How to Charge a Card on File in Acuity (Stripe & Square)

Yes — with two conditions. Acuity Scheduling (formerly Squarespace Scheduling) can require a credit card when a client books, store it against the appointment, and let you charge that card later from the appointment details. Condition one: your payment processor must be Stripe or Square. Condition two: someone on your team must actually do it. There is no rule, trigger, or setting that charges a stored card on its own.

That second condition is the one that trips people up. Owners set a cancellation policy, require the card, and assume the system will enforce the policy. It won't — the card on file is a capability, not an automation. Enforcement is a person opening the appointment and making a charge, every time. We cover the fee-specific version of this gap in how to charge a cancellation fee in Acuity.

Acuity gives you two ways to attach money to a booking, and they solve different problems:

• Charge upfront (full price or a deposit): the client pays when they book. Best for high-prep or high-demand services where an empty slot is expensive. The trade-off is booking friction — some clients bail at the payment step.
• Require a card, charge nothing: the client enters a card that's stored for later. Booking stays frictionless, and the card becomes your enforcement mechanism for no-show and late-cancellation policies — the fee only exists if you can actually collect it.

Many businesses combine both: a deposit upfront, card on file for the balance and for policy fees. Whatever you pick, the card-on-file half is only as good as your willingness to charge it — which is where the manual flow below comes in.

Not all of them — and this is worth checking before you write a fee policy you can't enforce:

Stripe and Square behave equivalently for this purpose. If you're choosing between them, decide on processing rates and the rest of your stack, not on Acuity's card-on-file behavior.

With Stripe or Square connected and a card stored at booking, the manual flow looks like this:

1. Open the appointment in your Acuity calendar — including after a cancellation or no-show, which is exactly when fee policies need it; verify in your own account.
2. Choose the option to make a payment against the client's stored card.
3. Enter the amount: the policy fee, the remaining balance, or the add-on total.
4. Process the charge — it runs through your connected Stripe or Square account like any other payment.
5. Note what the charge was for. Acuity won't label it as a “no-show fee” or “balance” anywhere, so your future self (and your bookkeeper) needs the context.
6. Tell the client. A charge they see on a statement before they hear from you is a dispute waiting to happen.

Four situations account for nearly all stored-card charges in appointment businesses:

• No-show fees. The client never arrived; the card is the only way to collect. Typical fees run 50–100% of the service price — see how to charge a no-show fee in Acuity.
• Late-cancellation fees. The client cancelled inside your cutoff window. Commonly 25–50% of the service, per your published policy.
• Remaining balances. You took a deposit at booking and charge the rest after the appointment — common for photography, studios, and package work.
• Retail and add-ons. Product sold at the appointment, an upgraded service, extra time — charged to the card instead of pulling out a terminal.

The first two are policy enforcement; the second two are convenience. That distinction matters, because policy fees are the ones that get forgotten (nobody wants to charge them) and the ones that benefit most from automation.

A card-on-file charge is a card-not-present transaction the client didn't initiate — the exact shape of a charge that gets disputed. Three habits keep you on the right side of it:

1. Disclose before booking. The policy — window, amount, and the fact that the stored card will be charged — must be visible on your scheduling page and in confirmation emails before the client commits. A fee nobody agreed to is a chargeback. Ready-made wording lives in our cancellation policy templates.
2. Charge exactly what the policy says. Card networks look at whether the amount matches the disclosed terms. Round up “because it was annoying” and you hand the client a winning dispute.
3. Send a receipt and a personal note. Let the processor's receipt go out, then add one human sentence: what the charge was, which policy it came from, and how to reach you with questions. Surprise is the raw material of disputes; remove it.

Card on file solves the ability to collect. It does nothing about the reliability of collecting. Three limits show up in practice:

• It's manual, so it's forgettable. Every fee depends on someone noticing the no-show, remembering the policy, opening the appointment, and charging. Busy weeks are exactly when no-shows spike and exactly when this doesn't happen.
• Charges are untagged in reporting. Acuity doesn't categorize a stored-card charge as a fee, a balance, or a sale. Worse, the built-in revenue report excludes cancelled and no-show appointments entirely — so fees charged against them are invisible there, and your Acuity numbers drift from Stripe or Square. We unpack this in why your Acuity revenue report doesn't match Stripe or Square.
• There's no reschedule-fee concept. Acuity's policies address cancellations and no-shows only. If a client moves an appointment two hours before it starts, no built-in mechanism even frames that as chargeable.

None of this makes card on file useless — it's the necessary foundation. But if fee collection matters to your revenue, the manual layer on top of it is the weak link.

Tecton Scheduler layers on top of your existing Acuity account — it doesn't replace it — and automates the scenario where stored-card charges most often fail: late changes. Clients get a branded self-serve link where they verify their email and phone, pick a new slot from live Acuity availability, and if the change falls inside your fee window, the fee is collected via Square or Stripe at confirmation — before the new time is locked in.

1. Connect your Acuity account and your Square or Stripe account.
2. Set your reschedule window and fee once in Settings — the rules apply evenly to every client, at any hour.
3. Put your public reschedule link in Acuity's confirmation and reminder emails.
4. Watch fees, failed or declined cards, and client changes land in one read-tracked notifications feed, with collected revenue tracked in your analytics dashboard.

The manual charge flow stays available for the cases it's genuinely good at — balances, retail add-ons, one-off exceptions. What changes is the default: policy fees stop depending on someone remembering. Plans are custom-priced to booking volume with a free trial on every tier — see pricing.