Cal.com vs. Acuity: Which Scheduling Tool Wins in 2024?

Trapped in a cycle of analysis paralysis? We don’t blame you. 

With so many online scheduling tools on the market, sifting through all the choices can be overwhelming and time-consuming.

That’s why we’ve taken it upon ourselves to compare and contrast the most popular booking apps of 2024!

In today’s guide, we’ll examine Cal.com vs. Acuity Scheduling in terms of:

• Target customers
• Features
• Integrations
• Pricing
• Customer experiences

Let’s get started!

Cal.com vs. Acuity: A quick look at both booking apps

First up: Cal.com

Previously known as Calendso, Cal.com is an open-source scheduling tool known for prioritizing transparency and privacy. Although it's one of the newer solutions on the market, Cal.com has quickly gained popularity among tech-savvy software enthusiasts. 

Thanks to its community-driven development, users have the freedom to extend or create features, leading to more frequent releases of innovative updates compared to its scheduling app competitors.

Dean Jenkins shares why he is a fan of Cal.com:

We’ll leave you with some food for thought after that glowing review! Although John Solly gives Cal.com a rating of 4/5, he does have a few gripes about the service:

Cal.com Customer Ratings

Next up: Acuity Scheduling

Acuity is an appointment booking app tailored to service-based businesses. Acuity shines due to its range of client management tools, including keeping track of client information, generating invoices, and customizing your bookable services. 

Do you offer paid appointments? If so, Acuity’s scheduling solution provides a few unique features, including payment plans and upsell add-ons for the checkout page. 

Michelle M. explains her favorite aspects of Acuity:

Although, Norene C. shares:

Acuity Customer Ratings

Cal.com vs. Acuity: Ideal customers

Who is Cal.com best for?

Although Cal.com’s scheduling solution isn’t geared towards one type of team or industry in particular, it caters best to users with software development capabilities (or tech-savvy people). 

Thanks to its open-sourced nature, developers can tailor the scheduling tool to align perfectly with your specific requirements and workflow. Additionally, it's an excellent choice for businesses seeking control over their data, as the self-hosting option empowers you to manage your data independently.

Who is Acuity best for?

Acuity’s booking tool is best for businesses and individuals in service and appointment-based industries. Through Acuity, you can book and pay for packages, group classes, and memberships, and even receive tips, offer coupons, and sell gift certificates. 

If you’re looking for a scheduling tool that can handle client management and invoicing, Acuity is the right choice over Cal.com.

Cal.com vs. Acuity: Features

Cal.com and Acuity share a few key scheduling features that’ll definitely come in handy, including:

• An embeddable scheduler for your website
• Customizable branding and templates
• Automated confirmation and follow-up emails, as well as email and SMS reminders
• Unlimited appointment bookings
• Payment processing for bookings
• Time zone management
• One-on-one, group, recurring, and round-robin scheduling
• Booking insights
• API access
• HIPAA compliance

Both scheduling tools also come with their own host of standout features that’ll be useful to different types of businesses. Scroll through the list below to see which ones match your particular needs. 

Cal.com’s unique features

• Open-source
• Self-hosting option
• AI scheduling assistant
• Routing logic
• Shareable booking link (with Acuity, you have to log in and access their system)
• Option for bookers to overlay their calendar on top of a booking page

Cal.com limitations

Because Cal.com is tailored towards software enthusiasts and power users, individuals seeking a simpler scheduling solution, where customization doesn't require coding, may find it overly intricate. Additionally, service-based businesses may be put off by the lack of certain features, such as accepting tips and selling subscriptions. 

Acuity’s unique features

• Accept payments through point-of-sale (POS) portal
• Offer payment plans
• Accept tips and deposits
• Offer coupons
• Generate and accept invoices
• Upsell with checkout add-ons
• Book and sell packages, subscriptions, and gift cards

Acuity limitations

As Acuity doesn’t have an open-source code, you won’t be able to customize the booking software as precisely as you can with Cal.com. Additionally, since Acuity’s features and updates are largely tailored to service-based businesses, teams in other industries may find the tool limiting.

Cal.com vs. Acuity: Integrations

If you have a list of ride-or-die apps, this section will likely ease your decision between the two online scheduling tools.

Cal.com and Acuity Scheduling offer a completely different set of integrations and only overlap on a handful of tools 👇

• Calendars: Google, iCloud, Outlook, and Microsoft

• Video conferencing: Google Meet and Zoom 

• Payments: Stripe and PayPal

• Other: Zapier, Salesforce, and Google Analytics

Cal.com’s key integrations

Cal.com offers more integrations than Acuity Scheduling (60+ as compared to their competitor's 30+). In particular, Cal.com shines in a few categories: 

• 📅 Calendar connections: The booking tool syncs with a wide array of different calendars, including Cron, Lark Calendar, Vimcal, Amie, CalDav, and ZohoCalendar
• 📩 Messengers: Cal.com seamlessly connects with popular messaging platforms, including WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal, letting you connect with your customers via their preferred platform
• 📹 Video conferencing: Are most of your meetings virtual? Great news, since Cal.com integrates with unique video chat tools, such as Webex, Discord, Element Call, Roam, Around, Whereby, Campfire, and quite a few more

Other integrations that may come in handy are Typeform, WordPress, Close, Hubspot CRM, Giphy, Raycast, Pipedream, and Albie. 

Acuity’s key integrations

At this point in the article, it’ll be no surprise that Acuity’s integrations are best tailored to appointment- and service-based businesses. Acuity outdoes Cal.com in a few categories that are key to these types of companies, including: 

• 💵 Accounting and invoicing: With Acuity, you can streamline your accounting alongside your scheduling thanks to the booking tool’s integrations with QuickBooks, FreshBooks Classic, and FreshBooks Cloud Accounting
• 📧 Email marketing: Got a base of newsletter subscribers you’d love to turn into loyal customers? Acuity integrates with MailChimp, AWeber, ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, Constant Contact, Drip, Mad Mimi, and Simplero to help make that happen
• 📃 CRM: Let your booking info seamlessly flow into your CRM through Acuity’s integrations with Pipedrive, Uplaunch, Wufoo, Zoho, Daylite, and ClassPass

A few other noteworthy apps include GoToMeeting, Join.me, Facebook Business, Instagram, Squarespace, ReferralCandy, and reviewrai.

Cal.com vs. Acuity: Pricing

Cal.com pricing and plans

Cal.com’s plans (billed monthly) include:

• Free Individuals plan ideal for solo users, featuring unlimited bookings, calendar connections, and integrations

• Teams plan ($15/user/month) designed for one team, offering advanced features like round-robin scheduling, routing forms, and team workflows

• Enterprise plan made for organizations that require white labeling, higher security, and 24/7 support
• Platform plan geared towards developers and businesses interested in building on Cal.com, providing access to a Javascript UI and platform-focused API endpoints

Unlike Acuity, Cal.com doesn’t offer a standard free trial; you’ll need to contact the team to request one.

Acuity Scheduling pricing and plans

Acuity Scheduling’s plans (billed monthly) include: 

• Emerging plan ($20/month) for one staff member or location with unlimited services and appointments 
• Growing plan ($34/month) for six staff members or locations featuring appointment packages, subscriptions, and gift certificates
• Powerhouse plan ($61/month) for 36 staff members or locations featuring more options for in-house developers, including an API

Unlike Cal.com, Acuity doesn’t have a free plan, but it does offer a 7-day free trial.

Cal.com vs. Acuity: Customer experience

Who can give you some of the best insights? Real users. 

Take a peek at a couple of Cal.com and Acuity Scheduling reviews to uncover each scheduling tool's pros and cons. 

Customer insights on Cal.com

Karan N., a team lead for a small business, shares his thoughts on Cal.com:

What do you like best about Cal.com?

This product is a winner. Quick setup, stylish dark mode, and incredible support. Kudos to Milos, who provides support, helpful guidance and goes beyond and above to fix issues, or get feature requests up for us.

What do you dislike about Cal.com?

The automation for emails could be more advanced, but it totally does the job for us.

Karan N., a team lead at a small business, explains his take on the booking tool:

1. Scheduling of calls without manual intervention - google and apple calendar sync
2. Multiple options of video call—Zoom, FaceTime, Google Meet

What do you dislike about Cal.com?

Too many steps/clicks to reach the final dashboard. Maybe all the steps in one form would be easier and faster

Mohammed A., a project manager and WordPress developer, summarizes his experience with the booking tool:

What do you like best about Cal.com?

The free support. I've had an issue, and one of the team sent me a screen record in which he reproduced the issue and showed me what I missed and explained how it works. Which was amazing!

Not to mention the neat interface and everything just works together in a perfectly integrated piece of software.

What do you dislike about Cal.com?

The fact that they have a plugin system (Apps) is amazing, yet there are, relatively, a small number of Apps. There are apps that will cover almost all the essential use cases though.

Customer insights on Acuity Scheduling

Meredith A. explains why she uses Acuity rather than other online scheduling tools:

What do you like best about Acuity Scheduling?

Acuity allows students to easily book time with our tutors, it automatically connects with my google calendar and is easy to navigate. Acuity provides direct links to users to give out, it also has embed codes. In my department we have 3 tutors that work together, it is extremely easy to re-schedule students and move them to someone else's calendar when needed.

What you do dislike about Acuity Scheduling?

One thing I do not like is that when I cancel an appointment, it completely disappears from the calendar. I wish it would stay on there but gray it out or something like that.

Nathan A., a small business owner, delves into his experience with Acuity’s online scheduler:

What do you like best about Acuity Scheduling?

My clients come from two different sources, requiring different accounting. I can use the same Acuity Scheduling account to keep them on the same calendar and avoid overbooking.

What do you dislike about Acuity Scheduling?

I really wish they had better portals for my clients.

Cal.com vs. Acuity: Final thoughts 

👉 Have developers on hand? While Cal.com’s scheduling app isn’t targeted towards one particular team or industry, it’s best for users with coding skills. The tool’s open-source design allows devs to deeply customize Cal.com to match your unique needs and workflow. Moreover, it's an excellent option for businesses that value data control, as the self-hosting feature enables independent data management.

👉 Run an appointment-based business? Acuity may be the choice for you! With a unique range of features like gift certificates, memberships, payment plans, and subscriptions, your customers can easily book various services. It's also a great choice if you’re in the market for an all-in-one solution for managing scheduling, invoices, and clients, and even setting up an integrated Squarespace website. 

Want to provide your customers with an exceptional booking experience? YouCanBookMe could be the answer!

YouCanBookMe’s mission is to simplify scheduling, ensuring clients can easily book meetings with you anytime, anywhere. The tool’s standout feature lies in its unmatched ability to meet your customers' needs and expectations.

Take control of your schedule by customizing every aspect of the booking journey. Set availability and pricing, choose meeting types and durations, and personalize breaks, notifications, and branding.

How does YouCanBookMe work?

Simply sync your preferred calendar, design a one-of-a-kind booking page based on your goals and branding, and effortlessly share your unique booking link wherever customers find you:

✅ In your email signature

✅ On your social media profiles

✅ On your website

✅ Via a QR code on printed materials

Your customers click the link, choose a slot, and presto! They've booked a meeting in seconds.

With automated confirmations, reminders, and follow-ups, everyone shows up prepared and punctual, making scheduling a breeze.

Gary K., a management and economics librarian, explains why he’s been using YouCanBookMe since 2015:

More affordable than both Cal.com and Acuity

If you’re looking for robust scheduling features that won’t break the bank, YouCanBookMe is the tool for you.

Only $12/calendar/month unlocks all its supercharged features. 

Psst…with Cal.com, you’ll have to pay $15/user/month (and that plan’s only limited to one team), and for access to all of Acuity’s features, you’ll have to pay $61/month.

Plus, YouCanBookMe offers a free forever plan and a free 14-day trial of its paid plan (no credit card required), so you can test the waters risk-free.

Ready to give your customers a better scheduling experience?

Give your customers the easy, quick scheduling solution they’ve been waiting for. Zero hassle. Zero waiting. Zero frustration.

Try YouCanBookMe today and experience the boost it’ll give your time, customer base, and bottom line. 

Cal.com vs Acuity FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Which is better: Cal.com or Acuity Scheduling?

The right choice hinges on your priorities and requirements. Cal.com's open-source platform offers unparalleled flexibility for developers and tech-savvy users seeking customization. It's also particularly well-suited for teams prioritizing self-hosting and privacy. Acuity, on the other hand, is tailored to appointment-based businesses. With a wide range of features, including gift certificates, payment plans, memberships, and subscriptions, it’ll allow your customers to book various services effortlessly. It also serves as an all-in-one solution for invoicing and client management to help you streamline your business.

What are the main differences between Cal.com and Acuity Scheduling?

The main differences between Cal.com and Acuity Scheduling lie in their approach and features. Cal.com offers extensive customization options in an open-source platform, making it handy for companies with developers on hand. On the other hand, Acuity provides a comprehensive suite of features for service-based businesses, including gift certificates, tipping, and memberships. Additionally, Acuity seamlessly integrates with Squarespace for website setup, while Cal.com focuses on transparency and privacy. 

Which scheduling tool is more affordable: Cal.com or Acuity Scheduling?

If you’re on a very tight budget, you may want to consider Cal.com, as the booking tool offers a free plan, which Acuity doesn’t. As for the paid plans, Acuity is more affordable for larger teams, as the Powerhouse plan, although $61/month, can accommodate up to 36 staff members. Cal.com is more affordable for individuals, as their paid plan costs $15/user/month.

Is there an alternative to Cal.com and Acuity Scheduling?

For a seamless booking experience that gets the job done, give YouCanBookMe a try. With YCBM, you can tailor every booking detail to your customer's liking. Easily manage your calendar, meeting types, durations, breaks, notifications, and branding. And at just $12/user/month for access to all features, it's a more budget-friendly option than Cal.com and Acuity Scheduling.