Paid Sessions on systeme.io: Set the Cancellation Deadline

systeme.io's booking calendar can take payment at the moment a client picks a slot. You attach a calendar event to an order form, drop a Paid calendar element on the page, and the client chooses a time, then enters their details and pays, in two steps on the same page. The help article on selling calendar bookings walks through the setup, and systeme.io's booking calendar page lists payment at booking, through Stripe or PayPal, among what the free plan includes.

Some coaches move their scheduling into it. A Trustpilot review posted in September 2026 under the name Live Life Purpose Coaching lists "my meeting scheduling service" among what systeme.io's migration team moved over, alongside the website and the email service. If that's your route, my guide to moving onto systeme.io covers the migration side. This one covers the policy you'll need once paid sessions start.

The part that needs a decision comes later: the client who books a paid session, pays, and then cancels the evening before. What happens to the money?

On systeme.io, cancelling a booking and refunding it are two separate actions. Its article on rescheduling and cancelling lists what a cancellation does: both of you get an email, the booking can no longer be rescheduled, and a connected Google Calendar updates. Payment isn't on that list. Refunds live somewhere else, under Sales, and the refund article says they're all or nothing: "partial refunds are not currently supported in systeme.io." The one setting that shapes late cancellations is the Cancellation deadline on the event itself.

So that deadline is your cancellation policy, whether you've written one or not. This guide sets it first and builds the paid booking around it.

What a cancellation does, and what it doesn't

In short, systeme.io gives you a deadline, not a fee. You can stop clients cancelling late, but systeme.io's own refund can't keep part of the price for you. If your policy is a full refund up to 24 hours before and nothing after, the deadline and a manual refund cover it. A policy that keeps a deposit needs a different route than that refund button.

The event: individual or group

Go to CRM, then Calendar, then Create new event. Choose the type:

• Individual event for one client per slot: coaching, consultations, discovery calls.
• Group event for several people in the same slot. You set a maximum number of participants, which shouldn't exceed what your meeting tool allows.

Then fill in the event name, the host name, the duration, and the location: Zoom or Google Meet, a custom meeting link, a phone number, or an address. The calendar events article lets you offer several locations for one event and have the client choose.

Reminders are set on the event too. Every new event comes with two, 24 hours and 1 hour before. You can have up to three, none closer than 10 minutes to the start. The help article says their wording is generated by the system "and cannot be edited", so your policy has to live somewhere else; the order form section below covers where.

That's a change worth knowing about if you've read older reviews. Debbie M., a founder in health and wellness, said in a four-star Capterra review from June 2025 that she wasn't using the calendar because "I would have had to manually schedule reminders". The help center now describes the reminders as automatic, set per event.

Two clocks: minimum notice and cancellation deadline

Under the event's availability settings, the article lists two separate timers:

• Minimum notice period decides how far ahead someone must book. Its example: "2 hours" means no bookings in the last two hours before a slot.
• Cancellation deadline decides how close to the start a client may cancel. It puts it this way: "0 hours" allows cancellations until the meeting starts, while "24 hours" prevents last-minute cancellations.

Plain Funnels, looking at a newly created event, found the deadline set to 0 hours. So unless you change it, a client can cancel a paid session at any point up to the start.

Set the deadline from your policy. If you refund anyone who cancels at least 24 hours ahead, set 24 hours. If you want two days to fill a freed slot, set 48. Inside the deadline, the help center's wording means the client isn't allowed to cancel, which leaves any exception to you.

The same section holds the rest of the schedule: how far into the future people can book, your weekly and date-specific hours, a daily booking limit, buffer time around each session, and whether times show in your time zone or the client's.

Those settings answer the questions a first calendar tends to raise. A member of r/systeme_io, happy with funnels but stuck on bookings, asked: "Do I have to put in 30 meeting spaces on every day?" You don't. The calendar events article has you set weekly hours for each day, with more than one time range on a day if you need it, and a separate setting decides how often slots appear (its example is every 15 minutes). The slots come from the hours, and the daily limit caps how many of them can be taken.

The same post asked whether a connected Google Calendar would mark busy times as filled. systeme.io's booking calendar page describes a 2-way sync that checks "for conflicts across your personal and business schedules", and the help center says each booking is added to the Google Calendar you pick.

The post's last worry was the one that matters most for a paid session: "Since I am using the admin user, I don't see what new folks get to look at." So look at it the way they do, once the order form exists. Open the page's public link in a private browser window, check that the slots match your hours, and pick a time you've blocked in Google Calendar to see whether it's still on offer. Go as far as the payment step, and read your terms popup while you're there.

The policy, where the client pays

A client should read your cancellation terms before they pay, not after. systeme.io has a place for them on the order form. The terms and conditions article says the terms text is set in Payment settings, which sits under Settings in your profile picture menu, and is shown on the order form through a popup you add in the editor. Changes to that text "will automatically update the popup on your payment page".

Write the policy in one or two lines, using the same number of hours as your deadline: when the client can cancel, what they get back, and that rescheduling is offered first. Repeat it in the event description, which systeme.io says is shown on your booking page.

The order form that sells the event

Build the order form in a funnel. On its configuration page, under Choose offer type, select Digital product and name it; click the plus icon, choose Calendar events and select the event; then set the price plan and Save. Last, click Edit page, find the Paid calendar element in the left panel, and drag it onto the page.

The client picks a slot, enters their details and pays in the same two steps. After payment they follow the usual order flow, to an upsell if you have one or to the thank-you page.

Before the first sale, check one notification setting. The selling-bookings article says the booking confirmation goes out "as soon as the payment process starts, even if the payment later fails or is canceled." Under Settings, then Notifications, then Sales, there's an option that holds the confirmation until the payment is confirmed. Switch it on, and a client whose card fails won't hold a confirmed slot.

Cancelling, then refunding

A client cancels with the button at the bottom of their confirmation email. You cancel from CRM, Calendar, the Bookings tab: open the three dots on the booking, click Cancel booking, then Confirm. The Bookings tab can be filtered by status, so canceled sessions are easy to pull up together.

If your policy says this client gets their money back, refund them separately. Open Sales and then Transactions, search for the client's email, open the three dots on the payment and click Refund. Four points from the refund article:

• It's the whole amount. Partial refunds aren't supported.
• It depends on your gateway. You need enough in your payment gateway's balance to cover it.
• A refund invoice is created with a negative amount, which you can send as proof.
• Refunding through your own bank is allowed, and systeme.io says doing it there and in systeme.io doesn't produce a double refund.

The booking page is a step ahead of the help center on this. Its FAQ, last updated in April 2026, says you can "require full payment or a deposit at the time of booking," yet none of the calendar help articles I read, revised as late as October 6, describes a deposit setting, and the refund article still rules out partial refunds. So deposits look like where paid booking is heading rather than where it is. Until a help article shows the setting, write your cancellation policy around a full charge and a deadline.

Reschedule before you cancel

A canceled booking is final. The help center says "It is not possible to reschedule a booking once it has been canceled." A rescheduled one keeps the payment where it is: you or the client pick a new time, both of you get an email, and the reminders are recalculated for the new slot.

So when a client writes to say they can't make it, offer a new time before you suggest cancelling. Clients can reschedule from their confirmation email too. Whether the cancellation deadline also limits rescheduling isn't stated in either help article, so test it with a booking of your own before you promise it.

One session type on Free; the discovery call needs Startup

One paid session type is one event, and it fits Free, payment included. Most coaches don't sell sessions cold, though. The free discovery call that leads to the paid session is built the same way, as a Calendar element on a funnel page, and it's a second event. Free holds one.

The decision for a coach is when to add that free call. If your paid sessions come from referrals and repeat clients, one paid event on Free may be all you need for months. If strangers find you online, the free call is usually the first thing they book, and the paid session follows. That's when Startup holds 5 events, enough for a discovery call, a paid session, a longer intensive and a group workshop, for $17 monthly. Billed yearly it's $170, or $14.17 a month. One paid session can go live on Free; when the discovery call is added, Startup holds both events.

If you're still choosing between systeme.io and a dedicated coaching tool, I compared them by what each charges per booker in the best platform for coaches. And if you sell sessions as a package paid over several months, what happens when an installment fails covers the payment side. If the session is sold together with a course, the course, coaching and VIP build puts both on one purchase.

When a 0-hour deadline is fine

If you sell short, low-priced sessions and refund anyone who asks, a 0-hour deadline is a fair policy and saves you the email back and forth. The deadline earns its place when a late cancellation costs you a slot you can't refill: long sessions, group events, or a calendar that books up.

FAQ

Can systeme.io refund a client automatically when they cancel? The cancellation article describes no refund as part of a cancellation. Refunds are a separate step under Sales, then Transactions.

Can I keep part of the payment for a late cancellation? Not through systeme.io's refund button. The refund article says partial refunds aren't supported. Use the cancellation deadline to stop late cancellations instead.

Can a client reschedule a paid session? Yes, from the button in their confirmation email, or you can do it from the Bookings tab. A booking that's already been canceled can't be rescheduled.

What is the default cancellation deadline on a systeme.io event? Plain Funnels, a third-party blog, found a new event set to 0 hours, which lets a client cancel up to the start. systeme.io's own help doesn't state the default, so open the event's availability settings and read the value before you sell. A cancellation on systeme.io triggers no refund, and partial refunds aren't supported, so that deadline works as your cancellation policy. Set it to the notice you'd actually want, and say it on the booking page.

Can I edit the booking reminder emails? No. The help center says their wording is generated by the system and cannot be edited. You can choose up to three, none closer than 10 minutes to the start.

Does a client get a confirmed slot if the payment fails? By default the confirmation goes out when payment starts, even if it later fails. A setting under Settings, Notifications, Sales holds it until the payment is confirmed.