DEBUT Bookings for Checkfront

DEBUT Bookings puts your Checkfront inventory on your own pages instead of in an embedded widget. Visitors search by what, when and how many, or browse a calendar of what’s on, then choose a session, all in your site’s fonts, colours and layout. When they click Book now, they go straight to that item and date on your Checkfront booking page to pay, so your payments, deposits, emails and reports keep working exactly as they do now.

What it does

• A search page. A What / When / Who bar, then every activity with space as cards or a list, each with its dates and times.
• A calendar of what’s on. One month at a time, with a dot on every date that has availability, beside the sessions for the selected date. It stops at the last month you’re taking bookings for.
• Activity pages too. A “Check availability” card for each activity’s own page: pick a month and a session, then book. Every date shows its day of the week.
• Guided setup. Connect, choose categories, pick a look and create your bookings and What’s on pages in a few minutes.
• Live availability and prices from your Checkfront account, with spaces left on every session (“2 spaces left” when it’s nearly full).
• Cards or list. Cards show one card per activity with its times inside; list shows a timetable, one row per session.
• Morning, afternoon and evening filter on busy days.
• Category filter across the top, using your Checkfront categories. Hide the ones you don’t want shown anywhere (add-ons, gift vouchers) on the Categories screen.
• Items bookable on request (no fixed sessions) shown separately for the date.
• Book now goes straight to the item and date on your Checkfront booking page.
• Looks like your site. Fonts and text colours come from your theme. Pick an accent colour, corner style and card style, or go further with CSS custom properties.
• Fast. Responses are cached, the coming weeks’ availability is loaded in the background before anyone asks, and pages work without JavaScript.
• Demo data. Try everything before connecting, or show it off: four made-up businesses (outdoor adventures, boat trips and tours, bike and kit hire, classes and workshops) with real-looking activities, prices and spaces.
• Blocks and shortcodes for the block editor, classic editor and page builders.

Built for developers

Every template can be overridden from your theme, and everything the plugin shows is available in PHP:

$item = debut_bookings_get_item( 435 );
echo $item->name;              // White Water Tubing
echo $item->formatted_price(); // £64.99

foreach ( $item->sessions( '2026-11-14' ) as $session ) {
    echo $session->time();     // 09:30 – 12:00
    echo $session->spaces;     // 10
}

Also: debut_bookings_get_items(), debut_bookings_get_sessions(), debut_bookings_next_available(), debut_bookings_get_categories(), template hooks around every card, row and time slot, and filters on the data. See the FAQ.

DEBUT Bookings is an independent plugin by DEBUT Studio. It is not made, endorsed or supported by Checkfront.

Need more?

DEBUT Studio builds custom Checkfront booking journeys on WordPress, and can set the plugin up and style it for you. debut.studio

External services

This plugin uses Checkfront, the booking system you connect it to. It only works with a Checkfront account, and only connects to the account you enter in the settings.

From your website’s server to the Checkfront API

• What is sent: your Checkfront API key and secret (to authenticate), and the item IDs, category IDs and dates being looked up. The list of categories and items customers can book online is fetched without your key, as a customer would see it. Nothing about your site’s visitors is sent this way.
• When: when a page showing plugin content is viewed or a visitor picks a date or category, and the answer isn’t already cached; and when you connect, test the connection or open the Categories screen in the settings.
• Where: https://{your-account}.checkfront.com/api/3.0/ (or .checkfront.co.uk).

From your visitors’ browsers to Checkfront

• Images: activity images are the ones you uploaded to Checkfront and load directly from Checkfront’s servers, so a visitor’s browser shares its IP address and browser details with Checkfront when it shows them. Turn images off with show_image="0" if you’d rather not.
• Book now: clicking Book now takes the visitor to your Checkfront booking page, where Checkfront’s own terms apply.

With Pro: meeting point maps

• If you turn on Booking → Meeting point, the review step of a booking shows a map of the coordinates in the item’s chosen Checkfront field, embedded from OpenStreetMap (https://www.openstreetmap.org/) or Google Maps (https://maps.google.com/) as you choose. The visitor’s browser loads the map from that service, sharing its IP address and browser details with it. Three-word addresses link to what3words (https://what3words.com/) and load nothing until clicked. Off by default.
• OpenStreetMap: Privacy Policy. Google: Privacy Policy.

Checkfront is provided by Checkfront Bookings Inc.: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy.