Top 10 Appointment Scheduling Software and Booking Apps in 2024

Appointment Scheduling Software has become a crucial part of almost every company's day-to-day operations, simplifying the booking process and being a pillar of the acquisition channel.

Maybe you’re a SaaS startup that lets clients schedule demo calls with your team or a law firm that needs a scheduling solution for your clients to book meetings with different attorneys.

No matter the industry, utilizing an appointment scheduling software that is easy to use and offers features enabling you to schedule more meetings while protecting you adds much value to your business.

The Best Appointment Scheduling Software and Booking Apps Reviewed

1. OneCal

OneCal is an appointment-scheduling app that makes it easy for people to schedule meetings with you or your team.

What’s unique about OneCal is that the platform offers appointment scheduling features that is easy to use and customize and an automation tool that helps you protect your time for internal meetings. This is achieved through their Calendar Sync tool, which clones events from one calendar to another from all calendars simultaneously.

Features

• Individual Scheduling Links: OneCal individual scheduling links allow you to share scheduling links where others can book time with just you. This is handy for one-on-one meetings or meetings where you’re the only host.
  
• Team Scheduling: OneCal lets you invite your team and share scheduling links where others can book time with your team. This is handy for team meetings, like sales calls, demo calls, etc, that require multiple hosts.
  
• Read availability from all calendars: OneCal shines when handling multiple calendars, as it can read the availability from multiple calendars, so you never get double booked.
• Different Meeting Locations: OneCal allows you to set different meeting locations based on the meeting type. You can set the location to be in-person, custom location/URL, phone number, or a third-party web conferencing solution like Google Meet.
• Multiple Meeting Durations: Unlike other appointment scheduling apps, where you must create a new scheduling link for each duration, OneCal allows you to set multiple durations for the same scheduling link.
• Your time is protected: An appointment scheduling app should be your companion, helping you get the best out of your time. OneCal offers all the limits you need to avoid facing any unexpected meetings. You can set buffer times and notice periods or limit future bookings by date, business days, or calendar days.
• No unexpected meetings: OneCal allows you to approve a meeting request before scheduling the actual meeting. This is a must for all appointment scheduling solutions, as it gives you peace of mind and control over your schedule.
• It can be themed based on your business's brand: OneCal allows you to customize your scheduling links by setting a brand color and a cover image. Branding can be set globally or overridden for each scheduling link.
  
• Share your availability via email: Sometimes, there are better ways to get booked than sharing a scheduling link. Sometimes, you can select a couple of time slots and share them with someone to book one of the proposed times. OneCal allows you to choose multiple time slots from a scheduling link and send them via email or text.
  
• Fantastic customer support and development team: Given that online scheduling is one of the leading acquisition channels for your business, the solution needs to be reliable. OneCal has a team that cares about the customers and resolves issues quickly.
  

Cons

• No support for payments: For now, OneCal doesn’t support payments, meaning you can’t charge for your booking links.

OneCal Pricing

OneCal can be accessed for 14 days for free without needing a credit card. After the free trial, you are free to upgrade to one of the paid plans:

• Starter: $4/user/month
• Essential: $8.3/user/month
• Premium: $25/user/month
• Custom/Enterprise Plans

2. Calendly

Calendly is an appointment-scheduling app that has been building a reputation for its appointment-scheduling links. I’m sure you’ve seen at least one professional sharing its Calendly scheduling link for others to book time with him.

Features

• Individual Scheduling: Like OneCal, you can share individual scheduling links so others can book time with you.
  
• Collective Scheduling: You can invite your team to Calendly, and create collective scheduling links, where others book time with multiple people from your team.
• Meeting Polls: Sometimes, a scheduling link is not enough, as multiple people might have different preferences regarding the time to hold a meeting. Meeting polls is an excellent solution for this problem, as all participants can vote for the time they want to meet, and the system schedules the meeting based on a common consensus.
• Well-integrated: If you want the platform with the most integrations, Calendly is the way to go. Being around since 2013 means that Calendly has had the time and resources to integrate with the most popular tools among professionals.
  
• Adheres to the industry security standards: It’s worth noting that Calendly adheres to the industry standards regarding security, being GDPR & CCPA-compliant.
  

Cons

• Restricting free plan: The free plan offered by Calendly is quite limiting, as you only get one scheduling link and one calendar. You must upgrade to one of the paid plans to connect multiple calendars for availability and scheduling or use other scheduling link features.
• It might not be as customizable as you’d want: Using Calendly, you can only upload a cover image for your scheduling links and your organization's name. Other platforms allow you to edit the brand color, making the scheduling links more familiar to your brand.

Calendly Pricing

• Free: Limited to one scheduling link
• Standard: $10 per seat per month
• Teams: $16 per seat per month
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing

3. Cal.com

During recent years, Open Source has experienced a rise in adaption and popularity, with tens of platforms going open source. One of these platforms is Cal.com, intending to provide an open-source solution that could be self-hosted and customized.

You can learn the full story of Cal.com by browsing their About page.

Features

• Individual or collective scheduling: Using Cal.com, you can create and share individual or collective scheduling links. Like Calendly or OneCal, Cal.com allows you to invite and manage your team within the platform, allowing you to create team scheduling links and get booked as a team.
  
• API Integration: Cal.com offers API integration for almost every feature it provides. This is handy if you want to integrate Cal.com with your internal systems.
• Support for payments: If you want to charge for your time, Cal.com is an excellent choice, as it integrates with Stripe for a flawless experience.
• It integrates with plenty of platforms: Although Cal.com doesn’t have nearly enough integrations as Calendly, it’s worth mentioning that Cal.com has an app directory and is quickly integrating with all major platforms.
  
• Compliant with industry standards regarding security: Cal.com has achieved ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, CCPA, GDPR, EU-US Data Privacy Framework, and HIPAA certifications, making it entirely secure for enterprises. To learn more about their security practices, please read their security page.
  

Cons

• Not as customizable as you might need it to be: Cal.com supports changing the brand color but not uploading a cover image to your scheduling links (the opposite of Calendly 😅)
• No support for meeting polls: Although Meeting polls have been requested in their official GitHub repository, the founder Peer responded “I know this is possible in other scheduling products but we are not sure if this makes it into the core roadmap anytime soon”.
  If you need a Meeting Poll feature, Calendly is a great alternative.

Cal.com Pricing

Cal.com is free for individuals, meaning you can create and share as many individual scheduling links as you want. If you want to leverage the team scheduling capabilities, you have to upgrade to one of their paid plans:

• Teams: $12/user/month.
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing.
• ⁠Platform: Custom pricing.

4. Doodle

Doodle is among the first appointment-scheduling software in the market (launched in 2007), known for its Polling feature.

Features

• Doodle Polls: Even though appointment scheduling platforms like Calendly commonly implement this feature, Doodle is the OG of Polling. You can create a Doodle and share it so others can vote on the best time to meet.
• Individual Scheduling: Doodle allows you to create 1:1 scheduling links where you’re the host, and others book time with you.
  
• Collective Scheduling: You can invite your team to Doodle and benefit from sharing team scheduling links that consider multiple people's availability.

Cons

• No API Support: For the time being, Doodle doesn’t offer API support for actions in scheduling links. If API support is necessary, you should consider using Cal.com or Calendly.
• Adds on the free version: It’s pretty unconventional for an appointment scheduling solution to have ads even in their free version, but Doodle is one of the few schedulers I know of that does it.
  If you’re using Doodle for free, I’d recommend upgrading or choosing another alternative from this list, as it’s very unpleasant for people who want to book time with you to be presented with ads.
  
• Not as many integrations: Doodle doesn’t offer that many integrations compared to the competition. The only integrations supported are Zapier, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams, and a couple more.
  
• No Branding or ability to customize booking pages: Branding is essential when it comes to scheduling, as you’re sharing your availability with colleagues, clients, etc, and it needs to be as familiar as possible.

Doodle Pricing

As mentioned, Doodle has a free plan with ads, limiting the number of individual or collective booking pages you can create. If you want to get the best of Doodle, you can upgrade to one of the following plans:

• Pro: $14.95 per user per month
• Team: $19.95 per user per month
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing

You can get up to 50% discount if you purchase an annual plan. Please visit their pricing page for more information.

5. SavvyCal

SavvyCal started competing with the appointment scheduling niche by providing a different approach to scheduling called Calendar Overlay. The booking interface provided by SavvyCal is similar to a calendar, where you can overlay your calendar on top of it to find out the best time to meet with the other person.

This approach is now integrated into Cal.com and other appointment scheduling apps, but it’s worth mentioning that SavvyCal was the one to pioneer it.

Features

• Individual or Team Scheduling: SavvyCal is similar to other platforms mentioned in the article, offering one-on-one and team scheduling. You can create scheduling links for yourself or invite team members and share team scheduling links.
  
• Polished UI and UX: The user interface and user experience are polished and intuitive. It’s clear that the team behind SavvyCal cares about the product they’re delivering.
  
• Meeting Polls: Similar to Calendly, Doodle, and Cal.com, SavvyCal also offers a Meeting Poll feature where people can vote for the preferred meeting time.
• Plenty of features that help you not get overbooked: You can set buffer times and all standard limits available in all major scheduling solutions.

Cons

• Can’t do much on the free plan: SavvyCal offers a free plan, but it’s not that useful to get booked, as it only allows you to get familiar with the platform, explore the features, and share Meeting Polls. To share scheduling links and get booked, you have to upgrade to the paid plans.

SavvyCal Pricing

As mentioned, SavvyCal offers a free plan, but it’s unusable, as it only allows you to play around with it without actually getting booked. To fully utilize SavvyCal, you have to upgrade to one of their paid plans:

• Basic: $⁠12 per user per month
• Premium: $20 per user per month

6. Clara

It’s no fun if we don’t include some AI Appointment Scheduling Solutions, right?

Traditional appointment scheduling apps are pretty straightforward, they read the availability from multiple calendars (and people) and display a calendar for people to book time with you. No AI, as simple as it needs to be.

Although this makes sense for most cases, there are cases where you might benefit from having AI sort things out for you. Think about times someone asks you via email about the best time to meet, and you have to go back and forth to find the best time to meet (I know, sharing a booking link can solve this). But what about this case? Multiple participants, who are not part of your company, want to hold a meeting. You don’t have them as team members in your appointment scheduling software, so what do you do? You go back and forth until you agree on a time to meet.

Using Clara, you could say: “Hello Clara, I want to meet with Mike, Jake, and Sarah this week. Please note that I’m OOO on Thursday”

Clara reads your availability and responds:

“Hey Eraldo, how does 2 PM PDT on Monday, March 4th look for you?”

Clara handles communication with you and can reschedule and go back and forth with other participants until the meeting is scheduled.

Cons

• It might not be what you need: The concept of Clara might intrigue you, but you have to evaluate whether Clara makes sense for your particular use case, as good old scheduling links might be all you need.
• No other features. Unlike other AI Calendar Tools, Clara only focuses on scheduling meetings based on human language. This is perfectly fine from a product standpoint, but consider other options if you need more features.

Clara Pricing

Clara is currently on Beta, so there’s no pricing yet.

7. Koalendar

Koalenar is an intuitive and cost-friendly appointment-scheduling software for individuals and teams.

Features

• Individual or team scheduling: With Koalendar you can get booked individually or as a group if you invite your team.
  
• Has all the scheduling features needed to protect your time: Koalendar options with booking limits, buffers, and more, making sure you don’t get booked more often than you want to.
• Branding: Koalendar allows you to brand your booking links by picking a color and a cover image.

Cons

There are no cons I can think of, as the product is worth the price tag it asks.

Koalendar Pricing

Koalendar has a free plan that offers the basic features and doesn’t limit the number of booking pages or meetings. Instead, it limits the features you can use. To use Koalendar to the fullest, you can upgrade to the paid plan:

• Pro: $6.99
  

8. YouCanBookMe

YouCanBookMe is an appointment-scheduling platform that offers all the features we mentioned on other platforms, focusing on teams or people who don’t have English as their primary language.

Features

• Individual or collective scheduling: You can get booked individually or as a team if you invite team members to YouCanBookMe.
  
• Custom branding: Like OneCal, you can upload a cover image, brand color, and logo to make the booking link more familiar. You can also make the booking page password-protected and add a footer.
• Localization: You can set your booking pages to be international. Non-English speakers can read through and book meetings with you, including Arabic and right-to-left.
• Custom Domains: The booking page URL is slightly different in YouCanBookMe, as it creates a subdomain for you. For example, eraldo.youcanbook.me

Cons

• Quite expensive compared to other solutions: YouCanBookMe charges $12 per calendar per month. If you have 3 calendars, this would mean that you’d have to pay $36 monthly. Compared to other appointment scheduling apps, this seems quite expensive, considering that YouCanBookMe doesn’t offer more than the cheaper alternatives like Cal.com or Calendly.

YouCanBookMe Pricing

YouCanBookMe offers a free plan, that allows you to get booked but is limited on the features you can use, for example, you can’t limit bookings. To fully use YouCanBookMe, you must upgrade to their paid plan, which is $12 per calendar per month. Please refer to the pricing page for more.

• Free
• Paid: $12 per calendar per month.
  

9. Google Calendar Appointment Scheduler

Given that Google Calendar is the most popular digital calendar to date, it only makes sense for Google to jump on the opportunity to offer its appointment scheduling solution. It was late to the game, as it only launched its appointment scheduler, Google Calendar Appointment Scheduler, in 2023.

Features

• Well integrated into Google Calendar: The advantage of Google Calendar Appointment Scheduler is that it's nicely integrated into Google Calendar and you don’t have to juggle other platforms to manage your schedule and bookings.
• Individual Scheduling: You can get booked individually, setting up buffers, limits, and other options offered by almost all appointment schedulers.

Cons

• No Support for Outlook: Given that it’s hard to sync Outlook with Google Calendar, it’s not a shocker that Outlook is not supported. If you’re having an issue syncing your Google Calendar, check this article on How to Fix Google Calendar App not syncing.
• No Branding or team scheduling: The features are basic at this point, with no ability to customize the appearance to match your brand better or get booked as a team.
• No integrations with other third-party tools: Compared to other appointment scheduling solutions we mentioned up to this point, Google Calendar Appointment Scheduler only allows you to get booked via Google Meet of phone number

Google Calendar Appointment Scheduler Pricing

To access Google Calendar Appointment Scheduler, you have to purchase a Google Workspace Subscription for Individuals or a Google Workspace Subscription for business.

• Google Workspace for Individuals: Starts from $9.99 when paid monthly
• Google Workspace for Business: Starts from $6 per month, paid annually

10. Microsoft Bookings

Microsoft couldn’t miss the appointment scheduling niche, as it’s got its calendar called Outlook, second to Google Calendar in popularity.

The solution offered by Microsoft is called Microsoft Bookings, and it’s part of the Microsoft 365 suite.

Features

• Well integrated into Outlook and the Microsoft Ecosystem: Microsoft Bookings is well integrated into the Microsoft ecosystem and can be a relatively easy and convenient tool for Microsoft users.
• Individual or Team Scheduling: You can create individual or team scheduling links similar to OneCal or Calendly.
• Plenty of scheduling options to protect your availability and time. Microsoft Bookings has all the scheduling options required to protect your time, like Limits, Buffers, etc.

Cons

• Hard to connect Google Calendar: There’s a native way that’s reliable enough to allow users to sync Google Calendar to Outlook. Even if you export the Google Calendar and import it to Outlook, updates take 24+ hours or the calendars never sync again. To troubleshoot Outlook not syncing, please read our article on how to fix Outlook app not syncing.
• No Integrations with major platforms: Microsoft Bookings only integrates with Skype or Microsoft Teams. This significantly upsets users who want Zoom, Google Meet, or other integrations.

Microsoft Bookings Pricing

As mentioned, you must purchase a Microsoft 365 plan to use Microsoft Bookings. The Business plan starts at $6 per user per month, up to $22 per user.

Which Is The Best Appointment Scheduling Software To Use?

The appointment scheduling niche is extensive, with tens of options, each offering something unique or targeting specific markets.

OneCal makes an excellent appointment scheduling app, supporting individual or team scheduling, controlling your schedule, and limiting bookings. Furthermore, it has a feature to automatically sync calendars, streamlining your availability in all your calendars, like Google Calendar or Outlook.

Calendly is another excellent choice, offering excellent scheduling pages with the ability to accept payments.

If you’re an open-source enthusiast, I’d recommend checking out Cal.com and supporting their cause of making scheduling open and customizable.

For Google Calendar users who already have a Google Workspace subscription, and only want basic options and integrations, I’d check the Google Calendar Appointment Scheduler.

The same goes for the Microsoft users who pay for Microsoft 365, Microsoft Bookings is an excellent choice if you don’t mind the lack of integrations.

Experience Branded Booking Links With OneCal

OneCal provides all the appointment scheduling features you and your team need to succeed in getting booked.

From individual scheduling, group scheduling, and setting limits to booking and branding, OneCal has thought of every option you need to control your schedule and succeed in getting booked.

Sign Up for a 14-day free trial, where no credit card is needed, to experience capable and intuitive appointment scheduling.