Tools

12 Best Calendly Alternatives: Which One Wins?

Dmitry Dragilev
Last Updated: Mar. 27, 2024

If you are reading this, you’re probably not satisfied with Calendly and are looking for an alternative.

I was in the same shoes as you two months ago, I looked around and found a TON of other blog posts with poorly put-together lists of Calendly competitors but no real data on the pros and cons of each. It was evident the people who wrote these lists did not test the products.

So I decided to spend three months signing up and testing 57 different calendar scheduling software platforms to find the best alternatives to Calendly.

My goal was to find the scheduling tools most people switch to.

If you don’t have much time to go through all twelve providers we tested below, the best Calendly alternative we found is: Calendar.com because it’s cheaper, simpler to use, and has all the same features and more. Hubspot Meetings comes in as a close second option.

In this blog post, I will break down the Calendly Alternatives most businesses end up switching to, along with an analysis of features, pricing, and pros and cons of how each one stacks up against Calendly.

I promise you that you’ll find an alternative to Calendly for yourself after going through our research below.

Now let’s get to it…

Calendar.com

Calendar.com is a scheduling software with an intelligent link feature and virtual polling options. Calendar.com is unique in that it offers a ton of customization options outside of scheduling meetings. For instance, if users want to set up a lunch group meeting, they can select specific nearby restaurants from right on the booking page, alongside meeting times. 

As needed, users can modify the length of time, frequency, or location of the meeting. They can also create native appointments using the calendar integration of their choice or directly in the Calendar.com interface. 

Many users choose Calendar.com because of its reporting functionality and ability to get a bird’s eye view of all of your meetings across every calendar for ease of use. In addition, Calendar.com boasts some great reporting functionality that makes it easy to keep your thumb on the pulse of your productivity.

Best Calendar.com Features

  • Connect all of your calendars to get a uniform overview of what’s coming your way.
  • Create events in your native calendar and have them sync over to Calendar.com.
  • Mobile app functionality to take your scheduling on the go.
  • Advanced functionality for meeting types and locations.
  • Integrations with popular communication tools like Slack
  • Team calendars.

Pros

  • Ability to create sub or shared calendars.
  • SMS notifications of meetings and appointment reminders.
  • Ability to white label your scheduling pages.

Cons

  • A newer product, so they are regularly releasing new features that are mostly in beta.

Pricing

Calendar.com offers a free plan with basic features. After that, the Standard plan is $25/user/month, and the Pro Plan is $30/user/month. There is also an Enterprise plan with custom pricing options based on your needs.

HubSpot Meetings

Similar to Calendly, HubSpot Meetings is a scheduling solution that makes it easy for prospects and customers to book time with your team members. You can create a meeting link with direct access to your team or individual calendars, and then use it whenever you need to schedule time. You can also integrate HubSpot Meetings with your landing pages to make it effortless for visitors to get access to your team. 

What makes HubSpot a great Calendly alternative is that it’s built on top of HubSpot’s free CRM platform, which comes with several advantages. If you’re using them together, HubSpot Meetings takes advantage of all of your contacts’ historical data and context to provide an excellent customer experience. 

You can use scheduling links directly in email marketing, in saved replies, and in playbooks that your sales or customer success teams develop for better customer connections. If your meeting is just a short call, you can record it automatically in real time and save it directly in the contact’s records for later reference.   

Best HubSpot Meetings Features

  • Native integration with HubSpot’s free CRM and other essential campaign management tools.
  • Direct integration with Google Calendar and Outlook 365.
  • Easy link creation and page design functionality.
  • Create group or round-robin links to share the meeting duties across a whole team.
  • Automatically add contacts to your company’s HubSpot CRM to keep things clean and provide context cross-functionally.
  • Embed your calendar scheduling functionality anywhere on the web.

Pros

  • Integrates directly with impactful tools like HubSpot Call Recording.
  • Comes with a fully built-in CRM backbone.
  • Accessible but in-depth design functionality makes it easy to create exactly the type of pages you’d like.

Cons

  • Works best with HubSpot functionality (Hubspot suite of applications) though integrations are available for Google and others.

Pricing

The HubSpot Meetings feature is available for free, with additional functionality available in premium plans of HubSpot Sales Hub and Service Hub.

Doodle

Unlike Calendly, Doodle is a Calendly alternative that doesn’t have a direct integration that allows a single link. Instead, with Doodle, the organizer goes to the Doodle site, creates a meeting, and proposes a few different times to streamline the booking process. Then all of the participants pick the times that work best for them. 

Doodle is one of the most popular scheduling tools out there because it offers a strong use case for meetings that need to occur across many people and time zones. Because it all happens within an individual website, users don’t need to worry about email provider compatibility, making it super user-friendly. In addition, its straightforward design makes it easy for even the least tech-savvy people to book meetings.

Best Doodle Features

  • Free scheduling polls for multiple users.
  • Confirmation and reminder email functionality.
  • Clear visual snapshot of available and unavailable times.
  • Calendar syncing with integrated calendar providers.
  • No account is required for one-off scheduling needs.

Pros

  • Ability to add blackout days.
  • Works great for group scheduling.
  • Limit the number of events that can occur in a single day.
  • Automatic time zone adjustments when scheduling appointments.

Cons

  • Most of the advanced features are only available on paid plans.
  • Limited integrations.
  • Fairly simplistic feature set.

Pricing

Doodle offers a free version of their software with limited features. After that, users can purchase the Pro Plan for $14.95/user/month

Acuity Scheduling

Acuity Scheduling is another appointment-scheduling app that has been around for a while. While other meeting tools are excellent for individuals, Acuity Scheduling is designed for small businesses or team use. Acuity is best used by service-based companies that need to let their users buy products and schedule their services simultaneously.

For businesses like salons, consulting, or technical workers (like plumbing, for instance), Acuity frees up time to focus on the work you’re getting paid for rather than determining when your next open slot is. Companies can also set up automatic online appointment scheduling reminders for employees and customers, schedule video conferencing, and link directly with your billing and licensing software.

Best Acuity Scheduling Features

  • Affordable plans for both individual and business users.
  • Tons of integrations: Mailchimp, Quickbooks, Zoom, and various calendar software.
  • Data dashboards make it easy to track how many no-shows and successful meetings your team has had.
  • Add-ons to allow for things like checkouts and extra features in the scheduling process.
  • Intake forms for medical and dental offices.

Pros

  • Unlimited appointment scheduling.
  • Embeddable calendar widget.
  • Easy for businesses to create and users to add coupons and vouchers.
  • SMS notification for upcoming appointments.

Cons

  • No free plan.
  • All plans are branded beside the highest tier.
  • Subscriptions and membership sales are only available in the mid-tier.

Pricing

While there isn’t a free version, Acuity offers a seven-day trial and otherwise bills at an annual or monthly plan. The least expensive program starts at $20/month, and the most expensive is $61/month.

Appointly

Appointly is a powerful but straightforward appointment scheduling software that makes online scheduling easy. Like other Calendly alternatives, Appointly allows users to create an event and send a scheduling link to the individual they want to meet with. The recipient can then select a time from the available slots, and the software will automatically start routing the event to the sender’s calendar.

Appointly also offers functionality like additional custom fields, recurring appointments, and preferred contact methods and allows users to set specific availability schedules daily, weekly, or monthly. Most users of Appointly are individuals rather than businesses or teams.

Best Appointly Features

  • Easy-to-use design functionality.
  • Straightforward link design.
  • Integrates with Google, iCloud, Outlook, Office 365, and Exchange.
  • Automated meeting scheduling and forwarding to personal calendars.
  • Time zone auto-adjustment based on the user’s location.

Pros

  • Simple, easy-to-use functionality.
  • Custom field creation.
  • Fully-featured free plan.

Cons

  • No team scheduling or round-robin options.
  • No shared calendar view.

Pricing

Appointly offers a 14-day free trial, after which users can purchase annually or monthly. In addition, they provide a basic plan, which is free, a Pro plan for $10/month, and an Enterprise plan which requires contacting their sales team.

Vocus.io

Vocus.io is a great 1:1 meeting scheduler that allows businesses to create personalized meeting pages that customize the days, times, and meeting durations they show as available. Vocus.io also lets companies put in short-notice meeting cancellation rules and meeting buffers, useful features to make sure the meeting experience is good for everyone.

Like some other Calendly alternatives, Vocus.io allows users to either share a link or embed their calendar scheduling widget directly onto their site or a landing page. However, unlike some other schedulers, Vocus.io also offers a whole suite of email functionality, including campaigns, scheduling, snooze functionality, and template libraries.

Best Vocus.io Features

  • Optional custom form fields that are easy to add to your company’s scheduling page.
  • Ability to completely customize the user experience. Companies can create a custom domain and use entirely custom branding.
  • Tons of integrations, including with Zapier, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Gmail
  • Chrome extension makes it simple to access key features wherever your team is.
  • Email automation functionality makes it easy to keep in touch with prospects.

Pros

  • Includes canned response functionality and email automation along with scheduling.
  • Team functionality for scheduling campaigns shared inboxes, templates, and analytics.

Cons

  • No advanced enterprise features, like SSO or SAML.
  • Some key functionality is only available on more highly-priced tiers.

Pricing

Vocus.io offers a free thirty-day trial. After that, you can purchase a Basic, Starter, or Professional version of the product. The pricing starts at $5/user/month.

Picktime.com

Picktime.com is a scheduling platform that enables businesses and individual users to schedule appointments and services with ease. Like Acuity Scheduling and other Calendly alternatives, Picktime is excellent for companies that offer services that are their primary product, for instance, salons, medical offices, equipment rental centers, or freelancers. 

Easily allow users to create appointments, reschedule, or set preferences for specific locations right from within a single, centralized location. Even if your company has businesses around the globe, Picktime’s reporting makes it easy to understand what’s happening where and if your team needs to change their processes or hours to improve.

Best Picktime.com Features

  • Syncs personal and professional calendars to keep everything organized.
  • Accepts payments and deposits via integrations with PayPal, Stripe, and Square.
  • Integrations with Zoom and other video platforms make it easy to facilitate virtual meetings or classes.
  • Automatic notifications for both customers and businesses. Never miss another appointment.
  • The built-in dashboard makes it easy for users to manage ongoing classes and subscriptions.

Pros

  • Excellent for businesses or services that have ongoing meetings.
  • Integrated review software makes it easy for customers to tell you how they feel.

Cons

  • Not as fully featured as other similar products.
  • Has a slightly steeper learning curve.

Pricing

Picktime starts with a free plan for up to three users. After that, they offer a Starter Plan at $4/user/month and a Pro Plan at $3/user/month. The pro plan requires a minimum of ten users.

Simplybook.me

Simplybook.me is another excellent Calendly alternative tool designed for businesses rather than individual use. If your company offers a service, Simplybook.me is a great option to consider for client scheduling. Along with scheduling links, Simplybook.me allows companies to create entire portals and a booking app for their clients to use. In addition, it’s easy to create a beautiful and professional-looking booking page using their built-in design software.

Simplybook.me has an extensive API which makes it easy to connect to any other pieces of your marketing or sales stack. They are also HIPAA and SOAP-compliant.

Best Simplybook.me Features

  • Integrations with Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Google Business (and Google Meet), WordPress, and many others.
  • Easy-to-add customizations, like coupon codes and custom fields.
  • In-person POS system that makes it easy to accept payment.
  • Customizable client portal to make your customer experience excellent.
  • Notification and email cadence that can be personalized based on your business needs.

Pros

  • Very intuitive and easy to use.
  • Ability to sell member subscriptions, do patient intake forms, and fulfill several edge-case needs.

Cons

  • Limited template library.
  • Expensive compared to similar products.

Pricing

Simplybook.me offers a 14-day free trial and a limited free plan after that. To purchase advanced functionality, users must upgrade to a different subscription level. Pricing starts at $9.90 monthly.

Appointy.com

Appointy.com is an appointment-scheduling tool that offers functionality across multiple different business segments. In addition, they have varying feature options depending on your needs. For instance, they offer 1:1 meeting scheduling and the ability to schedule attendance to workshops, classes, events, and even tours or guided practices.

If your business doesn’t have a website to embed scheduling functionality, Appointy.com offers customer subdomains to anyone with an account within their system. Like other systems, they allow a company to set their active hours, sync their calendars, and then allow users to book during times that make the most sense for their needs.

Best Appointy.com Features

  • Facebook and website booking.
  • Ability to offer last-minute deals and coupon codes easily.
  • Guest login for event partners or guest lecturers.
  • Automatic client verification.
  • Pre-payment acceptance and functionality.

Pros

  • Businesses can use Facebook and other social media as a booking platform.

Cons

  • Limited payment options, only PayPal or Authorize.net.
  • Inability to white label effectively.

Pricing

Appointy offers a 14-day free trial and a basic, free plan after that. If your business is looking for more advanced features, its lowest tier (Growth) starts at $19.99 a month. 

Microsoft Bookings

Microsoft Bookings is an appointment scheduling software that comes included in certain Microsoft 365 business plans. It allows companies to share their availability, let people book appointments with them, manage customer information in a centralized place, and integrate Bookings with other Microsoft apps.

As a native Microsoft product, Bookings connects seamlessly across the Microsoft ecosystem. For instance, customer details sync directly to Excel and Outlook. You can also leverage other Microsoft tools like Teams, SharePoint, Dynamics 365, and Power BI.

Best Microsoft Bookings Features

  • Integration with Outlook, Excel, Teams, and other Microsoft productivity apps.
  • Customizable appointment booking pages.
  • Automated notifications and reminders.
  • Customer management capabilities.
  • Reporting and analytics.

Pros

  • Seamlessly integrates with Microsoft 365 apps many businesses already use.
  • Easy to create a professional scheduling flow.
  • Manages customer data in one place.

Cons

  • Less flexibility than some other scheduling tools.
  • Must have Microsoft 365 to use Bookings.
  • Advanced customization is limited.

Pricing

Microsoft Bookings is included free with certain Microsoft 365 subscription plans, including Business Standard ($12.50 user/month) and Business Premium ($22.00 user/month).

YouCanBookMe

YouCanBookMe is an easy-to-use online booking and scheduling software designed for individual service providers. It allows consultants, freelancers, coaches, therapists, and other solo entrepreneurs to share their availability and let clients conveniently book appointments online.

The platform is simple and intuitive to use. Customers can choose from available time slots on a clean, professionally designed booking page. The system sends automated reminders to reduce no-shows. It also syncs booked appointments to iCloud Calendar, Google Calendar, and Outlook.

Best YouCanBookMe Features

  • Simple appointment booking widget.
  • Customized booking pages.
  • Automated reminders.
  • Calendar integration.
  • Client management capabilities.

Pros

  • Very easy-to-use system.
  • Professional and customizable booking pages.
  • Automated client reminders reduce no-shows.
  • Integrates with popular calendar apps.

Cons

  • Primarily designed for individual service providers, not teams.
  • Less robust features compared to some tools.
  • Customization is more limited than other options.

Pricing

YouCanBookMe offers a freemium plan with basic features. Paid plans start at $12/calendar/month for core features. Additional client management features are available on upgraded plans. Bulk and annual discounts are available as well.

Setmore

Setmore is an online scheduling and appointment booking software designed for small businesses. It provides an easy way for customers to book appointments, classes, and events while integrating tools for client management, email marketing, and more.

The platform aims to be an all-in-one solution for businesses to schedule appointments, organize customer information, send reminders, facilitate online payments, and manage staff availability. Advanced features are also available, like custom reports, coupons/discounts, and SMS messaging.

Best Setmore Features

  • Appointment booking and scheduling.
  • Customer database.
  • Email marketing and reminders.
  • Staff and business availability management.
  • Payments, coupons, and custom reports.

Pros

  • Robust set of integrated features.
  • Simplifies appointment booking and client management.
  • Tools for communications and promotions.
  • Scales from individual to team use.

Cons

  • Can feel overwhelming for simple needs.
  • Reporting lacks depth compared to some platforms.
  • Customer support is lacking compared to competitors.

Pricing

Setmore has a free plan allowing basic scheduling of an unlimited amount of appointments per month. Paid plans start at $12/user/month for core scheduling and customer management features. Team plans start at $9/user/month with more advanced capabilities.

Pros and Cons of using Calendly

Calendly is a scheduling app that takes out all of the back-and-forths when trying to schedule a meeting or streamline project management. Instead of needing to send multiple emails to get everyone on the same page, with Calendly, users can send a single link that syncs up everyone’s calendars and lets individuals schedule at the time that makes the most sense for them.

While Calendly is a popular pick for many consumers, there are also tons of Calendly alternatives available that can help you meet your own unique needs. For instance, if your business needs a more advanced calendar set-up or booking workflow, Calendly might not be the best choice. It doesn’t currently offer an option to add coupon codes or additional parameters for your company booking pages, for instance. 

On the other hand, Calendly is excellent for users looking for simplicity or straightforward software for booking meetings, as it provides a great booking experience. Beyond that, another alternative may be best—especially if your company is getting more advanced or complex with your usage.

Best Calendly Features

  • Optimized for all devices.
  • Open, free-to-use API.
  • Team scheduling functionality.
  • Group events with multiple schedulers/attendees.
  • Deep privacy and control settings.
  • Calendar integrations.

Pros

  • Meshes multiple calendars easily.
  • Automation: reminder emails for attendees and organizers are automatic, as are follow-ups.
  • Easy rescheduling.

Cons

  • Users must be users within your account to use collaborative events.
  • If you have more than one company, you’ll need more than one account.
  • No options to add brand or company assets.

You have scheduling software alternatives!

While Calendly is undoubtedly one of the best-known in the business, other software may fit your business needs better. For example, consider whether you are looking for a 1:1 meeting scheduler, if you want software that makes it easy for your team to have a round-robin scheduling functionality, or even if you’ll primarily be scheduling things like workshops or events. Then, use those specifications to have a look through this list and determine which scheduling tool is best for you.