doesn’t cost you anything when you’re quiet, and doesn’t get in the way when you’re busy. For a small business, that comes down to four things:

• No fixed or monthly cost. You shouldn’t pay a subscription for a booking system, as this is not cost effective. For example, if your classes are running at 60% capacity. Pay only when a booking comes in.
• Fast to set up. You need to be taking bookings within minutes.
• Mobile. Most of the admin for a small course or class provider happens between sessions, on a phone, not at a desk.
• Get paid quickly. Payments should land in your account without you chasing invoices or bank transfers.

With LetsReg, there’s no subscription and no licence fee. The model line is simple: no subscriptions, no fixed costs. Pay as you go: £1 (+ VAT) + 3.9% on paid bookings. Free events are always free.

The best booking systems for small businesses (UK)

LetsReg, for course, class and activity providers

LetsReg has been helping organisers take bookings and payments since 2000, and today supports 20,000+ organisers across over 11 million bookings.

For a small business, that means:

• Run it from your phone, between classes, without needing a laptop or office.
• Prompt-to-setup, so a new class or course booking page can go live in minutes.
• Edit on the page, so changing a date, price or capacity doesn’t mean rebuilding the listing.
• No monthly fee and no licence. You only pay the £1 (+ VAT) plus 3.9% fee when someone books and pays, and free events cost nothing at all.

Liverpool International Football Academy moved their sign ups onto LetsReg and saved 7 hours every week that used to go on manual admin and payment chasing, time an owner-operator running their own coaching business can put back into training and growing their programme.

Other categories worth knowing about

Not every small business fits the course-and-class mould, so it’s worth knowing about other categories of booking tools and who they tend to suit:

• Appointment booking tools, built around a calendar of individual time slots. These suit one-to-one services such as consultations, treatments or private tuition, where each booking is a person and a time, rather than a class with multiple attendees. LetsReg’s calendar booking tool can facilitate this.
• Ticketing tools, built for one-off events with a fixed date, such as a single conference, festival or fundraiser. They’re strong for a single big push of sales, but less suited to a business that runs the same session every week. You can use LetsReg for this using the mobile QR-code scanning app.
• Club and membership suites, aimed at larger clubs that need membership management, subscriptions and committee-style admin alongside bookings. These often carry a monthly cost, which can be more than a small, single-instructor business needs.

The right choice usually comes down to whether your business runs recurring sessions (classes, courses, coaching) or one-off events (a single ticketed occasion). A small business running weekly or termly sessions is generally best served by a system built around recurring bookings, rather than one built for single-date ticketing.

Best for… classes, clubs and appointments

• Classes: if you run a rolling timetable of sessions, see our dance class booking system page for how organisers set up recurring bookings.
• Courses: for term-based or multi-week courses, our course booking system page covers set up for cohorts and instalment-style bookings.
• Free sessions and taster events: if you run free classes alongside paid ones, our free booking system page explains how free events stay free with no fees at all.

For the full picture of how LetsReg works for course, class and activity providers, see our event booking system page, and check current fees on our pricing page.