How it works

Capacity, not a fixed queue

Each room has a capacity: visitors let in per minute. Under it, nobody waits; the gate lets people straight through. Over it, the extra visitors join a line and are released at exactly that rate, so your servers see a steady stream instead of a stampede.

Fair order

In first come, first served mode, people get in in the order they arrived. In lottery mode, everyone who joined a pre-queue before doors open gets a random place in one fair draw; anyone arriving later queues in order behind them. Reloading the page never loses your place, and never gets you a second one.

Signed passes

When it's someone's turn, they're sent back to your site with a pass: a short-lived token signed by Waitrooms. The snippet stores it on your site, so they can browse until it expires (the room's session length). Your server can verify passes itself, offline, with our public keys.

People who leave

Not everyone waits. If someone's turn comes and goes without them returning, their spot lapses after the room's grace period, and Waitrooms releases slightly faster to make up for no-shows, so your site still gets close to its full capacity.

If something goes wrong

• We can't be reached: the snippet opens your page after a short timeout. Waitrooms is never the reason your site is down.
• Visitors already admitted carry a signed pass that keeps working even if our service doesn't.
• Your site struggles: pause entry or lower capacity in the dashboard; it takes effect within seconds.