16 Calendly Alternatives To Book Appointments (+Get Paid) in 2024

Are you using Calendly but feel like it’s missing some cool, modern features?

And the cost goes up when you’re looking to host paid meetings, right?

In 2024, things like a customer dashboard, a sleek interface, live chat, coupons, and multiple payment methods have become essential.

If you’re longing to give your appointment scheduling business a boost but you feel like you’re short of options, don’t worry.

In this article, we’ll explore some solid alternatives to Calendly that offer these must-have features.

Join us and you’ll learn:

• 16 Calendly alternatives including the best WordPress booking plugins and SaaS tools
• Where Calendly falls short
• Must-have features for an appointment scheduling system

Let’s begin with the most desirable features an appointment scheduling system should offer.

5 Appointment Scheduling Essentials

If you’re looking for an alternative to Calendly, you first need to know what features make the perfect appointment scheduling system.

Let’s check out the 5 essential features:

1. A Compelling Booking Page

It’s crucial your scheduling software offers you a captivating booking page as it builds trust and keeps customers engaged.

A simple layout, user friendly design and easy navigation makes the experience better.

When you have persuasive content and straightforward booking choices on your booking page, it increases conversions and customer satisfaction.

In short, a good booking page means more revenue and happier customers!

2. Two-Way Calendar Synchronization

Once an appointment is confirmed, your scheduling software should give you an option to sync it with your calendar. Usually Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook.

Syncing checks against your other appointments and avoids a possible conflict that might cause a cancellation or require rescheduling.

3. Automatic Notifications and Reminders

After someone books an appointment, your booking software should automatically send an email confirmation to you and your customer.

If the scheduling software sends reminders via SMS or email, even better. This not only saves time for businesses, but also helps minimize no-shows.

4. Customer Dashboard

A flexible scheduling tool should provide customers with their own admin area to handle appointments and all aspects of their account.

They should have the ability to cancel, reschedule, or make new appointments.

If the platform also allows customers to interact with you or your team members, it greatly improves the overall experience.

5. Online Meetings

Whether your business involves in-person meetings or not, clients should have the option to meet you online.

While it might be a less common occurrence for a salon business, it’s a crucial feature for online consultations, teaching, and similar setups.

An ideal appointment scheduling platform should, at the very least, integrate smoothly with Google Meets and Zoom.

Where Does Calendly Fall Short?

We’ve been using Calendly for years and we admire its simplicity and ease of use.

Based on our experience, we’ve noticed that customers often require more innovative and modern features to meet their diverse needs.

Let’s explore some common pain points customers frequently encounter:

Basic customization: Unfortunately, in Calendly, the limited customization features make it difficult to tailor your booking page to match your specific theme.

Good for online meetings only: If you’re looking to list your services along with their prices, Calendly might not be the best fit for you.

Imagine you offer pet grooming services; using Calendly, you might find it challenging to showcase services, prices, and the relevant agents on your booking page.

Luckily, there are Calendly alternatives that can cater to these needs!

Admin area suits the tech savvy: While the Calendly admin area might seem straightforward to tech-savvy users, beginners could find it a bit overwhelming.

Several crucial options are tucked away within primary menu items which makes it less intuitive for newcomers.

Customer dashboard is essential: A customer dashboard is crucial for a booking-based business.

It empowers customers to manage appointments, handle their profiles, and connect with support.

Although Calendly users can cancel and update appointments, there’s a missing element – a dedicated customer area.

No coupons for loyal customers: Providing coupons to your customers is a successful marketing strategy. It makes them feel special and boosts sales for your business.

However, Calendly lacks this feature.

Calendly can be expensive: Calendly charges per seat, per month. For a small business with multiple team members, Calendly could be a pricey choice.

Let’s say you have a team of 5 members – your yearly bill might reach $960 (12x [$16×5]).

If you heavily depend on text messages for notifications, keep in mind that Calendly is quite strict with text credits too.

Limited payment gateways: Calendly integrates well with Stripe and PayPal.

However, if your services are in areas where Mollie, Paystack, Braintree, or Flutterwave are more practical, you might want to explore alternatives.

To sum up, Calendly is very good at what it does but there are definitely areas where we think it falls short!

Top 3 Calendly Alternatives: Quick Comparison

Before diving into our extensive list of Calendly alternatives, let’s quickly highlight the cream of the crop.

Scheduling software	Full version pricing	Best for
Calendly	Starts from $20/user/mo	Businesses where the primary service is online meetings
LatePoint	Starts from $89/site/yearRenews at $116/site/year	Any booking-based business of any scale
Jotform	Starts from $39/user/mo	Businesses that heavily rely on forms with multiple features

16 Top Calendly Alternatives

We’ve compiled a list of fantastic alternatives to Calendly that offers you a variety of options.

Whether your website is built on WordPress or another technology, or if you’re still in the process of setting up a website, this list has something for everyone.

Let’s kick off by exploring Calendly alternatives specifically tailored for WordPress:

1. LatePoint

LatePoint is a smart appointment and booking plugin for WordPress that ticks most boxes.

It’s well-designed, ideal for most types of business and exceptionally easy to use.

Whether you own a single salon or large multinational, LatePoint has the power and features to help you succeed.

Where LatePoint Outperforms Calendly

LatePoint is a powerful alternative to Calendly that is specifically designed for WordPress.

Let’s delve into some areas where it significantly outperforms Calendly.

Intuitive booking process

You’re in full command of the booking process with LatePoint. Whether you prefer to kick things off with a list of services, calendar, or agents, it’s your call.

If you want to ensure a fantastic user experience, you can customize everything to suit your business.

Customer dashboard

As we mentioned before, a dedicated customer dashboard brings numerous advantages to your appointment scheduling business.

You get a password-protected customer dashboard where you can allow your customers to manage their appointments.

Inside the dashboard, they can:

• Reschedule or cancel existing appointments
• Create new appointments
• Update their profile information
• Live chat with relevant agents to discuss anything about their appointments and future plans

Customers can live chat

Customers have the option to engage in live chat with your team members.

It’s a very handy tool that LatePoint offers which you can use in many ways.

It helps build strong customer relationships, create a pool of loyal customers and ultimately boost profits.

Extra services

LatePoint also lets you link multiple additional services with any primary service.

Imagine you run a pet care business – if someone opts for a bubble bath for their pet, they can conveniently select additional services like brushing and skin care, at the same time.

It’s similar to the upsell strategy in eCommerce stores, where you offer something extra at the checkout to boost your revenue.

Coupons

Coupons are an excellent way to encourage both existing and new customers to make a purchase.

Everyone loves a good deal, and coupons can be the extra push they need to make a purchase.

Unlike Calendly, LatePoint comes with a comprehensive coupon management module. It helps in boosting your brand awareness and increase sales.

Payment methods

If your business provides services in various regions, it’s crucial to have payment methods that cater to everyone.

LatePoint offers multiple payment gateways. They include Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, Flutterwave, Mercado Pago, Mollie, Paystack, Razorpay, and Square.

Control over customer data

Your customer data holds immense value for your business, regardless of the type of appointment and booking services you offer.

This information helps you gain a deeper understanding of customers. You can use this data to design effective customer retention strategies or reward your most loyal clients.

With LatePoint, you get a comprehensive customer module that allows you to create appointments directly with your customers.

If you need to analyze the data with an external application, you can easily download it in CSV format.

Cons

• Some changes require a manual page refresh
• More customization options would be great

Perfect For: Booking-based businesses of any scale.

2. Jotform

Jotform is a flexible platform for building forms. It also empowers you to create a robust booking system with its powerful form fields.

We really like Jotform’s ability to turn any existing form into a fully functional booking system. It works seamlessly, whether it’s on your website or a social media platform.

You can even share a direct link to your booking system in your email signature.

With Jotform, you can set up one-on-one or group appointments, set appointment limits, enable notifications, and easily connect with customers in different time zones.

Here are some key features of Jotforms:

• Easy to manage availability options
• Limit the number of appointments on a specific day or week
• Seamless integration with Google Calendar

3. Zoho Bookings

Zoho has a vast ecosystem, and Zoho Bookings is a standout performer within it.

One standout feature we appreciate about Zoho Bookings is its smooth integration with other Zoho products.

For instance, this tool effortlessly syncs natively with Google Calendar, Outlook, and Zoho’s own calendar.

This appointment tool also offers some really nice features to manage resources, appointments and staff.

Whether you’re a freelancer or a part of a large corporation, Zoho Bookings has tons of features to meet your needs.

Here are some key features:

• Avoid no shows by reminding customers through SMS and emails
• Add custom fields to your booking forms to add questions for your customers
• Dedicated mobile apps for iOS and Android help your teams schedule appointments on the go

4. Doodle

Doodle makes scheduling appointments a breeze.

Its booking page simplifies the process of booking time with anyone without double bookings, waiting, and back-and-forth emails.

All you have to do is connect your calendar within your available hours and then share your link or embed it on your website.

Participants select the time and add their information and the meeting shows up on both your calendars.

• Limit bookings per day or add buffer times so you don’t get overwhelmed
• Set your own hours . each page can have its own hours so you stay flexible
• Doodle allows custom branding

5. YouCanBookMe

If you want to customize everything for a great client experience, YouCanBookMe is worth a shot.

This tool makes it super easy for your customers to schedule, cancel, or reschedule appointments effortlessly.

It’s a fully automated system that removes manual tasks and human error.

Whether it’s adding a video link, updating CRM, sending reminders, or tracking no-shows, everything happens automatically.

YouCanBookMe can integrate with a wide range of applications, including Zapier, Google, Zoom, Stripe, Microsoft Outlook, and more.

It keeps track of every event, whether it’s an appointment cancellation or reschedule.

And the best part? It’s one of your free alternatives to Calendly because they offer a free plan.

Here are some key features:

• Fully customizable layout and notifications to suit your needs
• Control your schedule and availability that suits you
• Easy cancellation and rescheduling for you and your customers 24/7

6. Setmore

If you’re looking for a Calendly alternative with a bunch of features in its free plan, check out Setmore.

When you decide to upgrade, the pro plans are budget-friendly.

Like any other good appointment schedulers, you have complete control over customizing your booking page. This is especially useful when you want everything to match your branding.

Setmore supports video meetings through Google Meet, Zoom, or Teleport.video.

Customers can easily connect with you through video call links in their appointment confirmation message.

Here are some key features:

• Integrate with social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram to book appointments
• Allows payments through multiple methods such as Square, Stripe or PayPal
• Compatible with popular business apps and platforms such as Slack, Zendesk, Salesforce and many more

7. Chili Piper

If your company sells products or services to other businesses, Chili Piper offers a solution you shouldn’t overlook.

It serves as a reliable alternative to Calendly for B2B teams to boost their productivity and conversions.

With Chili Piper, your team can streamline the automation of the entire meeting lifecycle.

A standout feature we appreciate is the ability to assign calls to the right sales agent based on advanced rules.

For instance, if a client is a US-based agriculture company with over 200 employees, it’s simpler to route their call to a specialized sales rep.

Here are some more features:

• Instant Booker feature (Chrome extension) helps schedule meetings efficiently
• Concierge automates Instant Booker and sends qualified leads a form with a meeting schedule
• Automatically arrange in-person meetings and create a booking link for each sales rep to avoid conflicts

8. Acuity Scheduling

If putting customer experience at the forefront is your priority, give Acuity Scheduling a try. It is among those Calendly alternatives that can contribute to keeping customers happy.

For instance, you can make use of loyalty tools like customer intake forms to understand their expectations.

Acuity Scheduling provides no-show protection tools to enhance your income.

Options include storing credit card information, secure deposits, recurring subscriptions, packages, gift cards, and more.

Here are some key features:

• Booking page customization to match your branding needs
• Easy and flexible payment options such as Stripe, Square or PayPal
• Auto creates invoices and sends receipts. Upsell appointments with checkout addons

9. OnceHub

OnceHub is another fantastic appointment scheduler for when you want to put your customers’ needs first.

Whether customers want to connect instantly or schedule an appointment, OnceHub has you covered.

You have access to numerous features, including live chat, scheduling a meeting, or an instant video call.

OnceHub makes sure everything is set up for your customers to easily connect with you.

Here are some key features:

• Use chatbots and forms to manage complex booking processes
• Pre and post meeting tasks automation to maximize outcome
• Flexible availability management tools such as off time, holidays, buffer time and more

10. Amelia

Amelia is a fantastic WordPress booking plugin. It’s great for many industries like gyms, health clinics, law firms, spas, salons, photographers, and others.

It’s another great Calendly alternative for WordPress that allows you to automate your booking business on your WordPress site.

The free version is a nice option for basic needs. If you’re looking for advanced features such as online payments, recurring appointments, unlimited staff or notifications, you’ll need the premium version.

Features

• Automatic notifications via SMS, email and WhatsApp
• Responsive calendar that synchronizes with Google and Outlook
• WooCommerce integration and multiple payment gateway support

11. Booknetic

Booknetic is a flexible and easy-to-use plugin for booking appointments.

What stands out with Booknetic is its ability to integrate with a wide range of third party tools.

It’s a good deal for most basic needs with a one time cost. But if you need advanced features such multiple payment methods or Zoom meetings, you’ll want premium.

Features

• Customize everything to suit your needs
• Modern and user-friendly interface
• Drag and drop form builder makes things easy

12. Bookly

The Bookly WordPress plugin is an excellent Calendly alternative for automating bookings for any type of business.

It lets customers book multiple appointments at once, making it a super convenient feature.

Once they book an appointment, the plugin automatically sends a confirmation email.

As an admin, you have the freedom to customize the booking form, add special holidays to the calendar, set up a space for your staff, and do much more.

Features

• Option to add unlimited booking form, services, and staff members
• Easy to import and export unlimited customers with their payment and stats.
• Create a separate pricing structure for different staff members.

13. Booking Calendar

Booking Calendar is another smart choice that allows clients to check availability and reserve slots on specific dates and times.

You can use multi-color calendars and legends to show availability of days and times.

Regardless of your accommodation business type, you can also allow single or multiple-day reservations with a few clicks.

Features

• Send auto email notifications for pending and confirmed bookings
• A simple and user friendly interface that makes booking a breeze
• Advanced features for offering seasonal discounts or coupons

14. Easy Appointments

As the name suggests, Easy Appointments is a simple and straightforward alternative to Calendly for WordPress websites.

You get basic features without the bells and whistles other plugins on our list offer.

It doesn’t mean the plugin lacks essential features. You can use it for multiple locations and services and connect them with specific employees.

The plugin integrates seamlessly with PayPal. If you want to offer more payment methods such as Visa or Mastercard, you’ll need to use WooCommerce.

Features

• Supports multiple locations, services, and staff
• Flexible timetable that can easily handles the most complex time slots
• Automatically notify admins, staff and customers through email

15. BookingPress

BookingPress is a flexible WordPress booking plugin. It allows you to control how your booking system appears and functions on your site.

You can tweak booking forms however you want. You can also set up different dashboards for admins and staff.

No matter your business size, BookingPress is designed to boost your online bookings and deliver fantastic results.

Features

• Fully customizable appointment booking plugin
• Google, Apple and Outlook calendar integration
• 17+ online payment gateways integration (PayPal, RazorPay, Stripe and others)

16. Simply Schedule Appointments

Simply Schedule Appointments is a great WordPress plugin if you want to simplify client booking for your business.

It packs loads of features to make managing bookings a breeze. One standout feature is how it caters to everyone, including those with extra auditory, visual, or physical needs.

The plugin is all about accessibility, making it easy for everyone to use.

Features

• Manage staff schedules and team bookings
• Build beautiful booking page layouts with Elementor, Divi, or Beaver Builder
• Zoom integration for web meetings

Which Calendly Alternative Should You Use?

Calendly is a well-known platform for scheduling appointments, especially for businesses with online meetings. But we think it definitely falls short in some areas.

Areas like multiple payment methods, coupons, discounts, secure password-protected customer dashboards, and live chats are in high demand.

To help you out, we’ve a few suggestions:

If you prefer a SaaS platform, Jotform can be a great option to help you achieve a customized booking page however you want.

If you have a WordPress site, LatePoint is a trustworthy choice. You get all these features and more at a good price.

What’s more satisfying is that the team is hyperactive in two areas: adding new features and customer support.

You get seamless integration with tons of third party tools for almost any need.

Which will you choose?

Which feature are you looking for in your booking business? Share your thoughts in the comments below.