About
It started with twenty minutes and a haircut
Ryan Creece
Founder, Bookka
I was travelling through Thailand, Malaysia and Bali, and all I wanted was a decent haircut. Then somewhere to get my laundry done. Simple enough — except finding one meant opening Google, then Facebook, then Instagram, then TikTok, reading what people had said, hunting for photos of actual work, and trying to piece together what any of it cost.
Twenty minutes, every time. Not to book anything — just to answer is this place any good, and what does it charge?
And once I’d finally picked somewhere, I’d walk in and wait. Sometimes a long time. I was on holiday. The beach was calling, and I was sitting inside a salon on a plastic chair watching the afternoon go.
At some point I decided I’d only use places that let me book ahead. So I started using the booking apps — and that’s where it got interesting, because from the business’s side they were far worse than I expected.
The part that actually annoyed me
Some of these platforms charge a business a monthly subscription and then take a significant cut — often around a fifth — of every first-time customer who books through their marketplace. You pay to be listed, and then you pay again for the customer, on the grounds that the platform introduced you. Others avoid the fee and give you almost nothing: a bare menu of service names, no prices, no personality, nothing that would make anyone choose you over the shop next door.
Neither of those is built for the business. One extracts from it, the other ignores it.
And when I came home to Australia, the gap was the same. There still wasn’t an app that was genuinely good for the person booking and the person running the business — most tools pick a side, and the other side puts up with it.
So I built the thing I’d wanted twice
Bookka is a marketplace where you can see local barbers, nail techs, tattooists, spas and the rest with their services, prices, reviews and socials in one place — everything I’d been spending twenty minutes assembling by hand, on a single page, so you can decide in about thirty seconds and book without ringing anyone.
And underneath it, the tools a business actually needs to run: a calendar and team roster, deposits and payments, automatic reminders, an online shop, social scheduling and advertising, marketing campaigns to bring people back, loyalty and gift cards, and a booking assistant that answers the questions people would otherwise phone in to ask. One subscription, and no finder’s fee on the customers who find you.
What Bookka is built around
A product is really just a pile of decisions. These are the ones that shaped this one.
You shouldn’t pay a toll on your own customers
Some marketplaces charge a monthly subscription and then take a cut of every new customer who finds you through them — often around a fifth of that first booking — as if the customer belonged to the platform rather than to the business that did the work. Bookka has a subscription, and if you take payment through it a small platform fee sits on top of Stripe’s processing — around 3% all-in, and nothing at all on bookings you don’t take payment for. What there isn’t is a finder’s fee on the customers you win.
Prices should be on the page
The single most common reason someone gives up on a business is that they can’t find out what it costs without asking. Services on Bookka carry a price and a duration up front — and where the work genuinely can’t be priced sight-unseen, there’s a proper quote instead of “message us for pricing”, which is a barrier dressed up as a conversation.
The person who did the work should get the credit
A review shouldn’t vanish into a shop-wide average. Reviews on Bookka rate the individual who served you as well as the business — whether that was a booked appointment or a walk-in at the counter — so a good barber has a rating that’s theirs, not just their employer’s.
Loyalty shouldn’t be a piece of cardboard
Everyone has a punch card in a drawer somewhere, half full, from a place they stopped going to. Points on Bookka live with the customer and follow them across bookings, the counter and the online shop. The business decides what they’re worth — services, discounts, or something free.
Nobody should have to ring during business hours to ask a question
Half the phone calls a small business takes are the same handful of questions. Bookka’s booking assistant answers them from the business’s own services, hours and policies, at 11pm, so the customer gets an answer and the owner gets their evening.
Where it’s at
Bookka is built and operated in Australia by Bookka Pty Ltd. It’s early, it’s improving most weeks, and the things I ship are listed openly on the changelog.
If you run a business on bookings and something here is missing or wrong, I’d genuinely rather hear it than not — tell me.
Have a look for yourself
Browse local businesses, or set your own up and take bookings around the clock.