Surf School Booking Software in Australia

Seasons and school holidays

The Australian surf school year follows the summer holidays. December and January are the peak, with families and domestic travellers filling beginner and kids' lessons, and Easter and the other school holiday blocks bring smaller peaks. School holidays vary by state, so a school near a state border or with lots of interstate visitors sees more than one wave of demand. Schools in New South Wales and Queensland trade through winter at lower volume, and southern schools see a sharper seasonal swing.

For booking software that means two things. Kids' programs and holiday clinics run as multi-session products across several days, with a setting to block new sign-ups once a program has started. And quiet months shouldn't cost you anything: SurfSlot has no subscription, so you pay nothing in a month with no bookings.

Safety, waivers and participant records

Australian beaches are busy and well regulated, and commercial schools often operate under conditions set by a local council or land manager. Whatever the exact requirements in your area, accurate records of who was in the water, their emergency contacts and their signed waivers are the baseline.

In SurfSlot every participant gets their own digital waiver link after booking, not one signature per family. You write the waiver text and choose the fields, such as medical conditions, swimming ability and emergency contact. Under-18s are signed by a parent or guardian. Unsigned waivers get an automatic reminder, the dashboard shows who is still missing, and each signature is stored with a timestamp. Lessons are matched to instructors by level and activity, and the safety tools flag conditions outside your limits before the session.

The 1 October 2026 card surcharge ban

Following the Reserve Bank of Australia's review of card payment costs and surcharging, businesses can no longer add surcharges to card payments from 1 October 2026. Australian Government guidance (business.gov.au, published 1 October 2026) says this covers Visa, Mastercard, eftpos and American Express. It applies to online payments as well as terminals.

The same guidance says the rules only cover card payment surcharges. They do not affect booking fees or other charges that aren't linked to how the customer pays.

For a surf school this means:

• If you used to add a percentage for paying by card, on your terminal or your own website, that has to go.
• Renaming a card surcharge as something else doesn't make it allowed. What matters is whether the charge depends on the payment method.
• Showing customers the full price clearly before they pay is good practice anyway.

This is general information, not legal advice. Check your own pricing with your adviser or the official guidance on business.gov.au and the ACCC. Our longer guide, booking fees vs card surcharges, goes through the change in more detail.

How the SurfSlot booking fee works in Australia

The SurfSlot booking fee is a fee for using the SurfSlot booking platform: the booking service, confirmation, customer communications and booking administration. It is designed so that it is not a card surcharge:

• It is a percentage of the booking value, not of the cost of accepting a card.
• It is the same whatever the customer pays with. It doesn't change with card type or payment method.
• It is shown as its own line, "SurfSlot booking fee", before the customer pays, so the total is clear up front.

In Australia the SurfSlot booking fee shown to customers is 3.25% of the booking value. For example, a A$90 group lesson shows a A$2.93 SurfSlot booking fee, for a checkout total of A$92.93.

The fee arrangement for Australian schools is set up differently from Europe, so before you go live we'll walk you through exactly what lands in your Stripe account for a typical booking. As everywhere, there is no subscription, no setup fee and no lock-in: we only earn when a customer books. See pricing for more.

How Australian customers book

Australian customers expect to book online, pay straight away and get an instant confirmation and receipt. Domestic families book around school holidays, backpackers and international visitors book a few days ahead, and accommodation partners refer guests. SurfSlot's booking page and website widget take bookings around the clock in AUD, send confirmations and reminders automatically, and give hostels and partners a direct booking link so referred bookings arrive with participant details. Multi-day learn-to-surf packages and gift cards are sold from the same page.

Where we are live

SurfSlot is live with surf schools in New South Wales. See the Port Stephens, Newcastle and New South Wales surf school directories, and our market notes for Byron Bay. The team is based in Portugal, so we schedule onboarding calls around Australian time zones.