Building a quote

A quote is your answer to a booking request: what the work is, what it costs, what you need up front, and when you can do it. Until you send one, a request is only an enquiry. Once the client pays the deposit against your quote, it becomes a real appointment on your calendar.

Open a request from Requests and tap Approve. The quote builder opens under the heading Build Quote, with three sections that expand one at a time: Sessions, Scheduling and Final Review. Each one keeps a summary line while it is closed, so you can always see the running total, how many times you have offered, and where the work happens.

The location sits in the header of the builder, beside the close button. Change it there if this piece happens somewhere other than your usual studio, and the address travels with the quote into the client's email.

Under Custom you get two ways to price. Hourly prefills the hourly rate you saved in Settings, so you only adjust the hours. Set Rate starts blank and you type the whole price for the piece. Under Presets you get the appointment types you have already saved, grouped into folders. Tapping a preset drops it straight into the quote at its saved price.

A custom session asks for four things. Total Cost (or Hourly Rate) and Deposit Required are the money. Est. Duration is what the client reads on the quote, so a range like 5-6 hours is fine. Appt. Length is what Maelo actually blocks out in your calendar, so give yourself the honest number including setup.

The deposit has to be at least 50 in your own currency, so a quote priced in Canadian dollars needs at least $50 CAD, and it can never be more than the total. If you have built something you will use again, tap Save as preset and it lands in a Quick Add folder you can tidy up later in appointment types.

A sleeve is not one appointment, and a quote does not have to pretend it is. Tap Add Session for each sitting. Each session carries its own price, deposit and length, and the builder totals them for you. Drag the handle to reorder, use the copy icon to duplicate a sitting you have already priced, and the pencil to edit any of it in place.

When you honestly cannot say how many sittings it will take, tick May require additional sessions and put a range in Estimated additional sessions, such as 3-5. Those are extra to the sessions you have listed and are booked later, and the client sees them called out that way on the quote. It sets expectations without committing either of you to a number.

In Scheduling you decide per session how the date gets chosen. Offer dates lets you shortlist specific days and start times from your calendar, and the client picks one of yours. Client picks hands them your availability and lets them choose any open slot. You can mix the two across a multi-session quote.

You do not have to schedule everything now. A session you leave without times goes out as awaiting schedule, and the builder tells you how many are in that state before you send. That is the normal way to quote a long project: pin down the first sitting, sort the rest out later.

Only times you are genuinely free are offered. The builder reads the same working hours and bookings your calendar does, so an offered slot cannot land on a day you are closed or a time you are already booked.

Final Review lays the whole thing out: client, location, every session with its total cost, deposit and schedule type, and the offered times underneath. Anything that looks wrong is one tap back up the page.

Message for Client is the note that opens the quote email. Keep it warm and short. Appointment Notes underneath is private to you and never leaves your account, so put your setup notes and reminders there. Tap Preview Email to read the real email before anyone else does, then Send Quote and confirm.

Your client receives an email titled “New Quote from” followed by your name. It leads with your message, then a table of every session with its duration, estimated total and the amount to book, followed by your offered times as tappable pills. Underneath sits your location with a map, and a single Book Now button.

The email is clear that the deposit comes off their total, not on top of it. Tax, if you charge it, is named beside the estimate and collected with the final balance on the day, never on the deposit.

Book Now takes them into their Client Hub, where they choose their date and pay. The moment a deposit lands you get a notification and that sitting goes on your calendar at the Appt. Length you set. The request itself moves to your Booked tab once every session on the quote is paid for. Until then it stays under Approved in your inbox with a badge counting the appointments already booked.

Nothing is locked in until the deposit is paid. Open the request, use the menu in the header, and pick Edit Quote to change the pricing or Edit Dates to offer different times. They are the same builder, opened on the section you actually need.

Maelo works out what changed and sends the matching email, so your client gets a price update, a location update, or new times rather than a generic "something changed" notice. Change several things at once and they get one combined update instead of three emails.

• •A session whose deposit is already paid shows a Deposit paid badge.
• •Paid sessions cannot be repriced, reordered or removed.
• •Everything else on the quote is still yours to edit.