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Deposits

A deposit, and what it costs you

A real Clay site — built from a Google listing

A deposit turns some of your no-shows into people who turn up, and some of your bookings into people who never book at all.

Takes less than a minute · no sign-up or credit card required

An empty chair at three o'clock on a Saturday is not a loss you make up on Sunday. The forty minutes cannot be sold twice, the stock for the table of eight was bought on Thursday, and the only person who knows why nobody came is the person who did not come.

Clay lets a table booking carry a deposit: an amount, and the party size it starts at. It is stated and recorded, not charged. The guest sees it under the party size before the form, it is printed on their confirmation and on yours, and they settle it with you.

€0charged on the page — the amount is stated, the guest pays you
2emails carry it: the guest's confirmation and your own
1booking type it can be set on today — tables
Book a table
Party of 8Friday, 19:30
Deposit €80
Party of 2Friday, 19:30
No deposit
Pay on arrivalYour own payment note
The rule restaurants actually run

From a party of eight

A deposit on a Clay booking is two numbers: the amount, and the party size it starts at. Below that size nothing is asked for. Set it at eight and the table of two books the way it always did, while the table of twelve is told what it owes.

It sits under the party size, before the form, rather than in the small print at the end. A number a guest did not expect reads as a trick, and a trick is worse for you than no deposit at all.

What it does not do

No card is taken

Clay charges nothing at the moment of booking. The amount is worked out on the server from the rules the page showed, written into the confirmation, mailed to the guest and to you, and paid to you in person. There is no card on file, so there is nothing held and nothing to refund.

So it works the way a stated deposit works: it changes who books more than it changes who pays. Somebody who reads the number and books anyway has told you something. Somebody who was never going to turn up often does not get that far, and that is a booking you have lost.

Worked out on the server, never sent by the browser
On the guest's confirmation and on your alert
Your own payment note — “Pay on arrival”
The cancellation notice is yours, and you are not bound by it

What you get

Two numbers, one row

The amount, and the party size it starts from, set on the table row itself. There is nothing else to configure.

It is in both emails

The guest's confirmation and your own alert carry the amount, the party, the time, their phone number and your payment note.

Recomputed on the server

The page shows a number; the server works it out again from your own rules before the booking is accepted.

Only where it earns it

Set the party size high and most of your room never sees a deposit. The table of two is not asked for anything.

Questions

Is the deposit actually charged to a card?

No. Nothing in a Clay booking touches a payment page. The amount is worked out, shown before the form, recorded and printed in both emails, and the guest settles it with you — on arrival, by transfer, however you already take money. There is no card on file and therefore no refund flow either.

Can a barber or a tattoo studio take one?

Not today. The deposit fields are drawn on a table row only, so an appointment or a rental cannot carry one. A studio can write the policy into the questions on its own booking page, in its own words, and it is read before the form — but nothing enforces it: how appointments work.

Does it stop no-shows?

It reduces them and it costs you bookings. Both are true, and the second one is the price of the first: a stated deposit filters the people who were never certain. A booking is not anonymous either — the guest gives an email and a phone number, so there is somebody to ring.

What happens if they cancel?

They sign in on your site and cancel, up to whatever notice you set: any time, a number of hours or days, or not at all. Nothing is held, so a late cancellation is a conversation rather than a refund. Nobody can move a booking to another time yet — there is no reschedule.

Is booking on the free plan?

No. The free site is real and live at your own address and it draws the booking page, but the server refuses the booking itself until the site is on Pro — €49 a month, ex-VAT. The deposit rule comes with it: how table booking works.

What you get

An amount, and the party size it starts at
Shown under the party size, before the form
On the guest's confirmation and on your own email
Worked out on the server, not in the browser
Tables only — not appointments and not rentals
No card is captured, and nothing is charged here

How it works

1

Search your business

Type your name — Clay pulls your photos, hours, reviews and contact details straight from your Google listing.

2

Pick a style

Choose a look and Clay builds a full site around your content. Change anything with a tap — no code, no templates to wrestle.

3

You're online

Publish to your own name.clay.site in minutes. Add a custom domain and connect your own tools whenever you're ready.

Real sites, made with Clay

Open one. It is the live site in a frame, not a screenshot — so what you see is what it looks like right now.

Read next

Table bookingOnline bookingAppointmentsRestaurantsTattoo studiosEquipment hire

A deposit, and what it costs you

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Takes less than a minute · no sign-up or credit card required