Bookvatio
Appointment and accommodation booking for small businesses. Two shortcodes, one warm earthy design, full customization.
Solid choice
Bookvatio is a solid plugin choice in 2026, with a few things worth checking first. Is rated 5/5 and was last updated 6 days ago, and scores 71/100 on our health check.
- Actively developed — last update 6 days ago
- Tested with the latest WordPress (7.1)
- Small user base (<10 active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Bookvatio stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| appointments | >100 |
| booking | >100 |
| reservations | >100 |
| room booking | >100 |
| scheduling | >100 |
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 5 from 2 reviews
About Bookvatio
From the official readme · v1.4.50Description
Bookvatio is a modern booking plugin that handles two booking types under one roof:
[bookvatio]— appointment booking for nail studios, yoga, massage, wellness, beauty salons[bookvatio-rooms]— accommodation booking for guest houses, vacation rentals, small hotels
(The legacy [booknest] and [booknest-rooms] shortcodes are still registered as aliases so existing pages keep rendering after upgrade.)
No payment processing, no SMS — just clean, focused email-based bookings with a beautiful warm earthy design that you can fully customize from the admin.
Live demo: bookvatio.ignatovdesigns.com
Core Features
- Two separate shortcodes — appointments and rooms are independent
- Multi-step booking flows — 5-step guided experience for both types
- Services, staff, categories — full CRUD with photos and custom styling
- Rooms management — photo galleries, amenities, free-text room types
- Color-coded availability calendar — available, limited, full, closed states
- Working hours per day — weekly schedule with per-day open/close times
- Email notifications — client confirmation, owner notification, cancellation
- Google Calendar integration — one-way sync of bookings to each staff member’s Google Calendar (BYO credentials)
- Full translation support — every customer-facing label is editable
- Consent checkboxes — Privacy Policy + Terms & Conditions with configurable URLs
- Walk-in bookings — add bookings manually from the admin
Design
- Warm earthy color palette (fully customizable)
- Bundled Montserrat (headings) + Roboto (body) — served locally, no external font requests
- Granular color controls for every UI element
- Border radius, font sizes, calendar state colors — all configurable
Mobile app (optional)
Bookvatio has a free companion Android app, on Google Play. Your customers can book from it, and you can see and manage your bookings from your phone. The app is entirely optional: the plugin is complete without it, and nothing in your booking pages changes unless you choose to mention it.
If you switch it on under Notifications, a “Get it on Google Play” badge is added to the confirmation your customer receives, and you get a printable QR code for your counter. Installing through either one opens the app already connected to your website, so your customer never has to type your web address in. This is off by default — updating the plugin will never start advertising the app to your customers on its own.
Managing bookings from the app requires Bookvatio Pro. Booking from it does not.
Pro version
Bookvatio Pro is a separately-sold commercial add-on that extends the free plugin with:
- Coupons / Discount codes — percentage or fixed-amount discounts, per-service targeting, usage limits, expiry dates, walk-in support
- Staff Vacation / Time off — block date ranges per staff member; the customer-facing calendar and slot picker automatically respect the blackouts
- Booking Rules — minimum advance notice (e.g. “must book at least 24h ahead”), maximum advance window (e.g. “no bookings further than 60 days out”), global blackout dates (holidays, closures)
Pro requires this free plugin to be installed and active. A product page with pricing and download will be announced once it goes live. In the meantime, if you’d like early access — pricing details, an invoice, and a download link — email contact@ignatovdesigns.com.
A note on internal naming
Internal class names (BookNest_*), database table names (wp_booknest_*), option keys (booknest_*), filter/action names, and the REST API namespace (booknest/v1) intentionally use the legacy booknest prefix. This preserves settings and bookings for users upgrading from earlier internal versions. The public plugin name, text domain, and primary shortcodes ([bookvatio] / [bookvatio-rooms]) use bookvatio. The old [booknest] shortcodes are registered as aliases so saved pages keep working.
Privacy
Bookvatio does not phone home, include analytics, or load external assets on the public site. All fonts (Montserrat and Roboto) are bundled with the plugin and served from your own server, as is the Google Play badge artwork and the QR code generator — nothing is fetched from a third party.
If you turn the optional mobile app badge on, your customer’s confirmation will contain a link to the app’s page on Google Play. It is an ordinary link: nothing is sent anywhere unless your customer chooses to follow it. See the “External services” section below for the optional Google Calendar integration.
Trademarks
Google, Google Calendar and Google Play are trademarks of Google LLC. The Google Play badge is used under Google’s brand guidelines. This plugin is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Google.
External services
This plugin connects to Google services only when a site administrator explicitly enables the optional Google Calendar integration and connects a Google account. With the integration disabled (the default), the plugin makes no external requests.
When enabled, the plugin connects to the following Google services:
Google OAuth — accounts.google.com, oauth2.googleapis.com
What it does: Authenticates a staff member’s Google account so the plugin can create calendar events on their behalf.
When data is sent:
* During the one-time “Connect Google Calendar” setup, after the admin clicks the connect button.
* When a stored access token expires (typically every ~60 minutes) and needs to be refreshed.
Data sent: The Google OAuth client ID and client secret the admin entered in BookNest settings (provided by the admin’s own Google Cloud project), an authorization code (initial connect) or a refresh token (subsequent refreshes), and the redirect URI back to this site.
Service provider: Google LLC
* Terms of Service: https://developers.google.com/terms/
* Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
Google Calendar API — www.googleapis.com
What it does: Creates, updates, and deletes calendar events on the connected staff member’s Google Calendar. Also fetches the staff member’s email address once during connect (so the admin UI can label which Google account is connected).
When data is sent:
* Once during the connect flow, to fetch the staff member’s email (userinfo endpoint).
* Each time a booking is created in BookNest with a staff member who has Google Calendar connected (creates the event).
* Each time a booking is updated or has its status changed to “cancelled” (updates or deletes the event).
Data sent: Booking details (service name, staff name, client name, client email, client phone, client notes, booking date and time) and the staff member’s OAuth access token in the Authorization header.
Service provider: Google LLC
* Terms of Service: https://developers.google.com/terms/
* Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
Installation
- Upload the plugin zip via Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
- Activate the plugin
- Go to Bookvatio in your admin menu to configure services, staff, rooms, and settings
- Add
[bookvatio]to any page for appointments, or[bookvatio-rooms]for rooms (the legacy[booknest]/[booknest-rooms]shortcodes also still work)
Frequently asked questions
Does Bookvatio process payments?
No. Bookvatio is a “pay on arrival / pay on site” booking system. Payment processing is intentionally out of scope for version 1.
Can I translate Bookvatio?
Yes. Every customer-facing label is editable directly in the admin under Labels & Language. The plugin also ships with a .pot file for theme-level translation tools like Loco Translate.
What are the shortcodes?
Use [bookvatio] for appointments and [bookvatio-rooms] for room reservations. The legacy [booknest] and [booknest-rooms] are still registered as aliases so any page saved before the rename keeps working — you do not need to edit existing content.
How does Google Calendar sync work?
It’s a one-way sync: bookings created in Bookvatio are pushed to the assigned staff member’s Google Calendar. You bring your own Google Cloud OAuth credentials (the plugin does not proxy anything through our servers). Setup takes about 5 minutes.
Do I need the React build tools?
No. The admin panel ships with a pre-built JavaScript bundle.
Changelog
Privacy + WP.org compliance pass: fonts now bundled locally (no Google Fonts requests), Custom CSS textarea removed, "Powered by" attribution stripped from emails, font-family picker locked to DM Sans/Fraunces.
1.4.50
- The Bookvatio mobile app now follows your site’s language for its own screens, instead of the language of the visitor’s phone. A Bulgarian site no longer shows English buttons around Bulgarian booking text on an English phone.
1.4.49
- New, and off by default: a “Get it on Google Play” badge on the customer confirmation email and the confirmation screen, for the Bookvatio Android app. Switch it on under Notifications.
- Installing from that badge opens the app already connected to your site, so your customer never has to type your web address in. Turning it on is the only way it appears — updating the plugin changes nothing on its own.
- The wording and the badge language follow your Labels & Language settings, so a Bulgarian site gets the Bulgarian badge.
- Also new with it: a printable QR code for your counter, under the same setting. Scanning it does what the badge does — installs the app already connected to your site. Generated on your own server; no QR service is involved.
1.4.48
- New fonts: the booking form and the admin screens now use Montserrat for headings and Roboto for body text, replacing DM Sans and Fraunces. Both are bundled and served from your own server, exactly as before — no external requests.
- Fixed: on sites written in Cyrillic, none of the text was displayed in the plugin’s font. DM Sans and Fraunces cover Latin only, so every Cyrillic character quietly fell back to whatever font the browser chose, while the font files downloaded and went unused. Montserrat and Roboto both cover Cyrillic, so those sites now render in the font they are set to, on the booking form and throughout the admin panel. Emails ask for Roboto first, which phones and Gmail generally have installed — mail apps never download fonts, so this is the closest an email gets.
- Fixed: the night between two stays could not be booked. If one guest left on the 6th and another arrived on the 7th, the night of the 6th was free and your booking rules allowed it — but the form would not let anyone choose it, because the 7th could not be clicked. A day someone arrives on can now be chosen as a check-out, which is what makes that night sellable. On a busy calendar this is every turnover date.
- The day a guest checks out is now bookable like any other free day, because it is one: the room is yours from that morning. Picking it says so — “the guest before you leaves at 11:00, your room is ready from 14:00” — so a date sitting right against another booking no longer looks like a mistake.
- The day a guest checks in becomes available while you are choosing a check-out date, shown in blue, because you can leave that morning before they arrive. It stays unavailable while you are choosing a check-in, where it would only be a colour on a day you cannot use.
- New: arrival and departure times, under Rooms → Settings → General. Set them once and guests see them beside the calendar, in their booking summary and in their confirmation email. Leave either empty and nothing is shown, so a place without a fixed policy is not made to state one. The wording is editable under Labels & Language.
1.4.47
- Categories with nothing bookable in them are no longer shown on your booking page. Previously an empty category appeared as a card reading “0 services” that opened to an empty list. If you add categories before the services that go in them, they will now appear once they hold something.
- If every category is empty, the booking page says so instead of showing an empty grid.
- Groundwork for add-ons: a tab added by an add-on now gets its own switch under “What do you use?”, and bookings belonging to one are named correctly in the bookings table, the calendar and the dashboard.
1.4.46
- More add-on groundwork, with no visible change on your site. Services flagged as group classes by an add-on are kept out of the ordinary appointment list, so they cannot be booked twice under two different sets of rules. Services also gain an unused description field for an add-on to fill in.
1.4.45
- Groundwork for add-ons. Nothing changes on your site: no new screens, no new settings, and your booking pages look and behave exactly as before. Add-ons can now add their own top-level tab to the admin, and can replace the booking form with a message when bookings are temporarily closed. The services table also gains four unused columns that an add-on can use for class and group bookings.
Screenshots
For developers
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Best Bookvatio alternatives
All appointments plugins →
FAQ
Bookvatio: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 13, 2026
Is Bookvatio free?
Yes. Bookvatio is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Bookvatio safe to use in 2026?
Bookvatio is a solid plugin choice in 2026, with a few things worth checking first. Is rated 5/5 and was last updated 6 days ago, and scores 71/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Bookvatio?
Bookvatio is active on <10 WordPress websites and has been downloaded 1,027 times since it launched in June 2026. It was downloaded 183 times in the last 30 days.
Does Bookvatio work with WordPress 7.1?
Yes. The developer has tested Bookvatio up to WordPress 7.1.3, the latest release. It requires WordPress 6.2 or newer.
What PHP version does Bookvatio need?
Bookvatio requires PHP 8.0 or higher. Most hosts run PHP 8.x today, so it works on any modern WordPress hosting.
When was Bookvatio last updated?
The latest version, 1.4.50, was released on October 7, 2026 (6 days ago).
Who makes Bookvatio?
Bookvatio is developed and maintained by Krasimir Ignatov.
What are the best alternatives to Bookvatio?
The most popular alternatives to Bookvatio are Booking for Appointments an… (90K+ installs), Events Manager (60K+ installs) and Online Scheduling and Appoi… (60K+ installs).
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