Emails and texts: to your guests, and to you.
This is the area that generates the most support tickets, almost entirely because of two traps that look like success on screen. Both are documented below. Read them before you tell a customer that notifications are switched on.
Two audiences
| Goes to | Example | |
|---|---|---|
| Guest notifications | Your customer's phone/email | "Your booking is confirmed" |
| Venue notifications | You | "A booking just came in" |
They are configured separately and they fail differently.
Guest notifications
Settings → Notification templates.
| Template | Sent when |
|---|---|
| Booking confirmed | A booking is confirmed |
| Reminder | Ahead of the appointment |
| Cancelled | A booking is cancelled |
| No-show follow-up | You mark a booking as a no-show |
| Waitlist offer | You offer a waitlisted guest a slot |
| Rescheduled | A booking moves: by the guest, or by you |
| Order ready | A hospitality order reaches Ready |
| Order rejected | You reject an order (and, where paid, the refund is on its way) |
Each template exists per channel, email and SMS, and each can be switched active or inactive independently. An email template needs a subject line; a text does not.
You can edit the wording. Reset puts a template back to the stock text.
Templates support merge fields such as the venue name, the guest's name, the time, and {{venue_phone}}.
The stock confirmation email carries the self-service manage link, so guests can reschedule or cancel themselves instead of ringing you. The SMS confirmation stays short and carries your phone number, not the link.
Venue notifications: "text me when a booking comes in"
Settings → Booking notifications → "Text me when a booking comes in".
When it works, you get a text on a new booking:
| You receive | When |
|---|---|
| Booking requested | Your venue has "New bookings need my confirmation" switched on |
| New booking | Auto-confirm venues |
| Booking cancelled | A guest cancels |
The text goes to the venue phone number in Settings.
The link in your booking email logs you straight in
Your booking notification email carries a link that opens the diary with you already signed in. No password screen, no hunting for the app on a phone at the pass.
Three things worth knowing about that link:
- It is single use. Once it has been used it is spent, and a spent link is refused.
- It expires. An old email will not let anyone in.
- It is a key. Anyone who opens that email can reach your diary. Do not forward a booking notification, and do not leave the venue's mailbox open on a shared screen.
A used, expired or invented link all fail the same way, on purpose. Nobody gets to work out which one they are holding.
Silent failure #1: two gates, both must be on
Venue SMS has two independent switches, and if either is off, nothing is sent and nothing looks wrong:
- The "Text me when a booking comes in" toggle in Settings.
- The venue-notification SMS templates being active: the same active/inactive flag as any other template, on the
venue_booking_*kinds.
A venue can have the toggle on, see a tidy Settings page, and never receive a text because the templates are inactive. If your toggle is on and nothing is arriving, email hello@bookmyvenue.com.au. We can check both switches in one go.
Silent failure #2: the landline trap
Venue-directed SMS cannot be delivered to a landline.
If the venue phone number in Settings is a landline (02 9…, 07 3…, 03 9…) the carrier rejects the message outright. Nothing arrives. Nothing in the app says so. The notification is created, attempted, and fails at the carrier with a "cannot text a landline" error that is only visible in the delivery record.
This is not rare. As at August 2026, almost every venue on the platform had a landline in that field, and venue SMS had never once been delivered, while guest texts to customer mobiles were going out perfectly, because customers give mobile numbers.
The fix is one field: put a mobile (04xx) in the venue phone number in Settings.
If the venue's public number must stay a landline, venue SMS cannot reach it: tell support rather than leaving it switched on.
How to actually verify venue SMS: make a real booking, then check the phone. Do not verify by looking at the Settings toggle. "Feature deployed and toggle on" is not "the text arrived".
Email delivery
Guest email goes out through the platform's mail provider. You do not configure anything.
If a guest says they did not receive an email:
- Check the spam folder. This is the answer most of the time.
- Check the address on the booking for a typo.
- Check the relevant template is active for the email channel.
- If it is none of those, it is ours. Send the booking reference to support.
What is not a notification problem
- A booking is in the diary but the guest says nothing arrived: the booking landing in your diary tells you nothing about delivery. They are separate systems. Check the delivery status on the booking.
- The reminder went at an odd hour: check Settings → Regional → Timezone. A venue left on the wrong timezone sends everything at the wrong time, consistently.
- A guest got two confirmations: they most likely booked twice. Check Find booking.
Next
Still stuck? Email hello@bookmyvenue.com.au with your venue name, what you were doing and what happened instead. Please don't send passwords. We will never ask for one.