# A waitlist that fills cancelled slots for you

> A booking waitlist that fills cancelled slots on its own: customers join a full class or day, and the next one gets the place by your rules. Code you own.

Page: https://timerise.ai/features/waitlist

A booking feature Timerise builds into custom booking systems its clients own. One fixed project price, typically $15,000 to $50,000, with this feature part of it. Last updated: 2026-10-20.

A class is full on Monday and has three empty places on Friday. We build a waitlist into your booking system: customers join a full slot, and when someone cancels the next person gets the place by your rules.

What goes wrong without it:
- Popular slots sell out, and people who wanted them go elsewhere. When someone cancels late, nobody knows who to call.
- Many tools have no waitlist, or one that only sends an email and leaves the rest to your team.

How we build it, to the client's rules:
- Join a full slot: Customers join the list for a class, a table, a day or a specific person, and see their place in the queue.
- Automatic or offered: The freed place goes to the next person at once, or is offered for a set time before it moves down the list.
- Priority rules: Members first, regulars first or first come first served. The order follows how you run the business.
- Payment on promotion: The customer pays or leaves a deposit only when they get the place, not when they join the list.

Compared with a SaaS tool:
- Rules. In a SaaS tool: First come first served, or no waitlist at all. In your own system: Your own order: members, regulars or any rule you use.
- Work. In a SaaS tool: Your team calls people from a list by hand. In your own system: The system offers the place and books it.

Industries that use it:
- Booking systems for gyms and fitness studios (/industries/fitness)
- Booking systems for restaurants and restaurant chains (/industries/restaurants)

FAQ:
- Q: What if nobody on the list takes the place?
  A: It goes back on sale for everyone. You choose how long each person has to accept before it moves on.
- Q: What does this feature add to the price?
  A: It is part of the one fixed price for your system, and you see it in the quote before the build starts. Most projects cost $15,000 to $50,000 in total, paid once, with no subscription and no commission on bookings.
- Q: Can you add it to a system we already run?
  A: Yes. We build it into a new system or into the one you already run, with its own quote. When the feature has an Agent Skill, your own developers can also build it with the skill.
- Q: Who owns the code?
  A: You do. The code, the data and the documentation are handed over, and the system runs in your cloud account or on ours. Every project includes 3 years of support.

Read more:
- The hidden costs of bad scheduling (/blog/hidden-costs-of-bad-scheduling)

Often built together:
- Reminders that cut no-shows (/features/reminders)
- Memberships and passes (/features/memberships-and-passes)
- Recurring bookings (/features/recurring-bookings)

All features: /features. Start with a free brief: /brief.