You can book appointments with contacts without leaving Instagram. Propose a few time slots in a DM, let the contact pick one, optionally take a deposit to confirm, and see everything in an in-app calendar that syncs with Google Calendar. It's Inrō's own booking system, separate from the Calendly link, which only sends an outside scheduling link.

Before you start

Appointments and the calendar are a paid-plan feature. Taking a deposit to confirm a booking also needs Stripe set up, since the deposit is a payment. See Stripe: Connect Your Account to Accept Payments in DMs. Connecting Google Calendar is optional and adds sync and availability.

Propose appointment slots in a DM

In a conversation, click Schedule appointment (the calendar icon).

Select slots. On the week grid, tap the times you want to offer. Each tap adds a slot, and a counter shows how many you've selected.
Pick a duration, from 15 minutes up to 8 hours.
Optionally add a deposit. Turn on Add a mandatory payment and set an amount. The appointment confirms only after the contact pays. (If Stripe isn't set up, you'll see a prompt to set up your account first.)
Send the proposition. It goes to the contact as a card in the DM.

The slot-selection modal showing a week grid with several slots selected and the duration picker.

What the contact sees and does

The contact gets an Appointment proposition card listing your slots. They pick the one that works for them:

Without a deposit, the slot confirms right away, and they get a confirmation message.
With a deposit, the slot is held while they pay. Once the payment goes through, the appointment confirms. If the payment fails, the appointment stays open and they can pick a slot to confirm without paying.

When a slot is confirmed, Inrō removes the other proposed slots, sends the contact a confirmation, and notifies you.

Appointment statuses

An appointment moves through these statuses, shown on the card and in the appointment details:

Awaiting confirmation: sent, no slot confirmed yet.
Confirmed: the contact (or you) confirmed a slot.
Cancelled: the appointment was cancelled.
Expired: the proposition lapsed without a confirmation.

Manage an appointment

Open an appointment to see its details and slots, colour-coded by status. While it's still awaiting, you can:

Confirm a slot on the contact's behalf.
Remove a slot (when more than one is offered) or edit a slot's time.
Cancel the appointment, which messages the contact and cancels any attached payment.
Remove the payment to drop the deposit requirement.

⚠️ If a slot was created in a different time zone from the one you're viewing, Inrō shows a time-zone warning so you don't confirm the wrong time.

The calendar view

Open Calendar for a week view of your bookings. It shows two things:

Your appointment slots, coloured by status (awaiting, confirmed, cancelled).
Your connected Google Calendar events, read-only, so you can see your real availability alongside Inrō bookings.

Connect Google Calendar

Connecting a Google account does two things: it shows your existing Google events in the calendar so you can see when you're free, and it saves confirmed appointments into Google Calendar automatically.

In Calendar → Settings, under Google Calendar, click Add a Google account and approve access. You can connect more than one account. Then:

Set which calendar is the default, the one new appointments are saved into.
Use the visibility checkboxes to choose which calendars show in the in-app view.
Use Refresh calendars if a newly added calendar doesn't appear.

When a booking is confirmed, Inrō creates the event in your default calendar. If you later move a confirmed slot, Inrō updates the Google event and tells the contact. If you cancel it, Inrō removes the Google event. If no Google account is connected, bookings still work in Inrō; they don't sync out.

Reminders and other settings

In Calendar → Settings you can also set:

Automatic reminders to the contact: off, at 8:00 on the day, 24 hours before, or 4 days before. Inrō sends the reminder DM on that schedule.
Time zone, used to display your calendar and appointments.
Ask for phone number, to collect the contact's phone when they confirm.
Ask to accept terms, with a link to your terms of sale that the contact must accept.

⚠️ Reminders fire on a schedule (for example, "it's 8 a.m. here" or "about a day ahead"), not at an exact per-appointment offset. An appointment booked very close to its start time may miss the earlier reminder windows.

The Calendar Settings screen showing connected Google accounts, the default-calendar and visibility controls, and the reminder schedule options.

🐾 Netsuke's Tips

Offer two or three slots, not ten. A short list helps the contact decide and still leaves you room to fill your week.
Use a deposit for high-value or no-show-prone bookings. Requiring payment to confirm filters out people who weren't serious, and the deposit is the perfect job for Stripe: Connect Your Account to Accept Payments in DMs.
Connect Google Calendar before you start proposing slots, so you never offer a time you're already busy.
Use Calendly instead when you'd rather hand off scheduling to an outside tool. Use Inrō's appointments when you want the booking, the deposit, and the reminders to live in one place. See Calendly: Send Booking Links to Your Contacts.