Online booking for therapists: your free times on show and the appointment on WhatsApp

It's ten past eleven at night and a WhatsApp comes in: "Hi, do you have anything this week? Afternoons would be best." You answer the next day between two sessions. You offer Thursday at 6 pm, they can't make it, you suggest Friday at 7 pm and, four messages later, the appointment is set. Multiply that by everyone who writes to you each week and it adds up to a good chunk of unpaid work. Online booking for therapists exists to save you that back-and-forth: someone who wants to start therapy sees your free times and asks for the one that suits them, with the day and time already written in.

In this guide we cover what to look for in an online booking system for therapists, why it makes sense in a therapy practice for you to have the final say, and how the public calendar in My Psico Agenda works, using the labels you'll see on screen. At the end you'll also find what it doesn't do, so you can decide with all the facts.

What online booking for therapists is

Online booking is a page of your own, with its own link, where anyone can see the free slots in your calendar and ask for one. There are two ways to set it up:

• The appointment books itself. The patient picks a time and it goes straight into your calendar without you doing anything. That's the norm for a hairdresser or a busy clinic.
• The patient asks and you confirm. They pick a time and you receive the request with the day and time. The appointment exists once you say yes.

Both are online booking; what changes is who decides. In My Psico Agenda the request reaches you on WhatsApp and you confirm it, for reasons that have a lot to do with how therapy begins.

Why your patients already expect to book online

Booking an appointment online is nothing unusual any more. According to Eurostat data on internet activities, in 2024 61.4% of people aged 16 to 74 in Spain made an appointment with a medical practitioner through a website. In 2012 the figure was 20.9%, and the EU average stands at 39.8%.

People who book their GP or dentist that way expect to do the same when they look for a therapist. And many decide to ask for help late in the day, when they finally have a moment to think about it. If they can see your free times right then and ask for one, they don't have to wait for your reply to take that step.

A therapy practice isn't a hair salon: why you confirm the appointment

For a haircut, letting the appointment book itself is the easiest option. In therapy there are good reasons to keep the final say:

• Before a first appointment you usually want to know, even in a couple of lines, what's going on for the person, in case it isn't your specialty and a referral makes more sense.
• Some slots are kept for patients you already see or for cases that can't wait.
• A child doesn't book on their own: you speak with whoever has parental responsibility first.
• If someone writes to you in the middle of a crisis, booking them in for next Tuesday isn't enough. You need to talk to them first.

That's why our online booking system for therapists works by request. The patient picks a time and WhatsApp opens with the message ready; you read it, reply and, if it fits, create the appointment. The page tells them so before they send it: "The appointment is booked once [your name] confirms it."

Online booking for therapists in My Psico Agenda, step by step

Everything is under Settings ▸ «Patient Space». The first time, you'll see «Your public calendar is closed». You can set it up at your own pace, because nobody sees it until you open it.

1. Check the number under «Which WhatsApp should bookings go to?». It shows the phone number you signed up with; if you'd rather receive them on another one, change it.
2. Press «Open my calendar». The status changes to «Your public calendar is open» and your link appears.
3. Share it with «Copy link» or «Share on WhatsApp».

Whoever opens the link sees «Choose a day and time» and your free times week by week. When they tap one, «You chose…» appears with a «Book via WhatsApp» button, which opens WhatsApp with a message ready to send to you: "Hi! I'd like to book on 21/10/2026 at 17:00". You can change that text under «Message you'll receive», as long as it keeps the date and the time.

Which free times the patient sees in your online booking calendar

The free slots come from your real calendar, so there aren't two calendars to keep in sync. On screen it's summed up like this: «Your free times within your working hours are offered as 60-minute appointments, never your appointments or blocked times». Times that another patient has already requested from their patient space don't show up either. People can book up to a year ahead with no minimum notice, except for a time that's about to start.

To offer more or fewer hours, adjust your working hours with «Change my working hours» or add a block, and the public calendar follows. If you want to review how to organise each patient's regular slot and your blocks, it's all in our guide to appointment scheduling software for psychologists.

Your own link

The link looks like this: mypsicoagenda.com/reservar/laura-gomez. You choose what goes after /reservar/ under «Your link»: 3 to 40 letters, numbers or hyphens. Nobody else can use yours and, if you ever change it, the old one stops working; the app warns you before it does. If you'd rather not think about it now, leave it blank and one will be created when you open your calendar.

With your logo, your words and in three languages

Under «Your branding» you upload your logo or a photo of yourself and crop it, set the name that's displayed and choose the colour, the theme (light, dark or automatic) and the calendar's language: English, Spanish, Catalan or the visitor's own. Under «More details» you can add your specialty, location, a guide price, whether you see people in person or online, and a welcome message. While you edit, «See how it looks» shows the page exactly as your patients will see it. Changes save automatically.

If you tick the option, your logo, colour and welcome message also appear in «My space», where your patients see their appointments. What else they can do there is covered in our guide to the patient portal.

How to add online booking to your website

If you already have a website, the calendar can live inside it. Under «Add it to your website» you choose the height, theme and language, and then it's three steps:

1. «Copy the code».
2. On your website, add an «HTML» or «Embed code» block. Most website builders have one.
3. Paste the code and save: your calendar will appear there.

It's the same calendar as the one behind your link. If you ever press «Close my calendar», it disappears from your website too until you open it again. If you're still building your site, our guide to creating a website for your practice covers the sections it can't do without.

After the booking: the patient fills in their own record

Once you confirm a new person's first appointment, the usual details are still missing: full name, ID number, phone, reason for the consultation… Instead of asking for them by message or spending the first minutes of the session on it, you can send them a form. When you add a patient, choose «Send form to the patient», say whether it's an individual, couple, child or siblings record and tick what you want them to fill in, including your «Additional data». Press «Create link», send it with «Send via WhatsApp» and, when they submit it, their record appears in your contacts on its own.

The link expires after 48 hours and works for one person only; the next patient gets a new one. The fields you tick are remembered for next time. If you want to plan everything that happens before the first session, read our guide to new-patient onboarding.

Online booking with reminders, so booked appointments aren't forgotten

An appointment requested on a Sunday night for ten days later is easy to forget. Once you create it in your calendar, My Psico Agenda sends the patient an automatic WhatsApp reminder 24 hours before, with buttons to confirm or cancel. If you like, a notice can also go out the moment you create the appointment.

That matters more than it sounds. A Cochrane review of mobile phone messaging reminders, covering eight trials and 6,615 participants, found 78.6% attendance with text reminders compared with 67.8% with no reminder at all. Our guide to WhatsApp reminders for patients explains how to make the most of them.

WhatsApp bookings and data protection

The public calendar only shows what you write on it and your free times. It never shows patients' names, which appointments you have, or why the hours that don't appear are taken. A patient's details only reach you when they choose to write to you from their own WhatsApp, and the prepared message only contains the day and time.

Health information is what the GDPR calls special category data, which needs extra protection; the UK regulator explains the concept clearly in its guide to special category data. In practice:

• Use WhatsApp for dates and times; keep clinical matters for the session.
• Add another way to reach you, such as a phone number or email, to your welcome message for people who don't use WhatsApp.
• Always message the patient directly, never in a group.

How to choose an online booking system for therapists

If you're comparing options, these are the questions worth asking:

1. Do the free slots come from your real calendar, or will you have to keep two calendars by hand?
2. Do you decide who gets in, or does the appointment book itself?
3. Do you get a link that's easy to remember, and can you put it on your website?
4. Does the page carry your name, logo and colours, or the platform's?
5. Does it work on a phone and in your patients' languages?
6. What happens after the booking: reminders, patient record, invoices?
7. Where is the data stored and who can see it?
8. How much does it cost, and is there a minimum contract?

Therapist booking software that only handles the first appointment falls short. What really saves time is having the booking, the calendar, the reminders and the patient record in one place. To see the rest of the calendar, start with our page on online scheduling for psychologists.

What this online booking system doesn't do

So you can decide with all the facts, here's what it doesn't do today:

• It doesn't book the appointment by itself. A booking is a request on WhatsApp and you create the appointment in your calendar. That's a deliberate choice for therapy practices, not an oversight.
• It doesn't take payment when people book. There's no upfront payment on the public page; you agree payment with the patient as usual.
• The slots it offers are 60 minutes long. If a session lasts longer or shorter, you adjust it when you create the appointment.
• It needs a WhatsApp number. Without one, the public calendar can't be opened.

How much online booking costs in My Psico Agenda

The public calendar is included in every plan for therapists, at no extra cost:

• Semilla: €4.99 a month + VAT, up to 15 patients and 20 automatic WhatsApp reminders a month.
• Junior: €19.99 a month + VAT, unlimited patients and 100 automatic reminders a month.
• Senior: €29.99 a month + VAT, with 250 automatic reminders a month and unlimited VeriFactu invoices.

For practices, plans start at €99.99 a month + VAT (Centre Mini, up to 5 therapists), and every therapist in the practice gets their own public calendar. No minimum contract: cancel whenever you like. All the details are on the pricing page.

How to get started with online booking today

1. Check your working hours: that's where the times patients see come from.
2. Under Settings ▸ «Patient Space», upload your logo and write a welcome message with another way to contact you.
3. Choose your link and press «Open my calendar».
4. Add it to your website, your Instagram or Google profile and your email signature.
5. When the first request arrives, create the appointment and send them the form so they fill in their record.