Getting started as a studio owner

• What your studio account is, and isn't

  The studio account is a venue. It has a name, a single street address, and a Map pin. It does not have a personal first/last name or a date of birth — those belong to the practitioners on the team.

  Studios don't book — they supervise. Your team's practitioners receive client bookings on their own practitioner accounts. The studio dashboard aggregates everyone's calendars, team management, and accounting in one place, but the studio itself is never the party taking a booking from a client. Clients book the practitioner; the studio sees it land on the team calendar.

• The five studio Info Cards

  Open Profile → Info to find them. They live on the studio profile and are visible to anyone who taps your studio:

  • General Information — studio description and establishment date.
  • Contact — phone, email, social media.
  • Location & Hours — opening hours and any unavailable periods. The street address itself is set at sign-up; this card adds the schedule clients see.
  • Chain Studios — link this venue to other locations of the same chain. Chain ownership can sit at any level (single owner across venues, holding company with managers per studio, etc.) — the link is between the venues, not a personal-ownership claim.
  • Studio Reviews — clients leave reviews for the studio (separate from per-practitioner reviews). Nothing to fill in; it populates over time.

• Studio Bookings dashboard

  The Studio Bookings dashboard is the operational hub for running your day-to-day: a Calendar that aggregates every team member's bookings, Team management, Stats, Accounting, and Settings (workstations, capacity, member colors).

  You reach it from the Bookings button in your Profile header. Same dashboard for all five studio types — the team list and Calendar surface every practitioner type that actually works at your venue.

• All bookings are paid to the practitioner, not the studio

  When a client pays a deposit on a booking, the money goes to the practitioner's Stripe Connect account. The studio is never the party receiving client funds. Settings → Payment Settings on a studio account is just for the cards used to pay for your own InkMap subscription.

  The studio's cut of each booking (commission, chair rental, etc.) is computed in the Accounting tab from each team member's arrangement — not by routing the client's payment through the studio.

• Studio premium modules

  Your studio account starts with a 3-month free trial that begins the day you create the account. During the trial every module is unlocked.

  After the trial, the studio modules are à la carte. To see and manage them, open Profile → Settings (gear) → Go Premium.

  Studio modules:

  • Team Bookings (studio_booking) — the Studio Bookings dashboard. Includes 2 booking licenses for team members. Available to all studio types.
  • Guest Management (studio_guest_spots) — receive and manage incoming guest-spot requests. Tattoo studios only at MVP.
  • Events & Job Board (studio_events_jobs) — required to create events or post job offers from the News tab. Available to all studio types.
  • Studio Analytics (studio_analytics) — powers the Stats sub-tab inside Studio Bookings. Available to all studio types.
  • Studio Accounting (studio_accounting) — powers the Accounting sub-tab inside Studio Bookings. Available to all studio types.

  Bundles:

  • Full Studio Suite — all five modules + 5 booking licenses.
  • Discovery — Team Bookings + Analytics + Accounting + 2 booking licenses.

  Always free, no module needed: your studio profile, the studio Map pin, the studio Info Cards, posting to your Gallery, and messaging.

• Booking licenses, briefly

  Inside Team Bookings, each team member who needs to use the booking system needs one booking license. Standalone Team Bookings gives you 2; Full Studio Suite gives 5; Discovery gives 2. Buy extra seats at graduated per-seat pricing from Profile → Settings → Go Premium → My Plan.

  Distribute licenses to specific team members from the Team tab inside Studio Bookings.

  A practitioner who works at your studio can use the booking system through your studio's license — they don't need their own Booking subscription if you assign them a seat. This is sometimes called BYOL (bring your own license, from the studio).

Step by step

1. 1

   Confirm the studio's address and name

   Open your Profile tab. Confirm the studio name is exactly how you want it shown (this came from the Studio Name field at Step 5 of sign-up — there is no last name on a studio account). Confirm the address that's pinned on the Map matches your real venue.

   If something needs changing, the General Information and Location & Hours Info Cards are where most edits land. The street address is harder to change once it's set — if it's wrong, contact support before you bring on team members.

2. 2

   Fill the studio Info Cards

   Open Profile → Info and work through:

   • General Information — short description, established year. This is the first thing visitors read.
   • Contact — phone, email, Instagram, website. Clients (and prospective hires) check these before tapping further.
   • Location & Hours — opening hours per weekday, plus any closed periods (vacations, renovations).
   • Chain Studios — only relevant if your venue is part of a chain. Skip if you're a single shop.
3. 3

   Bring your team online

   Open Bookings → Team. The sub-tabs:

   • Members — current team. From here you invite an unattached practitioner (search by name), set a member color (used everywhere your team is shown — calendar, day timeline, cluster previews), and assign a booking license if you have spare seats. Each member also has a member-since date, see below.
   • Requests — practitioners who tapped Request to Join from your studio's profile, plus any cross-match auto-accepts. Accept or reject each one. Rejecting doesn't notify them with a reason; the practitioner just sees their pending request go away.
   • Arrangements — the financial setup per member: commission split, chair rental (daily / weekly / monthly), flat fee, or custom.

   Three things to do here:

   (a) Review who absorbed in at sign-up. If, at sign-up, independent artists at your studio's address were detected (within 100 meters), Step 8 of the wizard let you pick which ones to absorb. The selected ones are now your team members; the unselected ones had their independent Map pin removed (their account is unchanged — only the pin at this address went away). Open Members and check the list against who actually works at your venue. Remove anyone wrongly absorbed; invite anyone who's missing.

   (b) Set the member-since date for each resident. By default it's the date the practitioner joined your team in the app. If they actually started working at your venue earlier, edit the date on their member row. The studio's cut of their bookings can only be calculated from this date forward — backdating it lets older bookings be costed correctly in your Accounting.

   (c) Set an arrangement for every member. Without an arrangement, a member's bookings have nothing for the Accounting tab to apply a studio cut against. Even if a member's deal is "I take 100%," record it explicitly so accounting reflects reality.

4. 4

   Set up workstations and capacity

   Studio Bookings → Settings has the workstations editor. A workstation is the physical chair, bed, or station a booking happens on. Add one row per workstation: label (e.g. "Front station," "Booth 2"), the color it shows up in on the calendar, and which practitioner types it's suitable for. Adding, editing, and deleting workstations is always free — you don't need any premium module to set up your studio's physical layout.

   Two things follow automatically from the workstation list:

   • Studio capacity — equals the number of workstations you've added. There is no separate capacity field. Always free.
   • Member colors (separate sub-tab) — pick a color per practitioner so they're recognisable on the calendar. Always free.

   A few features inside Settings live behind premium modules:

   • Assign Practitioners (default workstation per member, weekday schedule, and Auto-assign on confirmation) is part of Team Bookings. Without it, you'll see a small "Unlock Team Bookings" placard where the section would otherwise be — workstation creation still works, it's just the per-member assignment that's gated.
   • Guest priority (the per-workstation toggle that reserves a station for visiting artists) and Max guest capacity belong to Guest Management. The toggle and capacity field are visible to everyone but locked with a small lock icon until you subscribe — tap one and an explainer modal opens with the price and an Unlock button.

   The same screen has the weekday capacity chips (which days of the week you accept bookings overall) and default collectedBy for accounting (whether your studio or the practitioner takes the client's money by default).

5. 5

   Publish posts and pick your featured images

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

   Studios can star up to 4 posts as featured. A featured post is a regular Gallery 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:

   • Map clusters — when several pins overlap, the cluster preview surfaces featured images from the venues inside.
   • Your studio's Map-pin modal — the venue sheet a user sees when they tap your pin shows your featured images at the top.
   • Your studio's web profile — the public web page for your venue uses the same featured images as the lead visuals.

   To set it up: publish at least 4 Gallery posts (open the post creation flow from the + button), then open your Gallery tab, tap the star on each post you want to feature. Empty featured-image slots show as blanks — they're worth filling.

   Your team members get their own featured-image slots on their practitioner accounts, and those are what render on team-member cards inside your studio profile (and on guest cards when an artist guests elsewhere). Point them at the practitioner getting-started guide so they fill those out — your studio profile looks half-finished as long as their slots are blank.

6. 6

   (Tattoo studios only) Set up Guest Management

   If you host visiting artists, the Guest Management module lets the studio receive guest-spot requests, see the studio's guest calendar, and configure how the slot itself works.

   To open it: tap Guests on your Profile header. (You'll only see the button as a tattoo studio; the system is currently tattoo-only.) Two tabs:

   • Requests — incoming guest-spot proposals from tattoo artists. Accept (with optional message), reject, or resolve workstation conflicts when more than one guest wants the same days.
   • Settings — your guest policy: how far ahead requests open, what disciplines you welcome, what your house rules are. This is what visiting artists read before they request a spot, so it's worth filling in.

   Best practice: with Guest Management active, open Studio Bookings → Settings → Workstations and mark one workstation as Guest priority (the toggle on each workstation card). When a guest spot is confirmed, that workstation will be assigned automatically — saves you the click each time and prevents double-booking your residents' usual stations. Without Guest Management, the Guest priority toggle is locked (small lock icon next to the switch) and tapping it explains how to unlock it.

   You'll also want Studio Analytics and Studio Accounting active if you want guest revenue to show up in your stats and accounting tabs.

7. 7

   Decide what to do about premium

   While your trial is running, every module is unlocked. Use the trial to figure out which ones you actually rely on. Toward the end of the trial:

   • If you'll keep running the team off the dashboard: keep Team Bookings (and probably Accounting to track money flow, Analytics if you want operational stats).
   • If you'll publish events or job offers: Events & Job Board is required.
   • If you're a tattoo studio that hosts guest artists: Guest Management.

   A bundle is only cheaper than à la carte if you'd buy at least 3 of its modules separately. Open Profile → Settings (gear) → Go Premium to compare.

8. 8

   Find your way around

   Bottom tab bar: Map, Feeds, News, Market, and Profile. To open the Studio Dashboard or send Messages, tap the corresponding button on your Profile header.

   Tap your studio name at the top of your own Profile to open the Switch Account sheet — useful if you're managing more than one venue or if you have a personal account too.

9. 9

   Post to your Gallery

   The studio identity posts to a Gallery. Open the post creation flow from the + button anywhere it appears in the app — for a studio account, posts go up under the studio identity and land on your studio profile.

   What you put in the studio Gallery is your call. Studio interior shots, group photos, work the studio is proud to feature, behind-the-scenes content — InkMap doesn't impose a rule that "team-member work goes on practitioner accounts and only studio-wide content goes here." Some studios curate carefully; others post freely. Both are fine.

• Featured images are your storefront. Most users see your featured posts before they ever scroll your full Gallery (in cluster previews, in Map-pin modals, on Team cards). Pick 4 that you'd be happy to be judged on.
• Members without an arrangement = invisible in accounting. If a number looks off in the Accounting tab, the first thing to check is whether every active member has an arrangement set in Team → Arrangements.
• The member-since date is usually fine on default. Only backdate it if the practitioner actually worked at your venue before joining the app, and you want their pre-app bookings (manual entries) to be costed correctly.
• Workstation count = effective capacity. If you add too many at first, it'll inflate the "today's workstation use" stat and make the dashboard look idle.
• If you add a website to Contact, make sure it actually loads — a broken link is worse than no link.

Frequently asked questions

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

No — studio type is locked at sign-up and can't be changed. The only path is to create a new account with a different email address. If you mis-typed your studio name or address, those can be edited; the type itself can't.

Does my studio type restrict who can be on my team?

No. Any studio type can host any practitioner type. A piercing shop can have a tattoo artist; a laser studio can have a body-modification practitioner. The studio type sets your venue's primary identity on the Map, not who's allowed to work there.

A practitioner shows up in my Team but they don't actually work here. What happened?

Most likely they were absorbed at Step 8 of your sign-up — they had an independent Map pin within 100m of your studio's address, and you (or whoever signed up the studio) selected them. Open Bookings → Team → Members and remove them — they'll go back to being independent.

I want to host guest artists but I'm not a tattoo studio. Can I?

Not via the Guest Management module today — guest spots is currently a tattoo-only system on both the practitioner side and the studio side. Outside the formal system, nothing stops a visiting practitioner from working from your venue if you've arranged it directly; it just won't be tracked through the dashboard.

Can I receive payments at the studio level via Stripe?

No. Client payments go to the practitioner's Stripe Connect account. The studio's cut is computed in the Accounting tab based on each team member's arrangement, not by routing the client payment through the studio. Settings → Payment Settings on the studio account is for your own subscription cards only.

Where do I see my 3-month trial timer?

Open Profile → Settings (gear) → Go Premium. The trial banner there shows how many days are left. Once the trial ends, modules you haven't subscribed to lock; the rest of the app keeps working.