Your salon cancellation policy,
written in a few clicks.

Where does your policy go in Covered Beauty?

We make Covered Beauty, so here’s where each part of your policy lives in it. Most of it is in Settings, and clients see your policy before they book.

1. Your notice period. Set Cancellation window (hours) to match, such as 48. It decides which cancellations count as late: the appointment only offers a late cancellation fee on a saved card when the booking was cancelled inside it. Clients are told when they book that their deposit is non-refundable if they cancel with less notice than that or miss their appointment. When a client cancels in good time, they’re told you’ll refund or move their deposit, as your policy says.
2. Your deposit. Set a Default deposit: a set amount, a percentage of the price or none. You can change it for any treatment on the Treatments page, such as no deposit for a free consultation. Once your Stripe account is connected, clients pay it by card when they book, straight into your own account.
3. Your policy. Press Copy for Covered Beauty above and paste it into Salon terms and conditions, and its headings come out bold. Your booking form shows it under Salon policies and terms, and clients tick to agree to your terms before they book. Their confirmation email has a link to cancel with, so answer “How do clients cancel?” with one of the first two choices. The link cancels but doesn’t move an appointment, so clients get in touch to move one.
4. No-show and late cancellation fees. A client who pays a deposit online saves the card they pay with. For clients you book in yourself, set your fee under Card on file for bookings you make, and their confirmation email asks them to confirm and add a card. They see the fee and your cancellation window before they agree. With Stripe connected, you decide on the appointment whether to charge and how much, and nothing is charged automatically. Clients who book online without a deposit don’t save a card, so if you take no deposit, choose “They pay it before their next booking” in the writer.
5. Refunds and moves. Deposits never go back on their own. When your policy gives one back, open the appointment and refund it. To move a deposit to a new time, reschedule the appointment instead of cancelling it, and the deposit stays with it.

Try Covered Beauty free. No card needed for your free week, and deposits, consultation forms and reminders are on both plans, from £9 a month.

What makes a cancellation policy fair?

Your policy is part of the terms clients agree to when they book, so UK consumer law applies to it. This page isn’t legal advice, but this is what the law and the regulator’s own guidance say.

• The Consumer Rights Act 2015 says an unfair term isn’t binding on the client. A term is unfair if, against the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the rights and obligations between you and your client, to your client’s detriment.
• Written terms must be transparent, in plain and intelligible language, and legible.
• Schedule 2 of the Act lists terms that may be unfair. They include keeping money a client has paid when they cancel, without the client being entitled to the same amount from you as compensation when you’re the one who cancels, and making a client who cancels or doesn’t turn up pay a disproportionately high sum.
• The Competition and Markets Authority’s guide to writing a fair contract for customers says any deposit you keep must take into account what your business will actually lose, and any cancellation fee must not be excessive. You may keep a deposit in full if it’s no more than a small percentage of the price and you make clear exactly when it stops being refundable. A term making prepayments non-refundable regardless of why the customer cancels is unlikely to be fair.
• For a client who breaks the agreement, such as by not turning up, the same guide says to explain clearly and upfront what they must pay and when, and to charge a proportionate sum.
• When you’re the one who cancels, the guide says you should give the client a refund of any prepayments if they’re not at fault.

So the writer follows the CMA’s guide. It always gives the deposit back if you cancel, says exactly when a deposit stops being refundable, counts a deposit towards a fee rather than on top of it, keeps fees to a share of the treatment price, and never lets a client lose their deposit when they give you the notice you asked for.

Giving a deposit back isn’t the same as the matching compensation Schedule 2 talks about, and the writer can’t check your terms for you. If you’re not sure about your own terms, read the CMA’s full guidance on unfair contract terms or get independent legal advice.

Sources

Each page was read on 24 October 2026.

• Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 62: requirement for contract terms and notices to be fair (legislation.gov.uk)
• Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 68: requirement for transparency (legislation.gov.uk)
• Consumer Rights Act 2015, Schedule 2: consumer contract terms which may be regarded as unfair (legislation.gov.uk)
• Writing a fair contract for customers, Competition and Markets Authority (GOV.UK)
• Unfair contract terms guidance (CMA37), Competition and Markets Authority (GOV.UK)