Help · Getting set up

Your booking domain

Draft · last reviewed 21 September 2026

Your checkout can live on your own web address — book.yourbusiness.com rather than something with our name on it. It takes one DNS record from you and about ten minutes from us.

Why it is worth doing

Part of it is obvious: people are more willing to type a card number into a page that still looks like the business they were just reading about. A checkout that jumps to an unfamiliar address loses bookings, and it loses the nervous ones first.

The part that is less obvious, and is usually the deciding factor: Apple Pay and Google Pay will not appear without it. Not "work less well" — they refuse to load at all unless the page is served over HTTPS on a domain that has been registered with Apple. There is no way around this and it is not a Side Quest Booking limitation; it is Apple's rule and every booking system lives under it.

So if you want the one-tap wallet buttons — and on a phone, which is where most people book, they convert far better than typing a card — you need a domain.

What we need from you

One DNS record. If someone else manages your website, this is a two-line email to them; you do not need to understand it yourself.

Type: CNAME
Name: book (so the full address becomes book.yourbusiness.com)
Target: the address we send you when you ask to set this up

book is just our suggestion. reserve, tickets, courses — whatever suits. It only has to be a name you are not already using.

Order matters. Your DNS record has to exist before we can issue the security certificate for it. If you add the record and the page does not work straight away, that is normal — DNS changes take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours to reach everyone. It is very rarely broken; it is nearly always just early.

What happens on our side

We point the new address at your Side Quest Booking account, issue the certificate, and move the links in your confirmation and form emails over to it. Then we register the domain with Apple so the wallet buttons can appear.

That last step needs your card payments to be switched on first. If they are not, the registration looks like it worked and the Apple Pay button simply never shows up — so we do them in order rather than chasing a ghost later.

Your old booking link

If you are coming from another system, your old booking address keeps working. We do not switch it off, and neither should you — not until a real customer has been all the way through Side Quest Booking and you have seen the money arrive. Redirect it after that, not before.

If you would rather not

You do not have to. Side Quest Booking gives you an address either way and everything works: the calendar, the forms, the waivers, card payments. You lose the wallet buttons and a bit of polish at checkout, and you can add a domain later without redoing anything.

Still to write: screenshots of the DNS step for the common registrars, and what the Apple Pay button looks like once it is on. Ask and we will write it sooner.

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