Top 10 Alternatives to Calendly: Analysis of Popular Appointment Scheduling Software

A simple “Book Now” button on your website can go places—it could land you more bookings than expected, improving your sales in an instant. But with so many appointment scheduling systems that you can use, how do you know you have chosen the right one?

Most appointment scheduling software offer a wide array of hefty features: a neat calendar that shows you the events you are hosting, a scheduling tool that allows your clients to book an appointment with you, plus extensive admin and billing features. Some advanced scheduling solutions have even extended their capabilities with marketing and lead management features. And while Calendly ticks most of these boxes, you may also be wondering about other platforms that can offer all these—and maybe more.

To help you decide, we detail the main features and benefits of the popular appointment scheduling product Calendly, as well as 10 top alternatives to it.

From February to May 2020 into the pandemic, the US Veterans Health Administration canceled 11.4 million appointments. Among those, 32% had no indication of follow-up or tracking. While private practice might not approach that huge number, the lesson remains that any size of business stands to lose on clients from lack of critical customer data.

Online appointment scheduling software systems offer a host of useful features in such a case. Your business is sure to gain great benefits by switching over to online appointment scheduling. But how do you choose a suitable platform for your needs, given the surfeit of quality apps in the market?

Calendly is among the most convenient online appointment platforms available today. It is easy to use and, at the same time, it provides all the necessary scheduling tools you need: calendars, a notification system, customizing tools, and a timezone detector. But if you think the software is too basic for your needs, we compiled here 10 great alternatives to Calendly. By the end of the article, you’ll find strong reasons to consider each of them instead of Calendly and vice versa.

What is Calendly?

Calendly is an easy-to-use yet robust scheduling solution that can help you save time, speed up sales, and enhance service quality. You can get rid of the old-fashioned method of using phone and email tags for scheduling appointments, demos, interviews, calls, and more.

What makes Calendly stand above the competition? It is simple and attractive to use: You can set your availability preference, share the link with your team members, clients, etc., and allow them to pick a suitable time for the event, which is added automatically to your calendar. Thus, this product is more efficient compared to conventional scheduling platforms, as it makes it effortless for you to set up and manage appointment scheduling and more.

Top 10 Alternatives to Calendly

1. SimplyBook.me

SimplyBook.me is an online booking platform that can be used by a range of businesses to streamline their booking and scheduling procedures. It can be accessed from desktops and mobile devices, allowing customers to make bookings 24/7 from any location.

The app automatically sends email/SMS reminders and confirmation alerts after a booking is made, and clients can cancel their appointment anytime they want. You can customize the booking page and add it to your company’s webpage or Facebook fan-page. Plus, this platform also allows you to gather feedback from your customers to improve services and user experience.

To give you a wider range of choices, we provide viable SimplyBook.me alternatives here.

Why use SimplyBook.me instead of Calendly?

• It can be easily integrated with several other online services.
• You can collect more information about clients using additional field plugins.
• The discovery plugin offers deep insights into business operations.
• The payment plugin allows you to accept online payments through Paypal, Bitcoin, Dwolla, Skrill, and Zooz before a booking is confirmed.

Why use Calendly instead of SimplyBook.me?

• Its simple and modern interface ensures a smooth user experience.
• It offers easy-to-use yet powerful features.
• It automatically adds new events to calendars.
• It is more simplified and efficient compared to traditional appointment scheduling programs.

2. vCita Online Scheduling

vCita is an appointment scheduling system that is used by more than 100,000 consultants, health professionals, coaches, lawyers, photographers, accountants, financial advisers, and other service providers. It offers online scheduling, client billing and communication, contact management, and email marketing features, among others.

The software’s contact form plugins and online scheduling options can be utilized by your website visitors to request a service, book an appointment, and reserve time for consultation with you. The contact form can generate valuable leads from your website. It can be easily set up on any website and offers many customization tools for your branding needs.

To provide you with a wider choice, we present viable vCita alternatives here.

Why use vCita instead of Calendly?

• Its contact form enables integrated contacts management and offers options for online scheduling and payments.
• Plus, you can place a contact form on every page of your website to invite visitors to contact you.
• You can get more clients and streamline their communication with your team members.
• You can respond and follow up using any device.

Why use Calendly instead of vCita?

• Its integration with Zapier allows triggering actions in other solutions after an event is scheduled or canceled.
• It offers automatic and custom notifications.
• It provides invitee calendar integration.
• It is more simplified and efficient compared to conventional appointment scheduling programs.

3. Honeybook

Honeybook is an all-in-one business management platform built for small businesses and freelancers. It is an end-to-end solution that streamlines business operations, from project management and client booking to billing and invoicing.

Automation tools of Honeybook allow you to set your workflows on autopilot. Tasks such as appointment requests, follow-ups, payment reminders, and thank you emails can be automated. This helps you provide immediate responses to your clients without missing any single inquiry.

You can check out Honeybook alternatives for more options.

Why use Honeybook instead of Calendly?

• Aside from booking features, Honeybook has complete tools for business management, like project tracking, billing, and invoicing.
• It stores all client records, such as schedules, appointment updates, and payment history, in one organized platform.
• Its project tracking feature gives you a complete view of all your tasks’ and projects’ progress.
• It lets you communicate with your clients in one neat messaging tool.

Why use Calendly instead of Honeybook?

• Custom reminders and confirmations can be automatically sent to clients to ensure maximum retention.
• Premium subscribers get prompt email support during business hours.
• The app enables promising prospects that you can connect with right away.
• It has a user-friendly interface, allowing you to get used to the system more quickly.

4. Workiz

Workiz is a job scheduling and management software that lets businesses assign jobs to field service technicians. Service-based businesses can use Workiz tools to stay on top of appointments and process payments, ultimately boosting revenue.

Workiz is tailored for the needs of the field service industry such as those that provide appliance repair, plumbing, pool services, and the like.

The main draw of Workiz is its drag-and-drop and color-coded calendar, which makes it easy to schedule customer visits based on their service areas. Workiz also makes collecting customer payments quick and hassle-free. The mobile app lets technicians accept credit card payments onsite. In addition, Workiz has an online booking system that you can add to your website or social media profile to show your actual availability in real time.

You can also check out Workiz alternatives here.

Why use Workiz instead of Calendly?

• It is made for the needs of on-demand field service businesses.
• It allows you to call customers straight from the calendar page.
• Tracking and listening to recordings within the system is possible.
• You want to keep customer info within your appointment system.
• There’s a  way to track how much time technicians spend on a job.

Why Use Calendly instead of Workiz?

• You only need a general calendar app to schedule meetings with team members and clients.
• Managing meetings in multiple time zones is something you do quite often.
• You want to send a personalized calendar meeting link.

5. Easy Busy Pets

Specifically designed for pet care businesses, Easy Busy Pets is an all-in-one platform that offers appointment scheduling, organic digital marketing, and team management capabilities. As an appointment scheduler, it simplifies documentation and service scheduling. It supports the creation of custom forms. These forms help ensure that businesses are able to acquire information necessary for them to provide the best possible pet care service during a customer’s appointment.

Easy Busy Pets has built-in payment and invoicing features as well. These make it easier for users to send invoices and for their customers to secure payment for the services they schedule. Aside from appointment scheduling and other customer-centric functionalities, Easy Busy Pets also offers back-end and marketing features, including website creation, membership management, and payroll calculation.

For other apps with similarly robust features, check out these Easy Busy Pets alternatives.

Why use Easy Busy Pets instead of Calendly?

• It is specifically made for pet care businesses.
• It has a built-in website builder that helps you create mobile-ready and SEO-optimized business website.
• It supports invoice and payment processing.
• It automates customer review collection and publication.
• It comes with organic social marketing tools.

Why Use Calendly instead of Easy Busy Pets?

• It can be embedded with your existing website.
• It has an open API that supports customization.
• It offers a robust reporting system.
• It supports seamless calendar integration for both users and guests/customers.

6. monday.com

Collaboration software monday.com is a tool that lets teams see their work in one shared workspace. With monday.com, you get the visibility you need to ensure that you meet project goals and deadlines.

The main feature of monday.com is its capability to create boards that users can customize with rows and columns to fit any project. However, monday.com also features a Calendar View as one of its building blocks. With Calendar View, you can see all board items by date so you know exactly what must be accomplished in a given day, week, or month. Do even more with Calendar Widgets. This feature lets you add calendars from certain boards and groups, as well as set time frames and filter events.

You can also check out monday.com alternatives here.

Why use monday.com instead of Calendly?

• You want to use a calendar to manage project-related tasks.
• Gain visibility to your team’s workload in a given day, week, month, or year.
• You want to view your calendar together with other boards.
• It provides you with a visual and intuitive way to manage your tasks in a timeline.
• It’s possible to add automation to your calendar without learning how to code.

Why Use Calendly instead of monday.com?

• All you need is a simple and calendar app without project management functionality.
• You want to set up availability rules like minimum scheduling notice and buffer times between events.
• You can send custom email and SMS reminders to invitees.

7. TeamUp

Perfect for fitness businesses, TeamUp is a reliable booking software that allows your clients to set appointments and manage their class registrations online. It gives you tools to set class pricing, timeslots, and availability. Right from the dashboard, you get a complete view of your clients’ class record and event participation.

TeamUp also supports a wide array of payment methods–credit cards, direct debit, or in-person payments. You can also set up a flexible discount code system and automatically apply them to your clients’ payments. Plus, TeamUp doesn’t charge additional fees when you use payment gateways.

You can also check out TeamUp alternatives here.

Why use TeamUp instead of Calendly?

• TeamUp has a team of friendly, professional customer support system ready to help you any time.
• You can customize TeamUp in any style that matches your brand.
• It provides unlimited staff access, so everyone in your teams stays in the loop.
• It can be integrated with almost any platform via Zapier, with popular integrations, including MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, and Paypal.
• It allows you to create customized plans and packages for your classes.
• It handles online or in-person payments on the same platform.

Why use Calendly instead of TeamUp?

• Calendly lets you set your own rules and availability preferences.
• You can share your schedules and availability via email, or you can embed them on your website.
• It supports one-on-one or group meetings
• It automatically detects timezones so clients can easily see their appointment in their own timezone.

8. Zen Planner

Zen Planner is a leading business management and scheduling solution built for fitness businesses like gyms, martial arts schools, and fitness studios. It streamlines customer service and billing processes. It also provides a member application that engages your members by tracking their skills and workout progress, schedules, and appointments. Moreover, it is fully equipped with profile management and community building tools.

With Zen Planner, you can create beautiful and mobile-optimized websites to attract more new clients. SEO tools and managed online ad campaigns are included in every website you create to help you rank higher on search engines. Lastly, you get access to performance reports, membership data, interactive online schedules, and billing in one neat dashboard.

You can also check out Zen Planner alternatives here.

Why use Zen Planner instead of Calendly?

• It has robust automation tools for your business processes.
• It is designed to cater to the needs of fitness business owners.
• It provides you with easy-to-understand reports and actionable insights.
• It has handy features for the scalability of your business, like email integrations, prospect funnels, and integrated websites.
• It offers a separate application for your clients, the Member App, where they can manage their profiles and monitor their skills or workout progress.
• Its free onboarding sessions will help your team adapt to the software in no time.

Why use Calendly instead of Zen Planner?

• It allows you to send personalized confirmation and reminder emails and SMS texts to reduce no-show members.
• You can set the minimum deadline for booking to avoid last-minute meetings.
• It allows you to track engagement metrics so you can monitor your campaigns’ success rates.
• It has powerful calendar integrations, connecting you with Google Calendar, Outlook, Office 365, or iCloud.

9. Rosy Salon Software

Rosy Salon Software is a cloud-based salon management and scheduling software that improves your productivity and provides customers with a convenient service. Its user-friendly client booking tool allows for double-booking, cancellation, and multiple appointment setup. In one centralized platform, you can access contact information, personal preferences of your clients, and the entire history of your services and retail purchases.

Its ease of use, combined with powerful salon management and booking tools, make it one of the most comprehensive solutions in the salon and spa industry. By having a browser-based interface, Rosy Salon Software dramatically reduces the training period for your team. For most, it takes but a few hours to get started right away. In a few simple clicks, you can manage client appointments and stay on top of your schedules with automated reminders.

You can also check out Rosy Salon Software alternatives here.

Why use Rosy Salon Software instead of Calendly?

• Rosy Salon Software is perfect for salon and spa businesses.
• Mobile access to the software allows you to remotely manage your business from any device and any location.
• Its automated marketing tool lets you choose from different email marketing templates and use them to boost engagement with your clients.
• It comes with an inventory tracking feature that lets you monitor your stock levels.
• You can choose from over 100 reporting options to review your business performance and financial history.
• The software supports cluster booking and offers 24/7 access to your clients.

Why use Calendly instead of Rosy Salon Software?

• Calendly lets you collect payments with most-used payment solutions, including Paypal and Stripe.
• You can easily send and access Calendly links via web browsers.
• There’s no limit to the number of events you can schedule.
• You and your invitees get automated notifications for events, meetings, and cancellations.

10. Skedda

Skedda revolutionizes the scheduling management for coworking facilities, meeting rooms, music studios, and other similar spaces. Because it is accessible from the cloud, users can perform their management tasks on the go. Because of that, they can stay on top of scheduling changes or new requests.

What’s more, Skedda is customizable. This means that you can tailor the interactive floorplan according to your requirements. On top of that, you can add office or space maps to give you a complete look at your spot. And because you can make the solution bespoke, you can follow your own rules and policies for all bookings.

You can also allow customers to see space availabilities by themselves. You can show the calendar for daily, weekly, or monthly bookings so that they can decide when and which space they want to schedule. And in case you need to make the calendar private for a while or for good, you can do so easily.

If you still want to look at other scheduling options before you commit, you can check Skedda alternatives.

Why use Skedda instead of Calendly?

• It can manage desks, music studios, coworking spaces, and sports facilities.
• Customers can view the availability of rooms or spaces directly from the calendar.
• Users can set calendars to either public or private.
• The solution has interactive floor plans and office maps.
• You can customize the rules and policies for bookings.
• It has fine-grained access controls.

Why use Calendly instead of Skedda?

• It has a timezone detector for easy bookings.
• It offers customizable tools.
• Users can share the calendar link to clients and team members.
• The user interface is simple and streamlined.
• It adds events to the calendar automatically.

Which Calendly alternative is best for you?

To sum up, there are a lot of options available out there, so don’t just stick to the first one you ever tried. Instead, take your time to learn more about the other platforms in the same category that could be offering more and could prove to give more value for your money. This list of the top 10 alternatives to Calendly should be able to help you weigh each platform’s benefits and key features.

SimplyBook.me topped our list with its convenience and flexibility—it has a user-friendly interface and it provides clients with robust appointment scheduling tools. To know more about its features, you can sign up for the free trial the vendor offers.

In case you’re also into managing and planning large events, you can check out this article about the benefits of event applications.