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Overview

The Birthday reward turns a client’s birthday into a genuine treat. Set it up once and Bella Booking recognises a client around their birthday and applies the discount automatically - online or at the till - once a year. A friendly greeting goes out on the day, and a reminder nudges the client before the reward expires. Capturing a client’s date of birth is free. The reward and its two messages are part of Messages Plus. See Settings - Two-way messaging (called Messaging before November 2026) to subscribe.
Go to Settings → Birthday, or open it from its card on the Programmes page. A dedicated phone number is not required to set up the reward - it’s only needed if you want the messages to go out by SMS.

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How it works

  1. A client has a date of birth on file (see Capturing a birthday).
  2. On their birthday, a birthday greeting goes out (if you’ve turned the message on).
  3. The client’s reward is live for a validity window - 30 days by default.
  4. When the client books or is checked out during that window, the discount is applied automatically to their bill.
  5. If they haven’t used it, a reminder nudges them before it expires - and stops the moment they redeem it.
  6. The reward applies once a year.

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Setting up the reward

Go to Settings → Birthday. Access: requires the Manage campaigns permission and an active Messages Plus subscription.

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Turn the reward on

The Reward row switches the reward between Paused and Active. You can’t activate a reward until you’ve chosen what it gives.

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Choose the benefit

Benefit type decides what the client gets:
  • Percentage off - a percentage off their bill, up to 100%.
  • Amount off - a fixed amount off their bill.
  • Free item - a service, bundle or product you give them, free or at a discount.
For a free item, pick whether it applies to services and bundles or to products, then choose the items. Under How much comes off, choose All of it to give the item outright, or Part of it and set a percentage or an amount. Name more than one item and the client gets one of them, not all of them. If they book two of the items you named, the dearer one is the free one. A bundle counts as a single item, so a free bundle covers every service in it. Buying two of a free product still gives one free. A free item only applies when that item is on the appointment. If it isn’t, nothing is discounted and the gift stays available: you’ll see a prompt at the till offering to add it, and the client sees the same prompt in their online booking for a service or a product.

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Validity

Set how long the reward lasts, counted from the client’s birthday. The default is 30 days - roughly their birthday month. Quick-pick options cover 14, 30, 60, and 90 days, or enter your own (up to a year).

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Minimum spend (optional)

Set the least a client must spend before the reward applies, or leave it as No minimum.

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How it’s applied

  • Auto-apply (default) - nothing is required from the client; the reward is applied automatically when an eligible client books or checks out during their window.
  • Code - the client enters a code at online booking, or gives it to you at the till. Choose your own code (letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores). The code only works for clients whose birthday reward is live.
What a client sees online when the code doesn’t work:
  • Your code, but the client isn’t eligible (outside their window, no birthday on file, not in your audience, excluded, already used this year, or below your minimum spend): no error shows. The cart doesn’t show Birthday reward applied and nothing comes off. A code is never reported as expired.
  • A mistyped code, or the reward switched off: “We don’t recognise that code”.

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Who gets the reward

By default, every client with a birthday on file is eligible. Set an audience to narrow it down using client filters - last appointment, total spent, no-shows, and more. You can also exclude an individual client from their profile. An excluded client still receives the birthday greeting - they just don’t get the discount.

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The birthday messages

Two automated messages support the reward. Both need Messages Plus to send, and you turn each channel (email and SMS) on yourself once you’ve added your own wording.
  • Birthday greeting - goes out on the day, at around 9 am in your business’s time zone. It’s treated as an announcement, so it reaches every client who hasn’t opted out of announcements - no separate marketing opt-in needed. Each client gets it at most once a year.
  • Birthday reward reminder - sent once, a few days before the reward expires, and only if the client hasn’t used it yet. It stops automatically the moment the reward is redeemed, and only goes to clients who are eligible for the reward.
Edit the wording - and show the reward inside it with the {{RewardAmount}}, {{BirthdayGift}}, {{RewardExpiry}}, and (in Code mode) {{OfferCode}} variables - in Automated messages. {{RewardAmount}} names whatever the reward gives: “20%”, “$10”, or “a free Express Facial”. {{BirthdayGift}} is a whole sentence describing the gift and when it expires, so you can drop it into a greeting without rewriting the rest. Both stay empty when no reward is set up, so the message still reads properly.
Within Messages Plus, the birthday email is included and uses no message credits, while SMS is metered and needs an active dedicated number - the same rule as campaigns. Without a number, the SMS is skipped and the email still goes out.

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Capturing a birthday

A client’s date of birth (the year is optional) can be recorded in several ways - and capturing it is free, on every plan:
  • Client profile - open a client and edit their details.
  • Client import - map a Date of birth column when importing clients; ambiguous numeric dates are read using your business’s country format.
  • Online booking profile - a signed-in client can add or update their own birthday from their account on your booking page.
  • When they create their account - if you ask for it under Client details, as required or optional. A client already registered is asked on Review & book when you make it required.
  • Family members - a birthday can be recorded for each family member a client adds.
  • After booking - the confirmation screen invites the client to add their birthday (they can skip it). This invitation only appears when you’re actually using birthdays - your Messages Plus subscription is active, and either the reward is active or the birthday greeting is switched on - so clients are never asked for a date of birth that would go unused.
Birthdays added by clients online appear on their profile in your dashboard automatically. Wherever a client enters their own birthday, they see day and month only - the year stays behind + Add your birth year, so someone happy to be celebrated doesn’t have to share their age to do it. Every birthday feature works from the day and month alone, so a birthday with no year is complete as far as the reward, the greeting and the filters are concerned.

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At online booking and the till

  • Online booking - when an eligible client books during their window, the discount appears in their cart before they confirm.
  • At the till - when you check out an eligible client, the discount is applied to the sale.
When the reward applies automatically, or the client’s code unlocked it when they booked online, the appointment’s bill lists it when the appointment’s day falls in the client’s birthday window, marked Applies at checkout, and its total and Balance due take it off. Once that day has passed, the bill judges it on today. Checkout always judges it on the day you check out. A code given at the till counts once it’s typed there. When a client is in their birthday window but the reward doesn’t apply, the bill still names it, marked Not applied, with the reason: the bill is below your minimum spend (the figure is shown), the birthday code still needs typing at checkout, the client isn’t in the reward’s audience, they’ve already used it this year, they’ve opted out of birthday rewards, or a gift card for a service pays the bill (no reward goes beside one; the reward stays for another appointment in the window). Bella AI gives the same reason when you ask why a reward didn’t apply. The reward applies once a year and stacks with your other discounts (loyalty, referral, new-client offer, and manual discounts) - each is applied in turn and capped so the bill never goes below zero.

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Tracking redemptions

The Birthday rewards report shows, day by day, the birthday rewards redeemed and the discount value given. A snapshot at the top shows how many clients have a birthday this month and the percentage of your active clients with a date of birth on file. Open it from Programmes or Insights → Reports (needs a plan that includes messaging). See Reports.

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FAQs

Q: Is capturing birthdays free? A: Yes. Recording a client’s date of birth is free on every plan. The reward and the two birthday messages are part of Messages Plus. Q: How often does a client get the reward? A: Once a year, during the validity window that runs from their birthday. Q: I don’t do anything with birthdays - how do I stop online booking asking my clients for a date of birth? A: Check Date of birth under Client details: set to Not asked (the starting setting), clients aren’t asked when they create their account or on Review & book. Separately, the post-booking invitation only appears on Messages Plus, and only when the reward is active or the birthday greeting is switched on. The date of birth stays an optional field in two places a client goes to manage their own details - My profile, and when they add or edit a family member - because that’s their own record to fill in if they want to. Q: Do clients need a code? A: Not by default - the reward is auto-apply. Switch to Code mode if you’d rather the client entered a code; it only works for clients whose birthday reward is currently live. Q: Can I stop one client getting the discount but still wish them happy birthday? A: Yes. Exclude them from their profile - they keep the greeting but not the reward. Q: Do I need a dedicated phone number? A: Not to set up the reward, and not for the birthday email. A dedicated number is only needed to send the birthday messages by SMS. See Settings - Two-way messaging. Q: What happens to clients born on 29 February? A: In non-leap years they receive their greeting on 28 February. Q: Does the reward stack with my other discounts? A: Yes. It stacks with loyalty, referral, the new-client offer, and manual discounts. Each is applied in turn and capped so the total never drops below zero.