The 6:00 AM class has 20 bikes and a WhatsApp group with 84 people in it. Someone posts "HIIT tomorrow, who's in?" at dinner time, the thumbs pile up, and at 5:45 AM the coach is standing in the doorway counting emoji on a phone. Twenty-three people arrive. Three of them go home.
The gym management app could fix this, but the class costs less per month than the software does. This is the free version: a list that opens the night before, takes 20 names, closes before class, and resets itself for the next one.
What a class needs from a list
A gym class is not one list. It is the same list every day, with the same link, and a count that starts over each time. Three rules cover it.
The cap is per class, not per month. Twenty spots today, twenty tomorrow. The count for one class has nothing to do with the count for the next.
Signups happen the night before. Nobody wants to reserve a spot for Thursday on Monday, and nobody wants to be told the list is full because it never closed. The window opens in the evening and closes an hour before the class.
Members see a number. "You're #12 today" means they set the alarm. "You're #21" means they sleep in. Either way, nobody drives to the gym to find out.
The ready-made setup
This template is those three rules, already configured. Click through and the waitlist exists with the cap, the window, and the fields in place.
Gym classes
Mon to Fri, 6 PM to 5 PM the next day
4 questions
How the overnight window works
The trick in this setup is that the day starts at 6:00 PM, not at midnight. Capacity is 20 per day, and the reset time is 6:00 PM. So at 6:00 PM on Monday, Tuesday's class count begins at zero.
Opening hours run from 6:00 PM to 5:00 PM. Because the close time is earlier than the open time, the window crosses midnight. It opens Monday at 6:00 PM, stays open through the night, and closes Tuesday at 5:00 PM, an hour before the 6:00 PM class. Then at 6:00 PM the count resets and the window opens again for Wednesday.
If you run a morning class instead, set the close time to an hour before it, say 5:00 AM for a 6:00 AM class. The window then runs from 6:00 PM to 5:00 AM. The count still resets at 6:00 PM, when signups open. Numbers restart with every class, so a member is #4 on Tuesday and #17 on Wednesday, and the count on the form always reads for the class it is about.
Weekdays only means Saturday and Sunday are left out of the hours. Anyone who opens the link on the weekend sees when Monday's list opens instead of a form.
What a member sees
They open the link from the pinned message or a bio, type a name, phone, and membership number, and tap "Book my spot." The success screen shows their number. A confirmation email arrives with the same number and a status link.
The status link is the part that saves the coach the most time. A member who cannot make it taps it, leaves the list, and the spot is free for the next person. No message to the group, no "can someone take my spot," no coach editing a list at 5:30 AM.
If they try to book twice, the second attempt shows the number they already have. One entry per email, and the email is the one field every form has.
What the coach sees
An email per booking, so the class fills in real time on a phone. The Entries tab lists the class in order with the membership number next to each name, which is the roster. Export it as CSV, or on the $5 Starter plan send each booking to a webhook that feeds the sheet you already use.
If someone books and then does not show three times running, delete the entry. The spot opens for the next member and the number is not reused.
When the cap is a week, not a night
Not every studio runs the same class every day. A yoga studio with a mixed schedule might sell 40 mats a week across all classes and let students pick which one on the form. That is the same product with a different window: capacity 40 per week, resetting Sunday at 8:00 PM, no opening hours, and a dropdown for the class.
Yoga studios
Open any time
4 questions
The difference between the two is only the reset. A daily cap with an overnight window is for one class that repeats. A weekly cap with no hours is for a timetable where the total matters more than the individual class.
When you need two lists
Each waitlist has one capacity window, so a gym running a 6:00 AM class and a 6:00 PM class with separate caps needs two waitlists. Both are free, both take a minute to create from the template, and each has its own link. Put the morning link and the evening link in the same pinned message and the group chat is done.
If you would rather have one form with a choice of class, use a slot field instead. Each option gets its own cap, a full class greys out, and the day's total is the sum. That works well for a studio with four classes a day and a shared form.
When not to use us
Unwaited does not text anyone. Members get email, and you can send a "your turn" email one at a time when a spot opens. If your members will not read email and the whole system depends on a text at 5:00 AM, a gym management app with SMS is the better fit, and it is worth its price for a gym with several hundred members.
It also does not bill. If the class is paid per session and the payment has to happen at booking, you need software that takes cards, and most of it charges per member per month. Many small gyms use both: the free list for the daily cap, the membership system for the money.
And if the class never fills, you do not need a cap. A pinned message is fine until the morning 23 people show up for 20 bikes.