Waitlist

The waitlist lets members reserve a spot for a monthly lockout studio before one is available. Members pay a deposit to join, express their preferences, and receive an invitation when a studio opens up. The deposit is applied as a credit on the first lockout invoice.

Who Can Join

Approved members are eligible for the waitlist — members can self-enroll, or staff can add a new or existing customer on their behalf. Banned members cannot join. The member must have a full legal name and valid phone number (enforced when paying the deposit, not when staff creates an entry directly).

A member can only have one open waitlist entry (invited or active) at a time across all locations. They must cancel their existing entry before joining another waitlist.

Deposit

Joining the waitlist requires a deposit payment. The deposit is a flat amount configured in Stripe — it is not grossed up with processing fees. The location absorbs Stripe's processing fee on the deposit.

Both the gross amount (what the member paid) and net amount (after Stripe fees) are tracked. When the deposit is applied to a lockout invoice, the member receives the full gross amount as a credit. When the deposit is transferred to the location, only the net amount is sent.

Preferences

Members can express what they're looking for:

• Specific studio — a named studio at a specific location
• Any studio at a location — accepts any available studio at their preferred location (default)
• Any studio at any location — accepts the first available studio across all Metrognome locations
• Preferred size — small, medium, large, or extra large (optional, informational)

These preferences guide staff when a studio opens up but are not automatically enforced — staff manually matches waitlisted members to available studios.

Status Lifecycle

A waitlist entry moves through these states:

• Invited — invitation sent, deposit not yet paid; the entry anchors the payment link and duplicate prevention
• Active — genuinely waiting for a studio (deposit paid, or staff-created without a deposit)
• Fulfilled — member has been placed in a lockout
• Cancelled — entry cancelled; any deposit is non-refundable by default (staff may opt into a refund)
• Expired — invitation went unanswered; invited entries older than 30 days with no paid deposit are automatically expired

When a waitlist invitation is created, the entry and its payment record are created immediately in Invited status. The entry remains visible while the payment confirms (instant for card, several days for ACH); when the deposit payment succeeds the entry becomes Active and the member receives their confirmation email. If the payment fails, the entry is cancelled. Cancelling an invitation also cancels its invited entry.

Fulfilled entries cannot be cancelled. Only active entries can be fulfilled.

Fulfillment

When a studio becomes available for a waitlisted member, staff sends them a lockout checkout invitation. The member completes the lockout checkout normally. During lockout checkout, the system automatically finds the member's open waitlist deposit and applies the gross amount as a credit on the first invoice.

When the first lockout invoice is paid, the deposit's net amount is transferred from the platform to the location's connected Stripe account. The waitlist entry is then marked as fulfilled.

The deposit credit is applied regardless of whether the lockout location matches the waitlist's original preferred location.

Cancellation

Waitlist deposits are non-refundable. Cancelling a waitlist entry does not refund the deposit by default — the entry is closed and the deposit is kept.

A staff member can explicitly choose to refund a deposit at cancellation time. When they do, the refund is issued as a Stripe customer balance credit — not a direct refund to the original payment method — available to offset future charges. If the deposit had already been transferred to the location, the system must reverse the transfer first; if the reversal fails, no credit is issued and the cancellation completes without a refund (the platform never credits money it does not hold). Members cannot grant themselves a refund — the refund option is staff-only.

Staff-Created Entries

Staff can add customers to the waitlist directly — no existing account required. There are two paths:

• Existing customer — search for the customer by name or email and create the entry directly
• New customer (quick-signup) — enter the customer's name, email, and phone number; an account is created automatically and a checkout link is sent so the customer can pay the deposit on their own device

The quick-signup path is designed for on-site use during tours — staff collects contact info, submits the form, and the customer receives an email with a payment link and QR code they can scan immediately.

Staff-created entries without deposit payment participate in the same status lifecycle and duplicate prevention but have no financial component — no deposit to apply and no refund on cancellation.

Notifications

When a waitlist entry is created — whether by the member paying a deposit or by staff creating it directly — the member receives a confirmation email with their preferences, waitlist ID, and (if a deposit was paid) a note that it will be applied to their first month. The location's community manager receives a notification with the member's details.