5 Best Small Business Scheduling Software & Apps in 2024

Are you a small business owner or manager looking for efficient ways to get booked and more leads and potential clients? You're in the right place.

In this article, we'll introduce you to the top scheduling software options perfect for small businesses. These tools are not just about sharing booking links; they're about making your entire appointment scheduling smoother and more efficient. Whether you're a cozy café, a freelance consultant, or a local store, these software picks are designed to help you manage your time better and boost your customer reach.

Let's get started.

The Best Small Business Scheduling Software to Consider

1. OneCal

OneCal is a calendar automation platform designed to make your calendar management easier. From intuitive, fully configurable scheduling links, to viewing all your calendars in one view, OneCal has all the features needed to make your small business grow.

Booking Links Features:

• Multi-Calendar Availability Scheduling Links: OneCal offers Scheduling Links that take into account the availability of multiple calendars. It doesn’t matter if you have one calendar or 5, using OneCal, your clients and leads will always see your full availability.

• Collective booking links: WIth OneCal, you can create collective booking links, so others can schedule meetings with you and your team.
  
• Individual booking links: Set availability, location, duration, and more on a per-link basis. Send bookings to different calendars or set a default.
  
• Event Location: OneCal supports various locations for your events, including In-person, Link, Organizer phone number, and Third-party web conference (Google Meet, Teams, Skype).
• Read availability from all calendars: No need to worry if you're booking in another Calendar, we'll take care of everything.
• Custom availability: You can set custom availability for each day of the week, or add date exceptions when you're available for specific dates.
  
• Configure Buffer Times: Event buffers are extra time slots you can add before and/or after an event. They're useful for giving you time to prepare, take a break between meetings, or travel to an event's location.
• Configure Minimum Notice Period: OneCal lets you specify the minimum notice period needed before someone can book your time. This setting controls how many minutes, hours, or days in advance a booking must be made.
• Limit Future Bookings: With OneCal, if you're unsure about managing events in the distant future, you can limit how far ahead your events can be booked
• Booking approvals: You can set each booking request to require manual confirmation before a booked event is added to your calendar.
• Redirect after booking: Redirect the scheduler to a custom URL after a booking is completed.
• Custom confirmation message: Show a custom confirmation message after a booking is completed.
• Allow the booker to choose the duration: You can provide multiple durations for a booking, and let the booker choose.

Other Features:

• Real-time Calendar Sync: OneCal is also very helpful for internal meetings, as it allows you to sync all your calendars in real-time, automatically. This feature allows you to avoid meeting conflicts when getting a booking directly through Outlook or Google Calendar.
  
• Calendar Sync is built with privacy in mind: Copying events from one calendar to another might cause concerns, as often you don’t want to copy all event details from one calendar to another, you just want to block your time in other calendars. OneCal has accounted for this, as it allows you to choose which event properties you want to copy from one calendar to another, protecting your privacy.
• Secure Connection to your Calendars, no Data stored: OneCal is approved by Google and Microsoft and connects to your calendars through official Outlook and Google APIs. No event details are stored, analyzed, or transferred to third parties.
• Calendar View: OneCal also offers a Calendar View feature, allowing you to view all your calendars simultaneously, quickly join meetings, see event details, and more.
  
• API Access: OneCal allows you to programmatically manage your team via API. The team is continuously adding more controls and features for small businesses to automate their schedule via API.
• Team Management: OneCal allows you to invite, pay, and manage your team. This way, your team and you use collective scheduling and other collaborative features.
  
• Outstanding Product Team: The team behind OneCal deeply cares about the product and the customers. Customers are given the highest priority possible and each issue or question is answered at record time.
  

Pricing:

OneCal offers competitive and affordable pricing, suitable for small businesses:

• Starter ($5/user/month): Connect and sync up to 2 calendars,
• Essential ($10/user/month): Connect and sync up to 5 Calendars
• Premium ($30/user/month): Connect and sync Unlimited Calendars
• Custom/Enterprise Plans

Please refer to the pricing page for more details.

2. Calendly

Calendly is a popular appointment scheduling solution offering a complete suite for small businesses to get booked online.

Features

• Team Scheduling: With Calendly you can create team scheduling links, allowing your leads and clients to book meetings with multiple people at the same time.
• Configurable availability: Calendly offers all the availability settings such as buffer times, redirects, and more.
• Meeting Polls: Calendly has recently added the meeting polls feature, which allows you to create a meeting poll link and share it with your team. Your team will vote on the preferred time to meet, and based on the result, you get booked.
• Routing Forms: Calendly has a Routing Forms feature that allows you to route your clients or leads based on the information they provide when booking through Calendly Booking Links.
• Embeds: Calendly allows you to embed your scheduling links to your website, so leads can book time with your small business directly through your landing page.

Cons

• Only focused on appointment scheduling: Calendly is a solid solution when it comes to appointment scheduling, but lacks other features that might be essential for your small business.

Calendly scheduling link example:

Calendly Pricing

• Basic: Free
• Essential: $8 per user per month
• Professional: $12 per user per month
• Availability Preferences: $16 per user per month

3. Acuity Scheduling

Acuity Scheduling is an appointment-scheduling solution offering industry-specific features, such as subscriptions, discount coupons, and more.

Features

• Subscriptions: Acuity Scheduling allows leads and clients to pay for subscriptions.
• Group Classes: Using Acuity Scheduling you can schedule group schedules, such as events or workshops, with the addition of managing the participant size.
• Discount Coupons: You can send you leads or clients discount coupons, so they use them when booking.
• API Access for custom integrations: Similar to Calendly and OneCal, Acuity Scheduling offers a public API that users can use to programmatically manage the bookings and scheduling links.

Cons

• No fee plan: To use Acuity Scheduling, you have to purchase a subscription.
• More expansive than the competition: Compared to the competition, Acuity Scheduling is more expensive, starting from $20 per month.

Pricing

As mentioned, Acuity Scheduling is part of the ‘expensive’ appointment scheduling software, as it starts from $20 per month. If you purchase the annual plan, a 20% discount is applied.

• Emerging: $20 per month
• Growing: $34 per month
• Powerhouse: $61 per month

4. Cal.com

Cal.com is an open-source appointment scheduling software, appealing to open-source enthusiasts, and gradually has added team features, appealing to small businesses.

Features

• Free for individuals: If you plan to use Cal.com per personal usage, it’s convenient as the free plan is quite generous.
• Customizable: Using Cal.com you can set all the configurations needed to make your appointments predictable. The options include buffer times, limiting future bookings, meeting confirmations, and more.
• Integration-rich: Cal.com has grown fast, integrating tens of platforms such as Slack, Notion Calendar, Zoom, and more.
• Open Source: Cal.com is Open Source, offering transparency and self-hosting capabilities.
• API Access: You can integrate the Cal.com API to programmatically manage your scheduling needs.
• Payments: Cal.com allows you to monetize your meetings by collecting payments from your clients or leads.

Cons

• Missing industry-specific needs: No app is perfect, if you need industry-specific solutions (features offered by Acuity Scheduling for example), Cal.com might not offer them.

Cal.com Scheduling Link Example:

Pricing

• Free for individuals
• Teams: $12/user/month.
• Enterprise: You should contact them for pricing.
• ⁠Platform: You should contact them for pricing.

5. SavvyCal

SavvyCal is an appointment-scheduling solution that differentiates from the competition by allowing bookers to overlay their schedule against yours (similar to how you book a time with someone using Google Calendar).

Features

• Individual or team booking links: Using SavvyCal you can share booking links for leads to book time with just you, or certain members of your team.
• Meeting Polls: Allows you to invite people to vote on a set of times to meet and book the one that works best.
• Workflows: Create reusable workflows to send customized messages surrounding your events, such as reminders and meeting prep notes.
• Invite your team: SavvyCal allows you to invite your team and use collaborative features such as team scheduling.
• Well-thought user experience: The user experience is well thought and quite polished, allowing you to set up your scheduling links quite easily.

Cons

• Limited Free Plan: When you compare Calendly and SavvyCal, the free plan offered by SavvyCal is quite limited, as you can only play around with it, but not actually send scheduling links or get booked.

SavvyCal scheduling link example:

Pricing

• Free: Very limited, you can only use their overlay feature but not for scheduling.
• Basic: $⁠12 per user, per month: Create your own individual and team scheduling links (in addition to free meeting polls).
• Premium: $20 per user, per month: Remove SavvyCal branding from your links, collect payments via Stripe, and delegate access to your assistant.

Which Scheduling Software is Best For Your Small Business?

All the scheduling software presented in this article is the best the industry has to offer, allowing your small business to thrive.

Ultimately the choice is up to you:

For intuitive individual and collective scheduling links that offer plenty of customization, with the addition of syncing calendars and viewing calendars in one view, OneCal is the scheduling software to use for your small business.

For industry-specific features, Acuity Scheduling and Calendly are worth considering.

Elevate Your Small Business with OneCal Scheduling

OneCal provides all the needed calendar solutions for your small business to thrive and acquire more customers.

You can Sign Up in a couple of minutes, for free, no credit card is needed, to enjoy all the scheduling facilities OneCal offers for your small business.