One session. One shared capacity limit.

What does shared capacity mean?

Shared capacity means that bookings for the same underlying session use a common limit. A booking for five people takes five places. A second booking for three people takes another three. In a session capped at 12, four remain.

This is useful for classes, group activities and venues where customers share a space. A private appointment that blocks an entire room has a different setup from selling individual places in a group session.

Connect the products to the capacity they actually use

In CapFlow, a resource represents the space or equipment, a service describes what customers book, and a timeslot is the scheduled session with its capacity limit.

For one class with adult and child prices, both price variants use places from the same session. Two adults and one child use three places, regardless of how the prices differ.

For different services sharing a session, connect them to the same resource and use compatible resource-level timeslots. A timeslot assigned to a specific service is only available to that service. Services also need to match the session duration supported by the schedule.

The shared timeslot is the connection. Merely giving two independently scheduled activities the same room name does not create a shared limit across arbitrary overlapping times. Check the resource, service assignment and timeslot setup together.

Set up a shared session in four steps

1. Create the resource. Use one resource for the space whose places you are selling together, such as a studio or activity area.
2. Set the schedule and capacity. Generate the timeslots with the correct duration and number of places. Use resource-level slots when compatible services should share them.
3. Connect the services. Link the relevant products, price variants and resource in CapFlow.
4. Test across the offers. Make a test booking through one offer, then check that another offer using the same session reflects the consumed capacity.

The resource guide and calendar and timeslot guide explain the settings. For a complete first-class setup, follow how to sell classes and workshops on Shopify.

Protect the last available places during booking

Showing four places left is only part of the job. CapFlow checks and reserves capacity when a customer books, so two simultaneous attempts cannot both claim the same last places.

Temporary holds and pending-payment bookings keep capacity occupied during the flow. If a paid booking is left unfinished, capacity is released according to the configured expiry. Closing a browser tab does not mean those places immediately become available again.

For a supported booking spanning consecutive slots, the party uses capacity in every included slot. This keeps a two-hour booking from occupying only its first hour in the capacity calculation.

Shared capacity and member pools solve different problems

Shared capacity defines the total number of people a session can accommodate. Member and public pools decide who can book portions of that capacity.

For example, a 12-place session could reserve four places for members and make eight available to the public. Those allocations sit inside the same total of 12. Unused member places can be released to the public before the session, based on your settings.

You do not need a member allocation to run an ordinary public class. Memberships and capacity pools are included from Pro at $35 per month. Read how to configure capacity pools or compare the plans.

See the same sessions in your admin calendar

Staff can use the calendar to inspect bookings and session capacity, then check guests in when they arrive. Analytics helps you review occupancy across your schedule. The Copenhagen Cable Park case study shows how a venue uses CapFlow for shared activity capacity and memberships.

Try the booking flow in The Studio below. Its sample classes show the customer experience; the 12-place illustration on this page is an explanatory example, not live availability.