Compare Appointment Scheduling Software 2026

By implementing online scheduling, you allow your clients to book your services from your website or social media profiles whenever it suits them. So instead of having to answer phone calls or emails for booking requests, you save some time for yourself and your clients. On top of that, you make your business available 24/7 as clients just have to find you online and book from there.

The main benefit is saving you and your clients endless time trying to organise bookings. On top of that, you will reduce no shows as the booking system will send out automatic confirmations and reminders. Other advantages are asking questions upon booking, accepting deposits or full payment upon booking, offering coupons to get more business, sending come back soon reminders, and more. If you are not convinced, take a look!

You can run a social media campaign with a direct link to your booking website, make sure all your social media profiles include a booking link, add your business to Google business, add a booking link there, and more. Read more here about 9 tips to get more bookings.

Most scheduling solutions include appointment reminders. Appointment reminders enable businesses to automatically send notifications to clients about an upcoming appointment or event. Typically, appointment reminders are sent to customers via email or SMS messages, and they have proven to reduce no-shows considerably!

By using a scheduling solution that has natively integrated with Facebook, you can add a "Book now" button to your Facebook and Instagram profiles which can help you to turn leads into customers more quickly. Here is a list of scheduling platforms that offer Facebook and Instagram bookings.

That really depends on your needs. There are multiple scheduling apps on the market, and there is no one solution that is best for every business. You need to know what you want to achieve by implementing a booking system. Here come a few that are known to be outstanding for different needs:

• SimplyBook.me - Very flexible with beautiful customisable booking website, offers payments, coupons, gift cards, memberships and more
• SimplyMeet.me - if you only need to schedule meetings and integrate with other calendars and video platforms
• HouseCallPro - For home services including estimates and more specifically designed for this industry

What you need to do first is to figure out what you want to achieve. Do you only want a tool to schedule your meetings or do you also want to accept payments, offer different locations, sell products, offer coupons and gift cards and so on? After you have defined your needs then you can start to find the best solutions. SimplyBook.me and SimplyMeet.me are two different online booking tools which cater to different needs, if you want to know more, click here.

That’s easy - you just sign up for SimplyBook.me and you will get a booking website where your clients can book an appointment with you. If you already have a website then you can just add a booking widget to your website, provided by SimplyBook.me. If you need any help with setting up the specifics, contact our Live Chat and get an immediate answer 24h during the working week.

For service businesses with complex needs, SimplyBook.me is the stronger fit. SimplyBook.me includes memberships, gift cards, packages, Facebook and Instagram booking, HIPAA compliance, and a full client-facing booking website. Calendly does not offer any of these features natively (verified May 2026). Calendly is a good option for solo professionals who only need simple 1:1 meeting links with calendar sync. As soon as you need to take payments, run a loyalty program, or manage a team of more than one, SimplyBook.me offers more without per-seat pricing.

SimplyBook.me also offers AI voice booking, which lets clients book appointments by phone without staff intervention — a capability none of Calendly, Acuity, or Setmore offer.

SimplyBook.me and Setmore both offer genuinely functional free plans, while Calendly's free plan is limited to one event type and Acuity Scheduling has no free plan at all. SimplyBook.me's free plan includes 50 bookings per month, a full booking website, an admin app, and a booking widget. Setmore's free plan allows up to 200 bookings per month across up to 4 users. For paid plans, prices vary by currency: SimplyBook.me starts from EUR 11.90 per month (annual billing), while Calendly's Standard plan starts at $10 per seat per month (USD, annual billing) — these are different currencies and direct comparison depends on prevailing exchange rates. On free plan value alone, both SimplyBook.me and Setmore offer more functionality than Calendly at no cost.

SimplyBook.me's free plan includes 50 bookings per month, a full booking website with a custom URL, an admin app, and a booking widget for your website. Setmore's free plan is more generous on bookings (200 per month) and supports up to 4 users, but does not include two-way calendar sync or SMS reminders. Calendly's free plan supports only one event type. Acuity Scheduling has no free plan. The right choice depends on your booking volume: Setmore's free plan suits small teams with high booking counts, while SimplyBook.me's free plan suits solo providers who want a complete branded booking presence from day one.

Yes. SimplyBook.me supports HIPAA compliance from the Standard plan upward, with HIPAA-enabled features for healthcare organisations. Contact our team for current Business Associate Agreement (BAA) terms. By comparison, Calendly does not offer HIPAA compliance at any price point and states its platform should not be used for collecting protected health information (verified May 2026). Acuity Scheduling offers HIPAA compliance on its Premium plan ($49 per month on annual billing). Setmore offers HIPAA compliance via a dedicated Setmore Health account type on the Pro plan, but this must be selected at account creation and cannot be added to an existing account (verified May 2026).