A service's duration is the amount of time blocked in your team's calendar for each booking. Getting it right matters — set it too short and appointments run over each other, too long and you lose bookable slots unnecessarily. This article explains how duration works, where to set it, and what to keep in mind if different team members need different amounts of time.
Where duration lives
Duration is set when you create a service and can be updated at any time from the service's Service Details tab.
It is entered in minutes and must be a positive whole number. For example, a 90-minute facial would be 90, and a 30-minute consultation would be 30.
The service-level duration is the default for everyone
When a booking is made, the system uses the duration on the service itself unless a per-staff override is in place. This means if you assign a service to five team members and none of them have an override, all five will have the same appointment slot length.
Per-staff duration overrides
Individual team members can have a different working duration for the same service — for example, a senior stylist might take 45 minutes for a haircut where a junior stylist takes 60.
This is configured on the team member's profile, not on the service. If you need to set this up, go to Team, open the relevant team member, and look for the service duration settings there.
The service-level duration you set here remains as the fallback for any team members who don't have an override.
💡 Tip: If most of your team needs a different duration than your default, update the service-level duration to the most common value. Only set overrides for the exceptions — it keeps things easier to manage.
Changing duration doesn't affect existing bookings
Updating a service's duration only affects new bookings made after the change. Any appointments already confirmed will keep their original time blocks.
⚠️ Important: If you shorten a service duration significantly, check your team's upcoming schedules. Future bookings won't shrink, but the gap before the next appointment might look unexpectedly large to customers browsing your booking page.
Duration and the AI Agent
When a customer asks your AI Agent how long a service takes, the agent references the service duration. If you update duration, the agent should reflect the new value — but if the agent uses a published knowledge snapshot, you may need to republish to ensure it quotes the correct time.
Practical guidance
- For treatments that vary by therapist, set the longest reasonable default and use staff overrides to shorten for faster practitioners — this avoids overbooking.
- For fixed-format services where every provider takes exactly the same time, keep the service duration as the single source of truth and skip overrides entirely.
- Review duration accuracy periodically, especially when adding new team members or adjusting how your business operates.