StudioOps Atelier is the workflow side of running a small dressmaking, bridal alterations, or garment studio. Enquiries, fittings, customer notes, quotes, invoices, and payments live in one place, so the working day is about the work — not about jumping between apps.
This guide walks you through what happens from the moment you start your free trial to the moment you're sending your first real quote.
Need help while setting up? Start with the StudioOps help centre: https://studioops.uk/help/
1. Sign up for the free trial
Open studioops.uk/atelier and click Start your 30-day free trial.
You'll see a short form. The fields are:
- Your name
- Email address
- Business name (what your customers know you as — e.g. "Chayil Couture")
- A short URL handle (your slug — e.g.
chayil-couture). This becomes the address of your public booking page atstudioops.uk/<your-slug>/book, so pick something tidy. - What kind of studio? (Pick the closest match — bespoke dressmaking, bridal alterations, occasion wear, traditional garments, tailoring, or something else)
- An optional tick box for marketing updates
Click submit. You'll see a confirmation that a sign-in link has been emailed to you. No card is asked for at this stage.
Tip for screenshotting this: if you already have one StudioOps account and want to set up a second studio for screenshots, you'll need a different email address and a different URL handle — slugs are unique across StudioOps.
2. Open your sign-in email
Check the inbox for the email you used. The email comes from StudioOps and contains a single sign-in link.
Click the link. You're signed in straight away — no password to remember.
3. Walk through the five-step setup
The first time you sign in, StudioOps walks you through a short setup wizard. There are five steps with a progress bar across the top. You can't get to the main dashboard until you've finished — but the wizard takes about three minutes if you've got your details to hand, and you can change anything later from Settings.
Step 1 — Studio profile
The form is pre-filled with what you typed during signup. Confirm or edit:
- Studio name — exactly as your customers know you
- Contact email — where you want StudioOps to send you operational notifications (booking notifications, trial-ending reminders). This is not the address customers reply to — they reply to your per-studio email, which is set up automatically (more on that below).
- Timezone — defaults to Europe/London
Click Next.
Step 2 — Services
StudioOps starts you off with three sample services already on the page: Consultation, Fitting, and Drop-off. These are the everyday things most ateliers do.
You can:
- Edit each one (name, duration in minutes, price)
- Delete any that don't match your work
- Add new ones (e.g. "Bridal gown alteration — 90 minutes — GBP 180")
Don't worry about getting this perfect now — you can refine services anytime from the Services section of the dashboard.
Click Next.
Step 3 — Working hours
Set the days and times you actually take appointments. The default is Monday to Saturday, 09:00–17:00.
These hours become your public booking page's availability, so be honest about when you'll actually be free. Customers can only book inside the hours you set here.
Click Next.
Step 4 — Brand voice
This is your email signature — the bit that appears at the bottom of quotes, invoices, and booking confirmations that StudioOps sends on your behalf.
Type how you'd sign off normally. For example:
Ekuba Chayil Couture www.chayilcouture.com
Plain text is fine. No need to worry about formatting.
Click Next.
Step 5 — Connect Square
If you already use Square for card payments, click Connect with Square and you'll be bounced to Square's hosted page to approve the connection. You'll come straight back to StudioOps with Square wired up.
Square will ask you to sign in to your own Square account and approve StudioOps' requested permissions. This is an OAuth connection: StudioOps does not see or store your Square password, and your card processing stays inside Square. Once you approve access, Square sends StudioOps a secure connection token so StudioOps can create payment links, read the relevant payment status, and match payments back to your quotes, invoices, or bookings.
You can revoke the connection later from your Square account or disconnect it from Settings → Payments in StudioOps. If the connection expires or is revoked, StudioOps will show Square as disconnected and ask you to reconnect before sending new Square payment requests.
If you don't use Square — or want to come back to this later — click Skip for now. You can connect Square anytime from Settings → Payments, and you'll also be able to set up bank-transfer details from the same place. Either rail is enough to start sending invoices.
Click Finish.
4. Land in your dashboard
You're now in StudioOps. The page you're on is called Today.
Down the left you'll see the navigation, in this order:
- Today — the page you're on, showing today's appointments and new enquiries
- Appointments — your diary
- Enquiries — new messages from customers, with AI-suggested replies
- Customers — every person you've worked with
- Quotes — drafted and sent quotes
- Invoices — drafted, sent, and paid invoices
- Messages — automated comms (thank-you emails, balance-due nudges)
- Services — what you've set up to be bookable
- Hours — your availability
- Capacity — how full your week is shaping up
- Settings — everything else
On day one, Today will look empty. That's normal. Two things to do next.
5. Set up the rest of your workflow
These are the practical first moves once you're in:
5a. Finish your payment setup
Go to Settings → Payments.
- If you skipped Square in the wizard, you can connect it here.
- Scroll down to Bank transfer. Save your account holder name, sort code, and account number if you want customers to be able to pay by bank transfer. StudioOps stores these encrypted; only the last four digits are ever shown back to you.
You need at least one payment rail (Square or bank transfer) before you can send invoices.
5b. Get your public booking page address
Your public booking page is at studioops.uk/your-slug/book — for example, studioops.uk/chayil-couture/book.
This is the link to share on Instagram bios, in your email signature, on a printed card, or anywhere brides currently get hold of you. When someone books, the appointment lands in your StudioOps diary automatically.
5c. Customise your email templates (optional)
Go to Settings → Templates. Each customer-facing email — booking confirmation, reschedule notice, cancellation note, thank-you and review request — has a default version. The defaults work fine, but you might want to tweak the wording to sound more like you.
5d. Add your first customer
Go to Customers → Add a customer. Useful for brides you're already in conversation with — typing them in by hand lets you start a quote straight away rather than waiting for them to book through the public page.
5e. Send your first quote
Go to Quotes → New quote. Pick a customer, add line items (description and price), and send. The customer gets an email from your studio's address — your-slug@studioops.uk — with a private link to view, accept, and comment on the quote. Their reply lands back in your StudioOps Enquiries inbox.
5f. Watch the enquiries inbox
When customers email your-slug@studioops.uk — which they'll do every time they reply to a quote, invoice, booking confirmation, or thank-you — the message appears in Enquiries, with an AI-suggested reply ready to send. You review it, edit it, and send it from inside StudioOps.
6. What happens at the end of your trial
Your trial lasts 30 days. A few days before it ends, you'll get a friendly reminder by email pointing you at the billing page.
Adding a card
Go to Settings → Billing. You'll see a countdown and an Add a card and start subscription button. Clicking it takes you to Stripe's hosted checkout page; you add your card, come back, and your account stays active. The subscription is GBP 7.99/month per business, monthly billing, cancel any time.
If you do nothing
If your trial ends without a card on file, the account locks to read-only. Nothing is deleted. Your customers, bookings, quotes, invoices — everything is exactly where you left it. The moment you add a card, the account reactivates and you carry on.
If you decide it's not for you
Doing nothing is also how you cancel. There's no cancellation flow to navigate, no team to speak to. You can export your data anytime from Settings → Data export before walking away.
A few things worth knowing
- Your customers reply to your studio, not to StudioOps. Outbound email shows your studio name; replies route into your StudioOps enquiries inbox where you can handle them properly.
- StudioOps never takes a cut. Bank-transfer payments land straight in your bank account. Square's own fee applies on card payments — Square charges that, not StudioOps.
- No card data ever touches StudioOps. Square handles all card processing. Your data is locked behind row-level security at the database — no other studio can see yours.
- Support is UK-based. Search the help centre at studioops.uk/help or raise a ticket from there. We aim to reply the same working day for urgent queries.
If you're stuck setting up, search the StudioOps help centre at studioops.uk/help or raise a ticket. For anything else, help@studioops.uk reaches us by email.