Installation

WooCommerce Booking and Reservation installs like any other WordPress plugin. The whole process takes a few minutes.

Requirements

Check these before you start. The plugin refuses to run if WooCommerce is missing, and its admin screen stays locked until a licence key is added.

RequirementMinimum
WordPress6.5
WooCommerce9.0 (installed and active)
PHP7.4
Licence keyRequired — the admin screen is locked without one

Important

WooCommerce must be active before you activate this plugin. If it is not, WordPress shows "Booking Reservation could not be activate. It requires WooCommerce plugin in order to work." and nothing is set up. Activate WooCommerce, then activate this plugin again.

The plugin is compatible with High-Performance Order Storage (HPOS), the Cart and Checkout blocks, WPML and multisite, so you do not need to change any of those settings first.

Step 1 — Upload the plugin

  1. Download the plugin .zip from your Webkul account.
  2. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add Plugin.
  3. Click Upload Plugin at the top of the screen.

The Upload Plugin button on the Add Plugins screen

  1. Choose the .zip file and click Install Now.

Note

Do not unzip the file first. WordPress expects the .zip exactly as you downloaded it.

Step 2 — Activate

When the upload finishes, click Activate Plugin. You can also activate it later from Plugins → Installed Plugins — search for booking reservation and click Activate on the WooCommerce Booking Reservation row.

The plugin row on the Installed Plugins screen

Activation does three things behind the scenes:

  • creates the booking database tables,
  • adds the My Bookings page to your customers' My account area,
  • schedules the hourly jobs that expire, complete, cancel and remind.

Step 3 — Add your licence key

The Booking Management System screen is protected by a licence check. Until a valid key is saved, opening it shows:

You are not authorized. Kindly remove the custom script and add the license key.

Add the key under Webkul WC Addons → License, using the purchase code from your Webkul or CodeCanyon account. Once it is saved, reload the Booking Management System screen and the four tabs appear.

Warning

Keep your purchase code private. Never paste it into a support ticket screenshot, a public forum or a shared document.

Step 4 — Find the menu

Everything lives under Webkul WC Addons → Booking Management System.

The Booking Management System entry in the Webkul WC Addons menu

You need the Manage WooCommerce capability to see it — administrators and shop managers have it by default.

Step 5 — Check the scheduled jobs are running

Four hourly jobs handle the automatic side of bookings: expiring unpaid ones, completing finished ones, cancelling no-shows and sending reminders. They rely on WordPress's own scheduler (WP-Cron).

If your host has disabled WP-Cron, or your site gets very little traffic, those jobs will not fire and bookings will simply stay in whatever status you left them. Everything else — taking bookings, changing statuses by hand, sending a reminder from the booking list — still works. Ask your host to run WP-Cron on a real schedule if you plan to rely on the automation.

What to do next

  1. Open Global Settings and set your store-wide defaults — booking window, minimum notice, capacity, deposits, reminders. See Global Settings.
  2. Create your first bookable product with the Setup Wizard. See Product Setup.
  3. Tell the product when it is available. See Availability.
  4. Open the product on your storefront and make a test booking. See The Customer Booking Experience.

Updating

Update the plugin the way you update any other: upload the newer .zip over the old one, or use the update notice on the Plugins screen if automatic updates are configured for your licence.

Existing bookable products created with version 3.x are converted automatically the first time version 4.0.0 runs. Their old booking type is mapped onto the closest new one and their button label defaults to Book now. Check the mapping on each product afterwards — see Booking Types.

Next step