9 Best Scheduling Apps in 2024: Direct Comparisons

Best scheduling apps

Know that feeling when you're staring at an endless sea of options and can't decide? That's the SaaS market for you, especially when it comes to appointment scheduling software. And every new tool just adds to the confusion…

But don't sweat it, we've got your back.

We hunkered down, sipped gallons of coffee, and sifted through the maze of appointment scheduling apps for you. So sit back, relax, and pick the best scheduling app for your business in minutes!

Let's dive in!

Best Scheduling Apps: Executive Summary

You’ll save the most time if you choose Clockwise.
You’ll get more features overall if you switch to Calendly.
You’ll get the most personalization power if you choose YouCanBookMe.

Buying Guide & How We Rate The Tools

Booking tools are like shoes: each one has a unique style that appeals to a specific audience. But fear not, we've done the legwork for you and curated a list of tools based on four common dimensions that matter to everyone. These are:

Ease of use: Because who has time for a clunky booking tool that takes ages to learn? We've rated each tool based on how quick and easy it is to use, so your team can hit the ground running and increase productivity in no time with no scheduling conflicts.

Integrations: We’ve evaluated how well each tool can integrate with other popular tools and online calendars, so you don't have to overhaul everything just to make a booking tool work.

Value for money: We all work hard for our money, so we've looked at the scheduling features and additional features each tool offers, compared them to the price tag, and evaluated what you get for the price you pay.

Customization: We've rated each tool based on how much freedom they give you to customize your booking page according to your personal style or company branding.

Note: low scores aren’t always bad.

Remember, each online scheduling tool has its specialty. Whether you're a large enterprise or a one-person show, the key is to find the combination of features that work best for you. So without further ado, let's dive into our mini-reviews of each tool.

1. YouCanBookMe — Best Overall

Ever feel like you need a personal assistant just to manage your schedule? Bridget and Keith Harris certainly did, which is why they founded YouCanBookMe in 2011 — to simplify the chaos and make scheduling a stress-free experience.

Whether it's your brand or the tone of your email notifications, YCBM makes it easy to create the best and most personalized scheduling experience for your customers. Whipping up a new booking page is easier than ever with YouCanBookMe’s pre-set templates and non-modular workflow, which centralizes your front and back-end booking page configurations in one place. But what really sets YCBM apart is its ability to support translated booking pages in up to 44 languages, including Chinese and Arabic.  

All these features make YCBM excellent for individuals and small businesses working across borders and in different time zones.

You don’t have to take our word. Check out this interactive tour to get a feel of our lighting-fast booking process.

YouCanBookMe Features

Let’s take a look at features that make YCBM stand out from other scheduling platforms on the market: 

Rich Booking Page Customization Options

With YouCanBookMe, you can customize your booking page to the fullest. You can choose a booking color from a rainbow palette (1), add a footer with a website or social link (2), and use the Markdown toolbar to stylize your booking page text and insert a logo.

Auto-Translate Booking Page

YCBM will automatically create fully translated booking pages based on your language settings, for French, Portuguese, Japanese, and Spanish teams. It also supports translated pages in 40 more languages, including Hungarian, Arabic, and Chinese. That enables both individuals and small professional services teams to offer a seamless global service. 

Automate and Customize Email and SMS Notifications

YCBM allows you to fully automate email and SMS notifications. This means you can set up events that trigger these notifications. For example, you can automatically send a confirmation email to your bookers after a booking is made and an SMS reminder one hour before the meeting to avoid any possible no-shows. 

In addition, you can fully customize these notifications with block quotes, text style, hyperlinks, and images. You can also personalize them with mailmerge tags that insert meeting details based on what the booker chose.  

YouCanBookMe has the widest range of notification options, including follow-up and no-show notifications. And automated accept/reject emails.  

YCBM Pricing

Unlike other scheduling tools, YCBM charges per connected calendar — not per user. This means anyone not taking bookings, won't be charged. There are no pricing tiers. One price gives access to all their paid features.

Use YCBM if:

• You want to offer a completely personalized booking experience.
• You work with clients or teammates who speak different languages and could use automatically translated booking pages.
• You're looking for a tool with a rich set of features and a short learning curve that's super easy to get started with.

2. Calendly — Best Alternative For Large Teams

Calendly Overview

Sales call scheduling can be a nightmare, especially when working with prospects in different US time zones. That’s exactly what inspired Tope Awotona to create Calendly in 2013 and save everyone the headache of endless back-and-forth.

It offers advanced features like workflow automation, has 99+ native integrations, and lets you remove its own branding from booking pages to make them look highly professional. However, it has a modular workflow, meaning it may be awkward to set up and use for individuals and small teams (but very useful for large ones).

Some other Calendly features include:

• Create mutiple scheduling links for different appointment types and durations
• Streamline meetings with automatic time zone detection, round-robin meetings, and reminders,
• Two-way sync with Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCloud.

Given Calendly’s range of impressive features and pricing, it’s a good option for large enterprises that rely heavily on scheduling and have a good budget.

Calendly Pricing

Calendly charges per user seat, so it gets expensive quickly if you have a large team. Especially if you consider that it charges $20/ user per month for the “team” plan that enables collaborative features. However, the “pro” plan (shown in the chart) fulfills most users’ needs:

Use Calendly if:

• You're looking to build automated workflows for scheduling meetings.
• You want to integrate a scheduling tool into a CRM tool like Salesforce.
• Your team requires advanced security and booking controls, and budget is not a constraint.
  

If you're feeling conflicted, check out our in-depth analysis of Calendly vs. YouCanBookMe.

3. SimplyBook.me — Best for Medical Offices

SimplyBook.me Overview

SimplyBook.me was founded by Ingvar Gudmundsson in 2011 with the goal of creating an online booking system for service-based enterprises like health organizations. 

It offers customizable intake forms, appointment tracking for clients, report generation, and mobile app access for on-the-go appointment management, all while keeping your accounting on track.

Some of its top features include:

• Ticket generation for medical testing,
• Personalized, brand-specific booking pages,
• Multi-language support for booking pages and emails using Google Translate,
• Built-in CRM system to manage customer information and track booking history.

SimplyBook.me Pricing

While SimplyBook.me’s value-packed paid plans start with the basic plan at $8.25/month (billed annually), but expect to pay more because extra bookings and SMS packages can add up, increasing the overall cost.

Use SimplyBook.me if:

• You need to streamline the patient booking process for your medical enterprise.
• You handle sensitive patient data and need a scheduling tool that’s HIPAA-compliant.
• You want to save time by using one tool to keep track of scheduling, accounting, and patient information. 

4. Square Appointments — Best for Multi-Location Service-Based Businesses

Square Appointments Overview

Launched by Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey in 2014, Square Appointments is aimed at service-based businesses like hair salons, personal trainers, and spas. 

Some of its features include:

• Free invoice generation capabilities,
• An AI assistant that handles customer queries,
• Mobile access through the Square Appointments app,
• Automated appointment reminders via email or text message,
• A customer directory that helps you track client satisfaction and feedback,
• Integrated payment processing with Square, Visa, Mastercard, and Discover,
• Client management tools, such as tracking customer history, importing existing customer data, and auto-creating customer profiles using customer notes.

Square Appointments Pricing

Square Appointment pricing is location-dependent, meaning you’ll have to sign up for at least the Plus plan if your business operates from multiple locations. It also charges processing fees on all transactions made through the app:

Use Square if:

• You’re looking for an all-in-one scheduling, customer management, and payment solution.
• You want to keep an eye on stock counts when making appointments.
• You are a service provider with multiple locations

5. Doodle — Best Alternative for Group Meetings

Doodle Overview

Frustrated with his inability to coordinate schedules with his colleagues and clients, Michael Naf launched Doodle in 2007 to make booking appointments with clients easier. Within three years, Doodle was a go-to scheduling solution for over six million users.

Doodle enables you to:

• Meet on Google Meet and Zoom via native integrations,
• Easily set up group polls to find a date and meeting time,
• Use the admin console to book appointments on behalf of clients and ensure collaboration across the board,
• Calendar syncing with Google Calendar, Microsoft Office 365, Outlook Add-in, and Microsoft Exchange.

With its focus on group polls, Doodle is the best scheduling tool for teams that are always struggling to find a suitable time for internal meetings.

Doodle Pricing

Doodle’s pricing starts at $14.95/user per month for the “Pro” plan, which is steep compared to other options on the market. But Doodle’s advantage is that it has a very generous annual subscription (50% off!). 

Use Doodle if:

• You need an easy way to enable multiple people to co-host events.
• You regularly schedule recurring group meetings with your team or clients.
• Your team members live in different time zones and can benefit from automatic time-zone adjustment.

6. OnceHub — Best for Lead Qualification

OnceHub Overview

Founded in 2006, OnceHub was created by Rami and Gilad Goraly to streamline appointment scheduling and enable businesses to optimize their sales efforts.

Some of its features include:

• Workflow builder to create forms and chatbots,
• Advanced reporting to refine the sales process,
• White-label branding to personalize the booking experience,
• Integration with CRM systems like Salesforce and HubSpot,
• A no-code journey builder to guide prospect down the sales funnel,
• Chatbots to ask screening questions, answer FAQs, and gather contact details,
• Call routing to the right individuals or teams based on real-time availability.

OnceHub Pricing

OnceHub’s plan for free appointment scheduling for up to three users is generous, but no CRM integration means you’ll need the Growth plan to make the most of it. The $12/user per month cost makes it average when compared to other tools’ affordability. 

Use OnceHub if:

• You’re looking to automate scheduling, lead qualification, and customer engagement at once.
• You want to natively integrate scheduling with your CRM systems.
• You need advanced reporting to gain insights into your sales process and optimize performance.
  

7. Setmore — Best Tool for Online Classes and Webinars

Setmore Overview

Founded in 2011, Setmore was created with a simple goal: to provide an elegant and user-friendly solution for booking and scheduling appointments.  

Some of its features include:

• One-click appointment bookings
• Customer review streaming on booking pages
• Automatic confirmation, reminders, and follow-ups
• Secure online payments with Stripe, PayPal, and Square
• Calendar syncing with Google and Office 365 across multiple devices
• Appointment booking via social media, content management systems, and CRM software
• 40+ native integrations with tools like Squarespace, Shopify, Zoom, QuickBooks, and Gmail

Setmore Pricing

While Setmore’s free plan offers some premium features and unlimited appointments, you’re limited to 100 email reminders/month and Teleport video conferencing. So, if you’re a Zoom or Google Meet user, you’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan. It starts at $12/user per month but the annual subscription knocks that down to $5.

Use Setmore if:

• You’re looking to automate your scheduling process but have budget constraints.
• You offer classes, webinars, and training sessions and need a tool that supports recurring appointments and group bookings.
• You work with clients in different time zones and want to offer them the ability to self-schedule at convenient times. 
  

8. Google Calendar — Best for Working with the Google Ecosystem

Google Calendar Overview

Google Calendar was launched in 2006 to make it easy for Google users to manage their schedules and keep track of important meetings. Google Appointment Scheduling was introduced recently, within the Google Workspace. 

Some of its features include:

• Seamless integration with other Google services, such as Gmail, Google Meet, and Google Drive
• Unlimited calendars
• Easy-to-use interface with drag-and-drop functionality
• Smart scheduling based on machine learning algorithms
• Ability to create multiple calendars and share them with others
• Integration with third-party apps like Zoom, Trello, and Slack

Clockwise Pricing

With paid plans starting at $6.75/user per month (billed annually), Clockwise is one of the most affordable scheduling tools on this list. However, if you’re looking for advanced calendar controls and access to at-a-glance analytics, you’ll need to subscribe to high-tier plans.

Use Clockwise if:

• You're looking for a scheduling tool that prioritizes focus time by blocking off your calendar and minimizing meeting disruptions.
• You want to optimize your schedule with automatic rescheduling and smart time-saving features.
• You want detailed insights and analytics on how you're spending your time on client appointments and how to improve your productivity.
  

The Final Verdict

So, which is the best online scheduling app of 2024? Well, each tool we’ve discussed above is “the best” for its intended use case. 

Keep in mind that you can always take advantage of free trials and test all of them to figure out which one suits you best.

But based on my experience, here’s what I recommend:

• For individuals, small teams, and professional services business owners looking to create highly personalized, multilingual booking pages: YouCanBookMe
• For individuals looking for an app that helps with personal time management: Clockwise
• For large enterprises who can afford to pay a high price for complex features: Calendly