massive limitations, stuck in most simple basics

  • thomas83at

    (@thomas83at)


    1 month ago

    We have been using this free edition in several day spa and sports studio projects, and we have never seen such a limited booking plugin before. The website may look great, but once you start building a project with this plugin, you quickly realize how limited and frustrating it is to work with. It is also full of bugs that remain unfixed even weeks later. There is no option to patch the files either.

    We understand that no plugin is ever 100% perfect and that every line of code can contain bugs. However, that’s not what we’re talking about. What we don’t understand is how a booking plugin can be built without the ability to handle something as basic as asking for a customer’s birthday and sending a birthday email.

    Amelia can not ask about birthday date in booking form.
    You have to use a custom field. However, this date picker cannot be used to trigger birthday emails. Additionally, Amelia has no built-in option to properly collect and use birthday data during the booking process. You are forced to add this information manually for every client. Who would work like this in a real business? Nobody.

    Do you want to sell gift cards for your day spa, massage studio, or sports studio? That’s one of the most common products in these industries. But not with Amelia. You simply cannot sell gift cards. This is one of the top-voted feature requests on their board, and even after four years, it has still not been implemented.

    Do you want to see employee names in the calendar?
    Sounds reasonable. However, in the latest version, this feature was removed. Hundreds of users have voted to bring it back, and many have reverted to older versions. Removing such a feature overnight has frustrated more than 700 users who are now asking for its return.

    What about a general data protection and legal terms checkbox in the final booking step?     Apparently, that’s too much to ask. Amelia cannot handle even basic requirements like this. There is no built-in option to require users to accept terms and GDPR conditions before confirming a booking. We’re not talking about advanced features here—these are fundamental requirements in any booking process.

    You wanna have a hero/featured/one service image in your service detail page in top section? You can upload one image, yes. And it will be shown in top section of your service detail page, yes. But: At the same time they will make the button “show all images” – no matter if you upload one image or not. 😉 So you have to hide this “show gallery” element via custom css, because nobody from amelia think about it to give user the option to use only one image. Not a bit point,but why so frustrating and extra-work in basics like a beta solution?

    Need a custom sort order for your services?
    Amelia technically allows this—but with a catch. If you change even a small detail in one of your service, the order of all services gets randomized in sort order, and you have to manually reorder everything again. We reported this bug weeks ago, and it still hasn’t been fixed. How are users supposed to work efficiently if every small update forces them to reorganize their entire service list?

    Do you want to display only the first name of your employees in the booking form? That’s not possible either. The last name is always displayed, both in the backend and frontend.

    Do you want to display service names longer than four words? That’s also a problem. For example, a service name like “Botox Relax Day 24/7 (Night Edition)” gets cut off to “Botox Relax Day…”. Instead of implementing proper CSS for flexible layouts, they simply truncate longer titles. We fixed this ourselves with a single line of CSS and shared the before-and-after results with support. Their response? “This is a great idea.” A great idea? This is basic UX design. We simply added a min-eight to the service box and set a min height for title element. Now all boxes have the same height and the text is not cutted off.

    And finally:
    These are just some of the basic issues we encountered. We have discovered many more deeper problems that are hard to believe until you experience them yourself. We decide to keep this plugin in the free version in very very very simple projects without basic requests and advanced requests.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Support nikolakrstic91

    (@nikolakrstic91)

    1 month ago

    Hi Thomas,

    Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback.

    I do want to clarify a few things for anyone reading this, as there are some inconsistencies here.

    First, the points about Custom Fields and related functionality don’t apply to the Lite version of Amelia. Those features are part of the Pro version, which you’ve been using across multiple projects, so this review doesn’t reflect the actual scope of the free plugin.

    Second, most of the items you mentioned have already been discussed in detail through your support tickets. We’ve acknowledged your suggestions, many of which are valid, and several are already accepted by our product and development teams. That said, we can’t prioritize individual requests over broader development goals or release changes instantly.

    Regarding specific points:

    • Birthdays / customer data: Amelia follows a structured booking flow where essential booking data is collected first, and additional customer data can be managed later. Birthdays, for example, can be added and stored through the Customer Panel, rather than being part of the booking form itself. The booking form is not designed to collect every piece of personal data upfront.
    • Gift cards: This feature hasn’t been ignored, but delayed due to internal priorities. As mentioned in our previous conversations, it is on our roadmap and expected in Q3 this year, unless something unexpected comes up. It’s something we’re actively working toward, not overlooking.
    • Employee names in Calendar: This was a temporary issue and has already been addressed. Instructions on how to configure the Calendar view are available in our documentation: https://wpamelia.com/documentation/calendar/
    • GDPR / Terms acceptance: This can already be implemented using Custom Fields (checkbox or radio button), where you can include links to your terms using standard HTML like <a href=”…”>. This is also explained in our documentation: https://wpamelia.com/documentation/booking-custom-fields/
    • UI points (images, service names, sorting, etc.): These have been acknowledged through your previous tickets. Some are already being improved, while others are under consideration as part of broader UI/UX updates.

    We completely understand that every business has its own requirements, but Amelia is built to support a wide range of use cases, not to match every workflow out of the box or on demand.

    From our side, we’ve been consistently responding to your inquiries and working through your feedback in detail. That’s why this review comes across less as a reflection of the product itself and more as frustration with feature timelines and prioritization.

    We’ll continue improving the product as we always have, and we appreciate all constructive feedback that helps us get there.

    Thread Starter thomas83at

    (@thomas83at)

    1 month ago

    Hello Nikola,

    finally you hvae confirmed all the problems. Lets step into each point one by one.

    Birthdays / customer data: Amelia follows a structured booking flow where essential booking data is collected first, and additional customer data can be managed later. Birthdays, for example, can be added and stored through the Customer Panel, rather than being part of the booking form itself. The booking form is not designed to collect every piece of personal data upfront.

    The client start the booking process and adding all his personal information.
    Now we can ask in a custom field about his birthday date. But we can not use it for birthday mail reminder which amelia have. Because we have to map it one by one via copy paste for every new customer. Who love to work like this? The other solution you share is: the customer need to do a extra step and login into his account after created a service and adding his birthday data into his profile extra, so we can send him a birthday email. Which client love to do this extra in a extra part after finished his order/booking process? So finally the question is: Why not making it smart and give the webmaster the option to add a birthday field to personal information tab in the booking process? smart and easy and let the webmaster decide what suits more for him. No manual work like copy and paste and no extra work for client. Like all other booking plugins.

    Gift cards: This feature hasn’t been ignored, but delayed due to internal priorities. As mentioned in our previous conversations, it is on our roadmap and expected in Q3 this year, unless something unexpected comes up. It’s something we’re actively working toward, not overlooking.

    That is a great news, because we are in 2026 and talking about one of the most needed service marketing material like gift cards. 🙁

    Employee names in Calendar: This was a temporary issue and has already been addressed. Instructions on how to configure the Calendar view are available in our documentation    .

    I can not confirm the linked request in your voting board with +700 upvotes is fixed. Also your team confirmed they working on it. And most of all comments in this request wrote: we role back to 8.x version because its so important for us…

    GDPR / Terms acceptance: This can already be implemented using Custom Fields (checkbox or radio button), where you can include links to your terms using standard HTML like <a href=”…”>. This is also explained in our documentation: https://wpamelia.com/documentation/booking-custom-fields/

    Please show me a solution that is looking like a simple legal term checkbox like this:
    (x) I accept your legal terms and gdpr
    Your solution is this:
    I accept your legal terms and gdpr
    (x)Yes

    Please show me one project which using a select option under the subject line for legal term checkbox. I am a developer in the last 18 years and i never have seen something like this (option for a legal checkbox). And please show me one project in internet or in any other booking form where the user have to accept the legal terms in the middle of the booking/purchase process and not at the end    . Its so frustrating to ask for basics and handle common basics different.


    UI points (images, service names, sorting, etc.): These have been acknowledged through your previous tickets. Some are already being improved, while others are under consideration as part of broader UI/UX updates.

    Yes, and they are still open. Also the bug with sorting option is still open after +3 weeks and our clients have to arange every service from scratch after change a small detail like price or title. Who love to work like this? You? If not: Why your team can not work on major issues like this via a patching option in your plugin to fix small points with a major issue? Other plugins have a patcher section.

    Plugin Support nikolakrstic91

    (@nikolakrstic91)

    4 weeks, 1 day ago

    Hello Thomas,

    We haven’t “confirmed problems” across the board. We acknowledged your suggestions and, where applicable, noted items for improvement. The only confirmed issue here is the service sorting behavior, which is already logged and being worked on.

    The rest of the points raised here are largely related to feature expectations and workflow preferences (UI/UX and flow) rather than issues with the core functionality of the plugin. Amelia is designed to operate in a specific way, and while we appreciate feedback, not every request can be implemented immediately or exactly as suggested. Prioritization is based on overall usage and feedback across our user base.

    For GDPR/terms acceptance, this can already be implemented using Custom Fields by adding a required checkbox or radio button, along with a hyperlink to your terms (for example in the field label). These fields are part of the customer information step, which appears at the end of the booking process (before payment), where user data and consent are typically collected.

    Regarding the employee name in Amelia’s Calendar, this is already available through the Appointment title settings. When the “Employee name” option is enabled, the employee’s name is displayed directly in the Calendar, on top of the appointment. If needed, our support team can guide you through the setup.

    Regarding feature timelines, we don’t provide ETAs, and as a WordPress plugin, fixes and improvements are released through scheduled updates rather than immediate patches, unlike SaaS-based solutions.

    We’ve already covered these topics in detail through support, so we won’t continue going point by point here. If you need help with a specific setup, feel free to reach out through support.

    Thread Starter thomas83at

    (@thomas83at)

    4 weeks ago

    Hello Nikola,

    you wrote:
    “The only confirmed issue here is the service sorting behavior, which is already logged and being worked on.”

    Our issues/requests which are still open:
    – conditional custom fields -> still not possible in 2026.

    – Voucher/gift card (the most sold product in all sport studios and day spa) -> still not possible in 2026.

    – Ask the customer about his birthday in booking process one time and send a birthday email based on this field value -> still not possible to send a birthday email based on date picker in booking process. We have to copy/paste that birthday value as a webmater for every client in another field one by one. Or the customer have to create a user account and add his birthday in the customer profile manual. Who is going to do this? Why not give us a option to add a birthday field to booking process and save this value into customer account for birthday email? Why complex and not make it simple? Why copy/paste or extra work for customer instead make it smart? We dont ask for a super fancy functions, this are basics.

    – Showing a list of services and link the title of service and image of service -> still not possible in 2026. Very confusing UX/IX. We running a test with 900 users. 88% clicked the image and then clicked on title. Then doing a click on image twice then they understand they have to click the small button.

    – Services usually have a start from price. It woud be great to have a sufix or prefix for the price like: start from 100€ and not only showing 100€. Its still not possible in 2026.

    – Your company working with firstname only. We see in chats and tickets only the firstname, no familyname is shown. Why you force webmaster which is using this plugint to add firstname AND familyname? In Dayspay, sport studio and many other company the webmaster/CEO only wanna show the firstname. -> this is not possible, we always have to fill the lastname also. A small point, but very frustrating to talk about minor issues like this in 2026.

    – “For GDPR/terms acceptance, this can already be implemented using Custom Fields by adding a required checkbox or radio button, along with a hyperlink to your terms (for example in the field label). These fields are part of the customer information step, which appears at the end of the booking process (before payment), where user data and consent are typically collected.”
    -> This is interesting. In your own booking process (checkout) its in the last step, like in woocommerce. Also other booking plugins showing the GDPR/terms acceptance checkbox above the “BOOK NOW” button and not one step before.

    – For GDPR/terms acceptance like this is not possible without custom css:
    (x) I accept the terms.
    Without custom css only something like this is possible:
    I accept the terms.
    (x) Yes, i do.

    – Totaly mixed sort order of all services in backend and frontend after change a small detail like price or title in one service -> Its still not solved and webmaster have to sort all services after changed one small details. A hard work which take +30 minutes every day after they changed a detail in a service. After a long time there is no patch and no official bugfix

    This is a only small list of missing functions, confusing workarounds, bad UX/IX and bugs. How woud you like to work like this in a daily business with this plugin?

    Please dont get me wrong. We only wanna try to speed up the improvements and the quality of the plugin. Because this are basics, or its okay for you?


Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

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