For research labs and core facilities
Book, run and bill shared instruments from one place.
OpenInstrument gives every instrument in your lab one calendar, with access approvals, training, maintenance history and, for facilities that charge for time, recharge billing built in.
30-day free trial · No credit card · Unlimited users on every plan
How it works
From first instrument to first booking in an afternoon.
Add your instruments
Name, location, hours and how far ahead people can book. Set approval, booking lengths and per-person limits per instrument, or split the day into blocks.
Invite your lab
Members join by email. Give each person access to the instruments they are trained on, or let them request it and approve from the instrument page.
Book and run
Everyone books from one calendar, gets reminders, and sees what is free right now. Admins approve, adjust and see who used what.
Features
Everything a shared instrument needs, nothing it does not.
Scheduling that fits your rules
- Day, week and month calendars per instrument, plus a lab-wide view
- Approval, minimum and maximum lengths, advance notice and per-person caps
- Time-of-day blocks with walk-up hours and release times
- Recurring bookings, reminders, blackouts for service visits
Access and roles
- Owner, admin and member roles for the lab; admin, user and guest per instrument
- Access requests approved from the instrument page
- Book on behalf of a student or an external user
- Instrument notices for safety rules and temporary limits
Maintenance and training
- Service history with type, date and who did it
- Training materials, SOPs, documents and photos on the instrument
- Issue reporting with photos, acknowledged and resolved by admins
- Uptime and downtime tracked per instrument
Analytics
- Utilization against each instrument's bookable hours
- Busiest hours, top users, lead time and cancellation rate
- Month-over-month comparison for the lab and per instrument
- Excel downloads of reservations and usage
Recharge for core facilities
- Rate cards by user class and peak or off-peak period
- PI groups and fund codes, chosen from a catalogue you control
- Cost shown at booking time, split across rate periods
- Monthly statements per PI group, emailed as PDFs, with a ledger your accounting office can post
Feeds, exports and API
- Calendar feeds for Google, Outlook and Apple Calendar
- Excel exports on every plan, so your data is always yours
- API tokens and the Claude (MCP) integration to ask about your lab
- Email and in-app notifications people can tune themselves
Built for core facilities
Charge for instrument time without a second system.
The Core Facility plan prices every booking as it is made, closes each month into a statement per PI, and hands accounting a ledger it can post.
Rate cards
Categories of user × peak and off-peak periods × instrument. A blank cell means "contact the facility"; a blank card means the instrument is free.
Groups & fund codes
Members belong to one or more PI groups; each booking is charged to one of their fund codes, chosen from a catalogue you control.
Cost at booking
A booking that straddles peak and off-peak is priced as two line items on the spot. Upcoming bookings re-price when the card changes; started ones never move.
Recharge report
One workbook for any date range: totals per fund, group, member and instrument; the line items behind them; and anything that needs attention before it can be charged.
Monthly statements
Close a month and every PI group gets a numbered PDF statement with the bookings behind it. Closed bookings lock, corrections go on the next statement, and a ledger CSV goes to finance.
Time-of-day blocks
Ten-minute midday slots, seven-hour overnight runs, walk-up afternoons, blocks that open for booking at noon the day before. Each instrument can keep its own rate periods too.
Pricing
Simple annual plans, priced per lab.
Unlimited users on every plan. Every new lab starts with a 30-day free trial of Core Facility.
Lab
For a single research group that needs bookings, access and upkeep in one place.
Includes
- Up to 10 instruments, unlimited users
- Calendar booking with approvals, recurring reservations and reminders
- Maintenance logs, downtime and attachments per instrument
- Training materials and access requests
- Calendar feeds for Google, Outlook and Apple Calendar
- Excel downloads of reservations and usage
- Email support
Lab Pro
Most popularFor larger labs that need to see how their instruments are used.
Everything in Lab, plus
- Up to 50 instruments, unlimited users
- Analytics dashboards per lab and per instrument
- Linked instruments: shared components block each other automatically
- Booking questions for sample details, project codes and safety checks
- API tokens and the Claude (MCP) integration
- Email support
Core Facility
30-day free trialFor facilities that charge for instrument time, issue monthly statements and schedule by the hour of the day. Unlimited instruments.
Everything in Lab Pro, plus
- Unlimited instruments, unlimited users
- Rate cards per instrument, by user class and peak / off-peak period
- PI groups and fund codes: every booking charged to a grant, never typed by hand
- Cost shown at booking time, prorated across rate periods
- Recharge report for accounting: totals per fund, line items, needs-attention sheet
- Monthly statements: close a month and each PI group gets a numbered PDF, with paid tracking and a ledger export
- Time-of-day blocks: walk-up hours, release times, overnight runs, per-block limits
- Instruments can keep their own rate schedule when the facility's hours differ
- Onboarding call & priority support
University Site License
Institution-wideEvery lab at the institution, under one agreement.
Your data
Nothing is locked in.
Export any time
Reservations, usage and recharge figures download to Excel on every plan.
Feeds, not lock-in
Subscribe to any instrument or your own bookings from the calendar you already use.
Open API
Personal access tokens and the Claude (MCP) integration read the same data the app shows.
Downgrade keeps everything
Move to a smaller plan and nothing is deleted. Features stop applying; history stays.
Set up your first instrument this afternoon.
Start a 30-day free trial of Core Facility. No card, no sales call unless you want one.