Getting started as a practitioner

• Info Cards required for bookings

  To accept your first booking, three Info Cards must be filled in and your calendar must be set to Open. The cards live under Profile → Info.

  • Services & Pricing — what you offer.
  • Availability & Schedule — your working hours and booking window.
  • Policies & Legal — your cancellation rules, age policy, and legal terms.

  Until those are saved and your calendar is open, the Book Now button on your profile shows clients Booking not available yet.

• How requirements differ by discipline

  The Services & Pricing card and the Availability card behave differently per discipline:

  Tattoo artists

  • Fill the Tattoo Process & Pricing card. The card covers your rate, deposit settings, reference-image requirements, draft/AI workflow notes, and any discounts you offer.
  • There's no services list to configure — bookings for tattoo artists are intent-based by design. When clients tap Book Now, they pick one of four intents: New Tattoo, Touch-up, Cover-up, or Consultation. The form then asks for the project specifics (size, placement, style, references) based on the intent they picked.
  • Use the Basic Availability & Schedule card.

  Body modification practitioners

  • Use the Body Modification Services & Pricing card with at least one service. Putting a price on a service is optional — body modification bookings are project-based, so any price you set is just a rough indicator clients see; the price that counts is the one you propose per session after reviewing their request.
  • Use the Basic Availability & Schedule card.

  Piercers, permanent makeup practitioners, laser practitioners

  • Use your discipline's Services & Pricing card with at least one service that has both a price and a duration. The duration controls how long the slot a client locks when they book.
  • Clients pick a specific service from your list, then a time slot that fits its duration.
  • Use the Advanced Availability & Schedule card.

• Optional cards that surface in the booking flow

  A few discipline-specific Info Cards aren't required, but their content is shown to clients during the booking flow — worth filling for that reason alone:

  • Tattoo artists — your Specialisations & Style card (artistic styles, sizes) pre-fills the quick picks clients see when booking. Reference-image requirements and rate/deposit info from the Tattoo Process & Pricing card also appear on the booking form.

  This same card is required for the tattoo broadcast feature: a tattoo artist with no styles listed receives zero broadcasts, even with the Broadcast Inbox module activated. The matching algorithm filters on style overlap between the client's request and the artist's listed styles. If you're paying for the Broadcast module, the first thing to check after activation is that Specialisations & Style has at least one style listed.

  • Body modification practitioners — consultation requirement, procedure process, and safety protocols set on the Body Modification Services & Pricing card are shown to clients before they book.

  For piercers, permanent makeup, and laser practitioners, the Services & Pricing card itself is what clients see — there's no extra optional card that affects the booking form today.

• Stripe Connect (optional)

  If you want clients to pay deposits inside the app or from your web profile, set up Stripe Connect under Profile Settings → Payment Settings → Receive Payments. The Stripe-hosted onboarding (identity + bank account) takes about five minutes. It's optional — you can still accept bookings without it and arrange deposit payments with clients directly. The full picture of how deposits, refunds, and forfeit work for both Stripe and manual payments is in Deposit rules and refund eligibility.

• Your shareable web profile URL

  Every practitioner gets a public web profile at inkmap.app/your-username. Open Profile Settings → Account Center — the Profile URL card has a Copy button and a QR code (with Save to Photos if you want to print it). The Share pill at the top of your own Profile tab opens the same share sheet.

  Drop the link in your Instagram bio, Linktree, business card, or your own website. People who tap it land on a public version of your profile — your photo, name, location, bio (if you've filled one), social links, and your featured-image portfolio — without needing to install InkMap. If your Booking System is active (during the trial, or with the subscribed module after), the Book Now form is included so they can send a booking request straight from the browser. Web booking works for all five practitioner disciplines.

• Your 3-month trial

  Practitioners and studios get a 3-month free trial that starts the day you create your account. During the trial, every feature is unlocked while you explore.

  After the trial:

  • Always free, no subscription needed — your account, your profile, posting, browsing the feeds, having a Map pin, sending and receiving messages.
  • Paid à-la-carte modules — optional add-ons for your business: the Booking System, Stats Dashboard, and Accounting Tools. Tattoo artists also have Guest Spot Reach and Broadcast Inbox. Each module is bought separately — you only pay for what you need. Discount bundles (Essentials, Full Toolkit) are also available if you want several at once.

  To see the modules and subscribe (or just check your trial countdown), open Profile → Settings (gear) → Go Premium. Once you've subscribed to anything, that row reads My Subscription instead.

Step by step

1. 1

   While you wait

   When you tapped Send Join Request at sign-up, the studio owner got a notification. Until they accept, you're not on the team and you don't appear on the Map.

   The Send Join Request feature isn't an application form. It's for practitioners joining the studio they actually work at — talk to the studio first so they're expecting your request.

   You'll get a push notification (and an in-app notification) when the owner responds. There's no built-in timer or status update — keep an eye on your notifications.

   If you change your mind, open Profile → Info → General Information, find the Your Pending Request card, and tap the red X to cancel. After cancelling, send a new request — either from any studio's profile (tap Request to Join) or from the Join a Studio search in the same General Information card.

   A practitioner can have at most one pending request at a time.

2. 2

   Fill the Info Cards required for bookings

   The three required Info Cards are listed in the Info Cards required for bookings section above, along with the per-discipline differences and the optional cards that aid the booking flow. Open Profile → Info to find them. You can fill them in any order, edit them anytime, and ship a real profile while you do.

3. 3

   Round out your profile

   Past the bookings minimum, your profile gets more useful when you:

   • Add a profile picture and a short bio at the top of the Profile tab.
   • Open Settings → Push Notifications and turn push on, so you don't miss a join-request response or a booking message.
   • Fill the optional Info Cards under your discipline. None of these gate bookings; they make your profile a real one rather than a stub.

   The optional cards by discipline:

   Tattoo artists

   • Specialisations & Style (also surfaces in the client booking form — see the Sections block above)
   • Tattoo Machines & Inks
   • Tattoo Aftercare

   Body modification practitioners

   • Body Modification Specialisations
   • Body Modification Aftercare

   Piercers

   • Piercing Aftercare

   Permanent makeup practitioners

   • PMU Specialisations
   • PMU Aftercare

   Laser practitioners

   • Laser Session Information
   • Laser Aftercare
4. 4

   Publish posts and pick your featured images

   This is one of the highest-leverage things you can do in your first hours.

   Practitioners can star up to 3 posts as featured. A featured post is a regular Portfolio post that you've also marked as a "first impression" — it's the work that surfaces in places where someone hasn't reached your full profile yet. Empty featured-image slots show as blanks; they're worth filling before you start sharing your profile around.

   Where your featured images appear (every practitioner type):

   • Map results carousel — the horizontal carousel that slides up above the Map filters when results are showing. Each card uses your featured images as previews.
   • Map cluster modal — when several pins overlap on the Map, the cluster preview lists the practitioners inside it and shows each one's featured images.
   • Your Map pin modal (independent only) — the sheet that opens when someone taps your pin shows your featured images at the top.
   • Studio profile → Team tab (at a studio only) — your card on your studio's profile uses your featured images as the card preview.
   • Your studio's Map-pin modal → Team section (at a studio only) — when someone taps your studio's pin, the Team list inside that modal previews your featured images on your card.
   • Your shareable web profile — the public web page at inkmap.app/your-username uses the same featured images as the lead visuals.

   Tattoo artists only — you also surface here:

   • Guest cards on the host studio's profile — when you're confirmed for a guest spot at another tattoo studio, your card on their Team → Guests subtab uses one of your featured images. (Other disciplines don't have a guest-spot equivalent today — see Step 7.)
   • Broadcast response cards — when a client runs a tattoo broadcast and you tap I'm Interested, your card on their response list shows your username, your style tags, and up to 3 of your featured images. Featured images are the visual pitch a broadcast client uses to decide who to look at first when several artists respond — pick them with that in mind.

   To set it up: publish at least 3 Portfolio posts (open the post creation flow from the + button), then open one of your portfolio feeds, tap the star on each post you want to feature.

   If you're at a studio, your studio's profile only looks half-finished as long as your featured-image slots are blank — your studio owner is depending on you to fill them.

5. 5

   Find your way around

   The bottom tab bar has five entries: Map, Feeds, News, Market, and Profile. Bookings and Messages live as buttons in your Profile header — they aren't separate tabs.

   Tap your username at the top of your own Profile to open the Switch Account sheet. It also lets you add an existing account or create a new one without signing out.

6. 6

   Heads up on what depends on your discipline

   The guest-spot system is currently tattoo-only — only tattoo studios can welcome guest tattoo artists, and only tattoo artists can use it. Other disciplines don't have a guest-spot equivalent today. This isn't a bug; it shipped tattoo-first for the MVP.

• If you have a public Instagram or website, add them in Profile → Info → Contact. Many clients check before tapping Book Now.
• Don't wait to be "ready" before publishing. Fill the booking essentials first; everything else can be edited anytime.
• The Your Pending Request card sits in General Information for as long as your join request is open. If you don't see it, you don't have a pending request.

Frequently asked questions

I picked the wrong discipline at sign-up. Can I switch?

No — discipline is locked at sign-up and can't be changed. The only path is to create a new account with a different email address.

I picked a studio at sign-up. Can I cancel and try a different one?

Yes. Open Profile → Info → General Information, scroll to Your Pending Request, and tap the red X to cancel. Then send a new request from any studio's profile (tap Request to Join), or from the Join a Studio search in the same card. You can only have one pending request at a time.

Can I be on the Map without joining a studio?

Yes. Independent practitioners get a Map pin from sign-up — your workspace address is set on the Where are you located? screen of the wizard. To update it later, open Profile → Info → General Information → Independent Workspace.

I sent a join request. How will I know when the studio owner responds?

You get a push notification (if push is on) and an in-app notification. The Your Pending Request card disappears from General Information when the request is resolved either way.

Why does my profile show Booking not available yet even though my Info Cards are filled?

Two things gate bookings: the cards listed in Info Cards required for bookings above, and your calendar status under Availability & Schedule (must be set to Open). After that, the rules are discipline-specific — time-based practitioners (piercer / permanent makeup / laser) need at least one service with both a price and a duration; body modification practitioners need at least one service (a price on it is optional — body mod pricing is proposed per project, not set on the service); tattoo artists need the Tattoo Process & Pricing card saved (no services list to configure — tattoo bookings are intent-based). If everything looks set and Book Now still shows the message, you may also need to subscribe to the Booking System module — see Your 3-month trial above.