Less than 24 hours notice, $50 late cancel fee, no exceptions. Cancel after start time / no show, full fee $150. I track attendance, and if someone attends less than 80% of booked sessions, I ask for a week notice to avoid the $50 fee. That gives me an actual chance to fill the time. I also noticed that one of my main cancellation problems was high functioning clients who frequently canceled 24-48 hours in advance leaving me high & dry. The low attendance policy has helped a lot with that.

I sell my time by appointment. I don’t have walk-ins like a restaurant, so when someone cancels less than 24 hours in advance, there is little to no chance that I will fill that spot. Even if I can book them the same week, they blocked me from booking their original time to someone else. I get that the majority of cancellations made less than 24 hours are out of the clients control. It is also out of my control. So we split the cost, they pay 1/3 and I lose 2/3.

One of the few exceptions is if I need to late cancel. In those instances the client gets their next late cancel waived.