Four Settings That Shape Every Rental
When you rent out a studio, meeting room or any other space by the hour, a handful of settings decide what clients can book and what they pay. In Meetario these all live on the event type for the room:
- Duration — the length of one slot, and therefore the minimum booking.
- Clients can book several slots in a row and Up to N slots per booking — the maximum booking length.
- Price — the price of one slot.
- Buffer Before, Buffer After, Minimum Notice and Book Up To — the time rules around each booking.
This guide explains each one with concrete numbers. If you have not created your rooms yet, start with How to Rent Out a Photo Studio by the Hour or How to Set Up Meeting Room Booking.
Slot Length: Your Unit of Rent
The event type Duration is the building block of every booking. Set it to 60 and you rent by the hour. Set it to 30 and you rent in half-hour steps.
The slot length is also the minimum booking: a client always books at least one slot. There is no separate "minimum hours" setting, so if you never want rentals shorter than two hours, the way to do it is to make the slot itself two hours long (Duration 120). Clients then book 2, 4, 6 hours and so on.
Maximum Hours per Booking
In the Scheduling section, tick Clients can book several slots in a row and set Up to N slots per booking. The value can be from 2 to 12, and the default is 3.
The maximum booking length is simply Duration × N:
- Duration 60, up to 3 slots → bookings of 1 to 3 hours
- Duration 60, up to 10 slots → bookings of 1 to 10 hours, enough for a full shooting day
- Duration 30, up to 8 slots → bookings of 30 minutes to 4 hours
- Duration 120, up to 4 slots → bookings of 2, 4, 6 or 8 hours
On the booking page the client sees "How long do you need?" with options like 1 h, 2 h, 3 h. Only start times where the whole block fits are shown, so a client can never book a 4-hour session that runs past closing time or into another booking. Whatever length they choose, it is saved as one booking.
How Price × Hours Works
Turn on Paid Event in the Payment panel on the right side of the event type form, then set Price, Currency and Gateway. The price you enter is per slot. When the client books several slots, the total is the price multiplied by the number of slots.
Example for a studio hall with Duration 60 and Price 35 EUR:
- 1 h → 35 EUR
- 2 h → 70 EUR
- 4 h → 140 EUR
If you rent in half-hour slots, remember to enter the half-hour price: for a room that costs 40 per hour with Duration 30, the Price is 20.
Payment gateways are connected in the avatar menu → Workspace integrations. You can choose from Stripe, PayPal, Square, Mollie, Adyen, Checkout.com, Mangopay, Worldpay and Hyperwallet. Payments go directly to your own account and Meetario takes 0% commission. Paid bookings require a plan that includes payments.
Different rooms can have different prices. A large Cyclorama hall and a small Loft are separate event types, so each gets its own hourly rate.
Buffers: Time to Clean and Reset
Between two rentals you usually need time to clean, rearrange furniture or reset lighting. That is what buffers are for. In the Scheduling section:
- Buffer After (minutes) keeps time free after every booking. A photo studio might use 30, a meeting room 10 or 15.
- Buffer Before (minutes) keeps time free before every booking, for example to unlock the space and switch on heating or air conditioning.
Buffers are applied around the whole booking, not around each slot. A client who books 3 hours in a room with a 30-minute Buffer After blocks 3.5 hours, and they are not charged for the buffer. The next client can only start after the buffer ends.
Example: White Hall, Duration 60, Buffer After 30. A shoot from 10:00 to 13:00 means the earliest next start is 13:30.
Minimum Notice and Book Up To
Two more settings in the Scheduling section control when people can book:
- Minimum Notice (hours) — how far in advance a booking must be made. Set it to 12 or 24 if someone has to come and open the space, or to 1 for a self-service meeting room.
- Book Up To (days ahead) — how far into the future the calendar is open. 30 days suits members booking meeting rooms; 90 days or more suits studios where productions plan weeks ahead.
Putting It Together: Two Example Setups
Photo studio hall
- Duration 60, up to 10 slots, Price 35 EUR
- Buffer After 30, Minimum Notice 12 hours, Book Up To 90 days
- Opening hours in the Availability section: daily 09:00–22:00
Coworking meeting room
- Duration 30, up to 8 slots, free for members (Paid Event off)
- Buffer After 10, Minimum Notice 1 hour, Book Up To 30 days
- Opening hours: Monday to Friday 08:00–20:00
Tips
- State your rules in the description. Write the hourly rate, what is included and your cancellation terms in the event type description so clients know before they pay.
- Do not hide setup time in the price. Use a buffer instead of a longer slot, so clients pay only for the time they use.
- Keep the maximum realistic. If nobody ever books more than 6 hours, a limit of 6 keeps the "How long do you need?" options short and clear.
- Test the math. Make a test booking of 2 or 3 hours and check the total on the payment step.
Set Up Your Pricing in Minutes
Create a free Meetario account, add a room and try these settings. Then add the booking calendar to your website. More use cases: studios and meeting rooms.