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Scheduling is supposed to make our lives easier, but it often becomes one of our biggest problems. Scheduling issues can cost you time and revenue and drive your customers straight to the competition. Even when the stakes are not financial, proper scheduling is still an essential part of a productive workflow.
A wide range of services claim to deliver the perfect schedule, but which is the best scheduling app for your specific situation? In this post, I'll take you through the essential features that can simplify your schedule and highlight 8 of the best appointment schedulers for different use cases.
Whether you need to schedule 1-on-1 virtual meetings, large team meetings, or anything in between, one of these apps should suit you.
Scheduling app | Starting price* | Standout feature | Best for |
---|---|---|---|
Calendly | $10 USD per user per month | Schedule meetings as a team | Team meeting scheduling |
Notta | Free | Complete meeting workflow | 1-on-1 meeting scheduling |
SimplyBookMe | $8.25 USD per user per month | Dedicated booking apps for all paid plans | Office managers |
Acuity Scheduling | $16 USD per month | Highly customizable scheduling process | Automated scheduling workflows |
Noterro | $30 USD per month | Complete appointment workflow | Health practitioners |
Setmore | $5 USD per user per month | Integrates with social media platforms | Small organizations |
Square Appointments | $29 USD per location per month | Integrated point-of-sale payment processing | Service professionals |
NeetoCal | $5 per user per month | Extremely generous free plan | Free meeting scheduling |
* Starting price as of November 2024
If you want to select the ideal scheduling app for yourself, you should consider the following features when making your decision:
Cloud-based scheduling. Your schedule should be stored online, and it should be accessible and editable on computers and mobile devices.
Support for multiple calendars. A good scheduling app should connect with as many calendars as needed for your work and personal life to determine your full availability. It should also support two-way sync for updating your calendars.
Automated reminders. The perfect scheduling app should send automated reminders and post-meeting follow-ups to everyone involved. In addition to standard reminders, all participants should have access to custom reminder options.
Adjustable availability. Schedules inevitably change, so a good scheduling app must be able to adjust accordingly by re-organizing or re-scheduling appointments.
Custom user experience. Your clients and customers should interact with customizable branded scheduling portals, emails, and other contact channels.
App integrations. The best scheduling apps will integrate with other apps in your workflow, including calendars, project management tools, and CRM software.
Ease of use. Last but not least, a scheduling app has to be easy to use, both for you and your attendees, with a simple, user-friendly interface.
Calendly is one of the most popular scheduling apps for good reason. By connecting your entire team's calendars, you can organize standard group meetings and route prospective clients to the next available team member. A completely customizable scheduling portal for your customers and integration with your other essential workflow apps round out the Calendly platform.
One of Calendly's main virtues is its simplicity, even when scheduling for a team. In my experience, ease of use is one of the biggest barriers to workplace software changes, but Calendly makes the transition easier. You can even poll your team to determine the most popular time for an upcoming meeting.
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Sync up to 6 calendars for each team member | Some users report issues with Calendly customer support |
Poll team members about potential meeting times to minimize disruptions | |
Tracking and analytics for identifying potential scheduling issues |
Free plan available with limited features. Paid plans start at $10 USD per user per month.
If you need to schedule 1-on-1 meetings for your business, education, or any other reason, Notta provides a simple scheduling service that integrates with Google Calendars. After specifying your general availability, Notta provides a booking link you can send to the other attendees so they can select an optimal meeting time. The booking page is simple, clear, and easy to use, although it doesn't offer custom branding options.
The part I like best about using Notta for scheduling is that it connects me directly with Notta's excellent transcription service for a full meeting workflow. The scheduling process is easy, and by using Notta's high-precision transcription during the meeting, I get a complete record of everything that was discussed, including a helpful AI summary.
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Provides a complete meeting workflow | No support for CalDAV/iCal calendars |
Completely free scheduling for 1-on-1 meetings, with no restrictions | |
Very user-friendly |
Notta Scheduler is free to use. To access Notta's complete meeting workflow, paid plans start at $9 per month.
Easily schedule meetings, auto-record and transcribe meeting minutes, and summarize key action items — all with one tool!
Despite the name, SimplyBookMe is a robust scheduling platform that excels at booking appointments for service-based businesses. It provides a wide range of scheduling services, including availability tracking, automated email/SMS reminders, waiting lists, membership plans, and more. It also integrates with your existing office management workflow apps, including invoicing and CRM software.
In fact, SimplyBookMe offers so many different features that it's best suited to businesses with a dedicated office manager to handle the implementation and integration process. Solo proprietors may find that it is more complex and feature-rich than they need.
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Dedicated booking app for your business enhances customer brand awareness | Initial platform setup can be extremely complex |
HIPAA compliance for medical practices | |
Available in 14 different languages |
Limited free plan available. Paid plans start at $8.25 USD per user per month, when billed annually.
Acuity Scheduling is one of the most flexible scheduling apps available for your business. Its goal is to automate as much of the appointment process as possible using multiple calendars, automated reminders, and app integrations for payments, invoicing, CRMs, and email campaigns. It also offers Zapier integration to maximize your automation options.
Acuity Scheduling has an impressive range of features that can be adapted for almost any appointment-based business, but that flexibility means it can take some time to set up. If you have the patience to configure all your scheduling channels and integrate all of your apps, you can automate most of your business's tedious administrative tasks.
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Base features included in all plans exceed some paid plans from the competition | Acuity branding can only be removed with the most expensive plan |
One of the only options with MailChimp and ActiveCampaign email integration | |
Unmatched automation options |
Acuity does not offer a free plan, but all plans include a 14-day free trial. Paid plans start at $16 USD per month.
While general scheduling apps are a great option, Noterro provides health practitioners with a scheduling system designed just for their needs. Cloud-based appointment scheduling integrates with your calendar no matter what platform you use, and patients get the convenience of online booking through a customized, clinic-branded app that uses your intake forms. Noterro offers automated reminders via phone, SMS, and email, but it also manages a waitlist of your patients so you can fill in unexpected gaps in your schedule.
Noterro's benefits are most apparent when using it as a clinic management system to handle everything from patient management to billing. Solo practitioners might prefer a simpler system that is more accessible and has less administrative setup overhead.
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Integrates with insurance claim systems | Expensive to use as just a scheduler |
Appointment arrival check-ins to help minimize delays | |
Compatible with every calendar platform |
Noterro does not offer a free plan. Paid plans start at $30 USD per month, and additional users can be added starting at $12 per month.
Setmore is a simple appointment-scheduling app that positions itself as the most affordable option. It offers a similar core set of features on its free and paid plans, including calendar integrations, automated reminders, and a customizable booking page. Setmore connects with social media accounts to offer booking, but it can also integrate your Instagram stream with your booking page to show your business off to new customers.
Setmore is a very user-friendly platform for both businesses and their customers. The sales team offers introductory virtual demo meetings to help new businesses learn the basics.
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Excellent value for budget-conscious businesses | Limited features compared to some of the competition |
Social media integration for booking and self-promotion | |
Supports all major calendar platforms |
A free plan with limited features is available. Both paid plans cost $5 per user per month when billed annually.
Service professionals usually want to focus on the quality of their work, not the admin side of their business, so Square Appointments offers an all-in-one appointment solution. It includes unlimited staff calendars, a custom booking website, automated reminders, invoicing, and payment processing. Because Square Appointments' goal is to provide all the services you may need, it has very limited integration with other workflow apps, but many business owners will appreciate the simplicity.
Square Appointments makes the unusual choice of billing per location instead of billing per user. This means that multi-professional businesses like beauty salons, barbershops, and physical therapy clinics get excellent value for their monthly subscription.
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Provides a complete appointment management system | Only supports Google Calendar |
Offers scheduling options for staff and clients | |
Integrates with Square payment hardware |
Square Appointments pricing is based on location, starting at $29 per month per location.
NeetoCal takes a unique approach to scheduling by offering all of its services for free. This includes unlimited bookings, unlimited users, automated notifications, virtual meeting integration, and more. A paid plan is available, but it only removes the NeetoCal branding from your booking channels
While NeetoCal offers a truly impressive amount of value for free, it doesn't offer some of the more advanced features found in other apps. Integrations with CRM, invoicing, and accounting software are missing, but you may be able to circumvent those limitations using its Zapier or Webhooks integration.
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Extremely generous free plan | Limited native integration with other apps |
Paid plans provide excellent value | |
Supports all major calendar platforms |
NeetoCal offers a very generous free plan. The paid plan costs $5 per user per month to remove the NeetoCal branding.
Scheduling apps have been designed for almost every conceivable use case, whether you're managing team meetings, booking appointments as a service professional, or going freelance. To choose the best appointment scheduler, look for an app with good calendar support, flexible automation options, and customizable booking channels.
Notta AI meeting assistant records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings so everyone can stay engaged without missing important details.
The best free scheduler will depend on your needs, but NeetoCal provides an impressive set of free appointment scheduling tools with no usage limits. It lacks some of the more advanced software integration options found in paid tools, but it's still the best free scheduler. The only drawback is that the free plan includes NeetoCal branding on your booking pages.
Yes, Google Calendar has a free scheduling feature for accepting appointments. It allows you to create an appointment schedule and accept unlimited appointments, but you're limited to a single booking page. For more advanced features, you need to purchase a Google Workspace or Google One subscription.
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