Premier Booker installs on your own domain, on your own hosting, in plain steps. Most operators are exploring their admin portal within the hour and taking bookings the same afternoon. No command line, no database server — if you can upload files to your website, you can do this.
Your domain — the web address your customers will book on. The one you bought your license for.
Web hosting that runs PHP — almost any shared hosting plan works (the kind with a Plesk or cPanel control panel). PHP 8 or newer. If you already have a website, you almost certainly have this.
Your download zip — from your order page. Lost the link? It's in your order email, and it never expires.
About an afternoon — the upload takes minutes; connecting your accounts is where the time goes, and you can do those one at a time, whenever.
Rather not do any of this? The concierge install is exactly for that — reply to your order email and we set the whole thing up with you, screen-share to final booking test.
Unzip the download. Everything lives in one folder named premier-booker. Your license is already inside it — nothing to paste, nothing to activate.
Upload the folder's contents to your hosting. Open your hosting control panel's file manager (or any FTP program), go to the folder your domain serves — usually called httpdocs, public_html, or www — and upload everything that's inside the premier-booker folder, so the files sit at the top level.
Open your site. Visit your domain — the booking page is live. Your admin portal is at yourdomain.com/admin/. It will ask you to sign in, which is what Part 2 sets up.
Nothing can go wrong by exploring. Every outside connection — email, text messages, payments, tracking — ships switched off until you turn it on. Installing the software sends nothing and charges nobody.
Every reservation, customer record, and booking lives in a database account you create and own — not one we hold for you. At typical car-service volume it stays in the free tier indefinitely. One-time setup, about ten minutes, and the install guide inside your download walks you through every click.
Create a free database account. The install guide links directly to the signup page and walks you through the three clicks it takes. Name the project after your company.
Create your admin login. Add yourself as the first user — this is your portal username and password. More admin users can be added later.
Connect it to the portal. Copy a short block of credentials from your new account's settings page and paste them into Settings → Secrets → Database in your admin panel. Save, reload, and you're in.
Why your own account? Because when you own the database, you own the business. Your booking history, your customer list, your pricing records — they're on your account, not locked inside a platform you pay monthly rent to. Cancel any day and the data leaves with you.
Every outside service runs on your account — that's why there are no per-trip fees and why most usage lands in each provider's free tier. Each one is optional and independent: connect them in any order, whenever you're ready. Every key goes in the same place — your admin portal, under Settings → Secrets.
Powers address lookup, live distances, and fare-by-distance pricing on your booking page. You connect your own mapping account — a typical car service stays in the free tier indefinitely. The install guide links you directly to setup.
Goes in Settings → Secrets → Maps
Confirmations, receipts, and invoices send through your own email address — the one your customers already recognize. Usually your existing hosting mailbox; the install guide shows you exactly what to copy in.
Goes in Settings → Secrets → Email
Trip alerts and two-way SMS relay run on a text line registered to your business — a local number that costs a few dollars a month. Until it's connected, no text ever sends. The install guide walks the signup.
Goes in Settings → Secrets → SMS
Watches your airport pickups in real time and adjusts pickup timing automatically when flights run early or late. A free subscription tier covers most operators. The install guide links you to it.
Goes in Settings → Secrets → Flights
Charge cards through your own merchant account — the money settles straight to your bank, never through ours, and we take no percentage of any transaction. Payments stay switched off until you turn them on.
Goes in Settings → Secrets → Payments
The portal's AI assistant answers plain-language questions about your bookings, policies, and operations — powered by an AI account you control. Skip it entirely if you don't want it; nothing else depends on it.
Goes in Settings → Secrets → AI
Set up your fleet and rates. In the admin portal: add your vehicles under Fleet, your base rates and surcharges under Pricing, and your service areas under Zones. The pages explain themselves as you go.
Run a test booking. Book a trip on your own site exactly like a customer would, watch it arrive in Reservations, and accept it. This one walkthrough proves the whole chain.
Turn things on one at a time. Each switch — email, texts, payments — has its own master toggle in the portal. Flip one, test it, then the next. You're never forced live all at once.
Point your customers at it. Put the booking link on your existing site, your business profile, and your cards. From here it's your operation — and the software's job is to stay out of the way.
This guide covers installing and going live. The complete inventory of what the software does — every capability, grouped the way the portal is grouped, with a search box — lives on its own page.
Describe where you are and what you see — the exact screen, the exact message. The assistant knows every step in this guide and can point you to the next click. For anything about your order or billing, email pb@premierbooker.ca and a person answers.
The assistant knows this guide and how Premier Booker installs. It can't see your account or your server — never paste passwords or full API keys.