What exactly was measured?
The sample is 5 businesses (3 hair & beauty salons, 2 other) using Elily on their own WhatsApp numbers between 1 July 2026 and 31 July 2026. Counts are summed per business across the window: messages Elily answered, appointments she wrote into the calendar, and bookings whose creation time fell outside that business's configured opening hours.
This is a convenience sample of businesses that chose this product, not a survey of the industry. It says what happened on Elily, and nothing more — treat it as a floor for what after-hours demand looks like, not as a universal rate.
What was deliberately excluded?
Excluded from every count: the two public demo WhatsApp numbers, which are excluded from every count; bookings made by phone, walk-in or manual calendar entry — only appointments Elily created on WhatsApp are counted.
Exclusions are listed because they move the numbers. A benchmark that does not state its edges is not measurement, it is copy.
What about no-shows?
Within the same window, 33 booked appointments became no-shows, defined here as: the client cancelled less than four hours before the appointment, or did not arrive within 15 minutes of its start time. That definition matters more than the number — counted differently, the same bookings produce a different rate, which is one reason published no-show figures disagree so widely.
Can I cite these figures?
Yes, with attribution. Suggested form: "Source: Elily booking data, 5 businesses, 1 July 2026–31 July 2026, srileo.com." Link this page so readers can see the sample, window and exclusions rather than the number alone.
These figures update when the window is re-run; the date below is the current publication.
