CMA Price Transparency Configuration Guide (UK Clinics)

Overview

This feature has been introduced to help UK clinics meet the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) requirements for price transparency.

Under the CMA guidance, pet owners should be provided with clear pricing information for their booked appointment together with a link to access the clinic's full price list. Within the online booking platform, this information is displayed in the Appointment Confirmation and Appointment Reschedule Confirmation emails sent to pet owners after a booking is made.

The initial release of this feature is intended for clinics with:

Primary Country: United Kingdom (UK)
Language: English (UK) or English (US)

Enabling the Feature

To begin using the CMA Price Transparency feature, our internal teams must first enable the following setting:

Clinic Settings → Configurations → Admin Settings → Features → Standard Price Transparency

Once this setting is turned ON and the changes are saved, the following functionality becomes available within the Online booking platform

Appointment Fee attribute in Appointment Type and DM Campaign configuration screens
Show Appointment Fees in Appointment Confirmations toggle in Advanced Settings
Price List URL field in Advanced Settings
Show Price List URL in Appointment Confirmations toggle in Advanced Settings
A new CMA Pricing Block appended to the bottom of the Appointment Confirmation and Appointment Reschedule Confirmation email templates
Six new merge fields (email variables) to support price transparency within the email templates

Note: For UK clinics, once the Standard Price Transparency setting has been enabled, it cannot be turned off through the application. This ensures ongoing compliance with the CMA requirements.

Configuring Appointment Fees

Once Standard Price Transparency has been turned ON, the Appointment Fee field becomes available in

Clinic Settings → Configurations → Appointment Types → Email
&
DM Campaign → Create / Edit

This field should contain the appointment fee applicable for each Appointment Type or Digital Marketing Campaign that customers can book online. The configured value will be displayed to pet owners within their booking confirmation emails.

Appointment Types

A valid Appointment Fee must be configured for every Appointment Type that is

Enabled
Not Hidden

The Appointment Fee must

Be greater than 0
Include any applicable VAT
Be configured for all existing and newly created Appointment Types that customers can book online.

Digital Marketing Campaigns

A valid Appointment Fee must be configured for every Digital Marketing Campaign in one of the following statuses

Active
Unreached
Test Mode
Test Mode - Unreached

The Appointment Fee must

Be 0 or greater
Include any applicable VAT
Be configured for all existing and newly created campaigns that customers can book through

Once valid Appointment Fees have been configured for all applicable Appointment Types and Digital Marketing Campaigns, the Show Appointment Fees in Appointment Confirmations toggle will become available for use.

Configuring the Price List URL

The Price List URL allows pet owners to access your clinic's full price list for additional pricing information.

Configure this under

Clinic Settings → Configurations → Advanced Settings → Email → Price List URL

Enter the URL of the page on your clinic website where your full price list is published.

This link will be included in booking confirmation emails, allowing pet owners to review pricing information before their visit.

Once a valid URL has been entered and saved, the Show Price List URL in Appointment Confirmations toggle will become available.

Pricing Disclosure Toggles

Once valid Appointment Fees and a valid Price List URL have been configured, the following toggles become available under

Clinic Settings → Configurations → Advanced Settings → Email

Until the required information has been configured, these toggles remain disabled.

Show Appointment Fees in Appointment Confirmations

This setting controls whether Appointment Fees are included in Appointment Confirmation and Appointment Reschedule Confirmation emails.

When turned ON

Appointment Fee information will be included in confirmation emails.

This toggle can only be turned ON once valid Appointment Fees have been configured for all applicable Appointment Types and Digital Marketing Campaigns. This ensures confirmation emails are never sent with incomplete pricing information.

Show Price List URL in Appointment Confirmations

This setting controls whether the clinic's Price List URL is included in Appointment Confirmation and Appointment Reschedule Confirmation emails.

When turned ON

The configured Price List URL will be included in confirmation emails.

This toggle can only be turned ON once a valid Price List URL has been configured.

Email Templates

When Standard Price Transparency is ON, the online booking platform automatically appends a CMA Pricing Block to the bottom of the Appointment Confirmation and Appointment Reschedule Confirmation email templates.

The required merge fields are also added automatically.

The template contains built-in conditions that control whether Appointment Fees and the Price List URL are displayed based on the relevant disclosure toggles.

Editing the Email Template

You are welcome to customize the wording of the email template to suit your clinic's preferred communication style.

However, please DO NOT

Remove any of the required merge fields
Remove any of the existing IF conditions
Change the order or placement of the merge fields or IF conditions

These elements are required to ensure pricing information is displayed correctly.

If changes are made accidentally, please restore the template before saving.

Validation is in place to prevent required merge fields from being removed. However, if any other changes result in pricing information not displaying correctly, please contact our Support team and we will be happy to assist in restoring the template.

Tip: Feel free to update the surrounding wording and messaging within the template, provided the required merge fields and IF conditions remain unchanged.