The best appointment scheduling software of 2026

With Calendly, you connect your calendar, set the hours you're free, and send a link; the other person picks a slot and it lands in both calendars. That makes it a natural fit for consultants, coaches, recruiters and sales teams whose appointments are meetings rather than haircuts.

Prices per seat per month on November 4, 2026:

• Free: one event type and one calendar connection.
• Standard, $10 billed yearly or $12 monthly: unlimited event types, several calendar connections, reminders and other automations, HubSpot and Mailchimp connections, and Stripe and PayPal payments.
• Teams, $16 yearly or $20 monthly: adds round robin and team scheduling, lead qualification and routing, central control of event types, and Salesforce sync.
• Enterprise: from $15,000 a year with a 50-seat minimum.

Calendly's meeting notetaker and its email scheduling assistant, Callie, are optional extras that raise Standard to $18 a seat billed yearly. Paid plans start with a 14-day trial, after which you drop to the free plan rather than being charged.

Choose it if you book meetings and want a link everyone already trusts. Skip it if you run a service business with staff rotas, packages and in-person payments; Acuity and Square Appointments handle those better.

Acuity Scheduling, owned by Squarespace, is built for businesses where the appointment is the product: therapists, trainers, tutors, photographers and consultants who charge per session. Clients fill in your intake form, pay or leave a deposit, and get reminders, all before they show up.

Prices in US dollars on November 4, 2026, with 20% off for yearly billing:

• Starter, $16 a month yearly or $20 monthly: one calendar, payments through Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo, email reminders, custom client forms and automatic time zone conversion.
• Standard, $27 yearly or $34 monthly: up to 6 calendars, plus text reminders, a waitlist, packages and gift certificates.
• Premium, $55 yearly or $69 monthly: up to 36 calendars, an AI booking assistant, different time zones per staff member or location, custom API and CSS, and a signed BAA for HIPAA compliance.

Acuity also connects with Google and Apple calendars, Zapier and Mailchimp. Every plan has a 7-day trial with no card, which is short, so set up your services before you start it.

Choose it if you sell sessions and want forms, deposits and packages in one place. Skip it if you mostly book sales calls, where Calendly's free plan goes further, or if you need HIPAA on a budget, since only Premium offers the BAA.

Square Appointments suits businesses where clients book online and pay at the counter, such as salons, barbers, spas and studios. Bookings, the client list and card payments run through one Square account, so the money from an appointment shows up next to the booking.

Square's plans on November 4, 2026, priced per location per month:

• Free, $0: an online booking site, appointment reminders and unlimited staff calendars.
• Plus, $49: adds cancellation policies and no-show fees, multi-staff appointments and a waitlist.
• Premium, $149: adds a future bookings report, service cost tracking and resource management.

The plan fee is only part of the cost. Card fees on the Free plan were 2.6% plus 15 cents in person and 3.3% plus 30 cents online. Plus cuts those to 2.5% plus 15 cents and 2.9% plus 30 cents, and Premium to 2.4% plus 15 cents in person. Businesses processing over $250,000 a year can ask Square about custom rates.

Choose it if you already use Square at the till or want one company for bookings and payments. Skip it if you don't take payments through Square, because you'd be paying for a payments system you don't use; Setmore's free plan covers the booking side alone.

Setmore gives a small team a free booking page with no cap on appointments. The free plan covers up to 4 users, takes online and in-person payments, and sends email reminders, which is enough for a small clinic, a two-chair barber or a tutoring business.

On November 4, 2026, there were two plans:

• Free, $0: up to 4 users, unlimited appointments, one email reminder per booking, online, in-person and Tap to Pay payments.
• Pro, $5 per user a month billed yearly: unlimited users, text reminders with 500 credits a month per team member, a second reminder, deposits, two-way calendar sync, recurring and video appointments, Google review requests, no Setmore branding, API access and a signed HIPAA BAA.

Setmore counts every staff member with their own calendar as a user, even if that person never logs in. You can try Pro for 30 days and ask for a refund if it doesn't suit you. A live receptionist service costs $99 a month extra and is only available in the US.

Choose it if you have four or fewer staff and want online booking without a monthly bill. Skip it if you need text reminders on the free plan, or if you expect to grow past 4 users quickly and want to compare per-user costs first.

SimplyBook.me builds you a booking website and widget, then lets you switch on extra "custom features" such as coupons and gift cards, point of sale, client import or HIPAA. That suits a business with an unusual setup, for example a clinic with several providers or a class studio, because you can add the pieces you need.

The free plan has no time limit. It allows 50 bookings a month, one provider and one custom feature, with the booking website, widget, admin app and a WordPress widget. Paid plans raise the limits:

• Basic: 100 bookings, 5 providers, 3 custom features, plus a client app and payments with deposits and tips.
• Standard: 500 bookings, 15 providers, 8 custom features, a branded client app, HIPAA and SAML single sign-on.
• Premium: 2,000 bookings, 30 providers, unlimited custom features and QuickBooks, FreshBooks and Xero connections.

When we checked on November 4, 2026, the pricing page showed prices only in euros, so we can't quote a US price. There is a 14-day trial with no card.

Choose it if your booking needs don't fit a simple calendar link. Skip it if you want a short setup, as the long feature list takes time to work through.

Cal.com works much like Calendly: you share a link, people pick a time, and the meeting lands in your calendar. It gives more away on its free plan and charges less for team features.

The free plan is for one user, with unlimited booking links and calendars, email and SMS notifications, Stripe and PayPal payments, Salesforce and HubSpot sync, mobile apps, a browser extension and an import from Calendly. Paid plans on November 4, 2026, per user per month billed yearly:

• Teams, $12: team scheduling with shared availability, round robin, collective and recurring events, routing forms, workflows, booking analytics and no Cal.com branding.
• Organizations, $28: unlimited sub-teams, a company subdomain, SAML single sign-on and SCIM, and SOC 2, HIPAA and ISO 27001 compliance.

Both paid plans come with a 14-day trial. Monthly billing costs more; the page says yearly saves 25%.

Cal.com also maintains Cal.diy, a free, MIT-licensed version you host yourself, which it recommends for personal, non-production use.

Choose it if you need round robin across a sales or support team and Calendly's Teams price feels high. Skip it if your clients pay at a front desk; it is a meeting scheduler, not a salon system.

OnceHub, which used to be called ScheduleOnce, is aimed at sales and customer teams. Beyond booking links, it can ask a website visitor a few questions in a routing form or chatbot and then offer a meeting with the right rep.

Prices per seat per month on November 4, 2026, with yearly billing saving up to 18%:

• Basic, free: one user, one connected calendar and one booking link, with booking approval.
• Schedule, $10 yearly or $12 monthly: unlimited booking links and calendars, group sessions, Salesforce and HubSpot, and Stripe payments.
• Route, $19 yearly or $23 monthly: unlimited routing forms, round robin and assignment to the CRM contact owner.
• Engage, $39 yearly or $47 monthly: website chatbots, live chat and instant meeting handoff.

A security and compliance add-on costs $5 to $6 a seat, and Enterprise covers teams of 30 or more. New accounts get 14 days of the Engage plan with no card.

Choose it if inbound leads should reach the right salesperson in one step. Skip it if you only need a booking link; Calendly and Cal.com do that for less.

TidyCal is a booking page from the company behind AppSumo, and its pitch is price. You can pay once instead of every month, which is rare in this category.

Plans on November 4, 2026:

• Free: unlimited booking types, one readable calendar plus one writable calendar.
• Individual Lifetime, $29 once: automatic Zoom, Google Meet or Teams links, an AI booking assistant, custom emails, analytics and up to 10 calendar connections.
• Agency Lifetime, $79 once: adds round robin and collective meetings, a team booking page and 10 text reminders a month to US and Canadian numbers.
• Pro, $12 a month or $99 a year: adds a custom domain, no TidyCal branding, unlimited calendar connections and text reminders, priority support and no platform fees.

TidyCal takes payments through Stripe or PayPal and handles recurring sessions and prepaid bundles.

Choose it if you are a freelancer or coach who wants a booking page for the price of one month elsewhere. Skip it if you manage a team with staff rotas or need HIPAA; Acuity and Setmore cover those.