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It’s time to do away with the tedious back-and-forth of scheduling meetings.
It’s 2024: your clients, team members, and leads shouldn’t have to wait around and jump through hoops simply to book a meeting with you.
Thankfully, they don’t have to!
There are plenty of scheduling tools on the market you can choose from to simplify booking meetings, but the tricky part is finding the right one for you.
Today, we’ll examine two top contenders, Setmore vs. Calendly, in terms of uses, pricing, features, integrations, and customer reviews to help you find the perfect scheduling app for your needs.
Category |
Setmore |
Calendly |
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Best for: |
B2C appointment-based businesses looking to schedule services such as haircuts, coaching sessions, or online classes |
Small and large B2B businesses wanting to book a wide array of meetings, including discovery calls, team check-ins, and interviews |
| Free trial available | ❌ | ✅ |
| Free plan | ✅ | ✅ |
| Pricing | Starting at $9/user/month | Starting at $12/user/month |
Do you have an appointment-based business? Then it’s definitely worth getting to know Setmore! This user-friendly online scheduling tool makes it easy for clients to book and pay for services.
With Setmore, you create booking pages tailored to your brand so customers can click and book available spots. The scheduling app integrates with many popular website builders, including WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix, letting you seamlessly incorporate scheduling onto your site.
Rory C., a small-business owner, shares:
“This software gives my customers the ability to book my services online, pay for the appointment, get confirmation of the appointment, and get reminders before the appointment. Customers find it easy to use, it gives them the confidence that they are dealing with a company that is on the ball.”
Anjelica B. expands on her experience using Setmore:
“Setmore guarantees flexibility and accessibility for both clients and clients' businesses with its mobile app and connectivity with well-known calendar services.” However, she adds, “One drawback is the absence of sophisticated customization possibilities, which might not be suitable for companies with intricate scheduling needs. Additionally, some users have mentioned that the software occasionally has bugs or speed problems.”
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💡Commonly used for: Booking services such as haircuts or online classes 👪Commonly used by: B2C appointment-based businesses |
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4.5/5 (250+ reviews) |
4.9/5 (2,100+ reviews) |
4.7/6 (950+ reviews) |
6/10 (10+ reviews) |
Looking for an adaptable, easy-to-learn scheduling solution? If so, Calendly may be the tool for you! With Calendly, you create booking pages based on your availability that allow people to book straight into your calendar.
With over 100 native integrations and many advanced features, it’s a go-to tool for many businesses looking to simplify scheduling for multiple teams.
As Courtney W., an eCommerce Coordinator at a small business, explains:
“This is one of the most user-friendly scheduling platforms I have used. Our integration and set up were very smooth and didn't have any hiccups. Each member of the team, both seasoned + green, were able to quickly adapt to using this platform on a daily basis.” She adds, “We are seamlessly able to request and schedule meetings with colleagues, departments and clients.”
Steven L., a Marketing Assistant in Education Management, shares:
“Calendly is the best because it's very customizable. You can change the colors, embed options, reminders and sync it with anything” but adds that it's also, “the most costly of the options out there. It's justified because it's really, really good, but still, you'll need to upgrade to the $20/mo range to really make it worth it. The free trial and the next tier up are just not really usable long-term.”
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💡Commonly used for: Booking a wide array of meetings, such as discovery calls, team check-ins, and interviews 👪Commonly used by: Small and large B2B businesses |
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4.7/5 (2,100+ reviews) |
2.3/5 (100+ reviews) |
4.7/6 (3,300+ reviews) |
9.1/10 (500+ reviews) |
Considering Calendly and other popular scheduling tools? We’ve done the legwork for you:
Setmore is very much tailored for service and appointment-based businesses.
As Setmore themselves say, “It’s as much for hair stylists who need to schedule haircuts, as it is for handymen who need to schedule on-site home repair.”
With features including a digital rolodex of customers, appointment reminders, and a tool for staff scheduling, Setmore offers a handy solution for B2C businesses such as tutoring centers, spas, gyms, and doctor’s offices, to name a few.
Calendly is a more versatile scheduling tool than Setmore, geared towards corporate teams in various industries and functions, including sales, marketing, customer success, recruiting, and IT.
Professionals can use it to book a myriad of meetings, from external client calls and candidate interviews to internal team chats and brainstorming sessions. With the impressive amount of native integrations, many different teams can easily plug Calendly into their existing workflow.
At their core, both Setmore and Calendly will streamline your scheduling process. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the two tools share a few standard, must-have booking features, including:
However, aside from these features, the two tools head in separate directions. Let’s explore what makes each tool unique to help you choose the right one for your team!
Setmore largely focuses on allowing businesses to book services, therefore it lacks features that would facilitate booking internal get-togethers, such as staff meetings or check-ins.
As Calendly was created with corporate teams in mind, appointment-based businesses may find limitations in the capabilities, branding, and overall design of the booking pages.
To put it bluntly—you need a tool that works well with the software you already use. Luckily for you, both Setmore and Calendly integrate with many popular apps, including:
Although featuring less native integrations than its competitor Calendly, Setmore still has a few tricks up its sleeve.
Setmore’s star integration is all about social media. The booking app’s convenient integration with Facebook and Instagram allows you to add a “Book Now” button to your profiles, allowing customers to book appointments without leaving their favorite apps.
Setmore’s second stand-out capability is how seamlessly it syncs with website builders. Setmore integrates with a few that Calendly doesn’t, such as Weebly, Joomla, Drupal, Muse, Shopify, and Square Online.
A few other valuable integrations unique to Setmore include Square, LawPay, Teleport, Zendesk, Reserve with Google, Google Tag Manager, Infusionsoft by Keap, AnswerConnect, QuickBooks, Freshdesk, Serviceminder, and Clio.
Calendly comes out on top in most rankings when it comes to integrations: the scheduling software offers over 100.
Calendly’s booking tool syncs with many popular apps that Setmore doesn’t, including fan-favorites such as iCloud Calendar, Microsoft Teams, Webex, Notion, Typeform, Jotform, Marketo, and Leadpages.
While Setmore allows customers to book meetings without leaving Instagram or Facebook, Calendly offers a similar feature through LinkedIn Messenger. Calendy’s LinkedIn integration lets you book meetings with leads, customers, or candidates right in the chat.
Calendly also features many team-specific integrations, such as JazzHR, Gem, and Greenhouse for recruitment teams and ActiveCampaign, Gong, Close, and Postal for sales teams.
Setmore’s plans (billed monthly) include:
Setmore doesn’t offer a free trial.
Calendly’s plans (billed monthly) include:
Calendly offers a 14-day free trial of their Teams plan.
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🥖 Need more food for thought? Explore how Calendly stacks up against other popular scheduling apps like Acuity and Doodle. |
Need some more advice from real users? Who doesn’t!
Browse through a couple of reviews for both Setmore and Calendly to get a better feel for the pros and cons of each scheduling tool.
Alex B. delves into her experience using Setmore:
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What do you like best about Setmore? I enjoy Setmore's simplicity and flexibility. As a large tutoring center on campus, we needed a straightforward tool to schedule a large team with hundreds of courses in our catalog. Setmore is quick to set up, easy to onboard staffers, and their support team is always available to resolve questions within just a few minutes. I didn't think I could find such excellent service at an affordable price, but Setmore exceeded our expectations! What do you dislike about Setmore? Setmore can be a little too simple at times. It would be a huge help to have a user-facing search function or drop-down tabs to hide services since we offer so many. |
Pierce D., a small business owner, explains how he uses Setmore in his business:
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What do you like best about Setmore? It is easy for me and my customers to use and to book. I've used it the entire time for my Thai Massage business. Automatic email reminders are great! What do you dislike about Setmore? |
Melissa F., a Division Assistant in College and Career Readiness, shares a bit about her experience with Calendly:
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What do you like best about Calendly? I love that when an appointment is scheduled, the participant receives a customized email and reminders. It streamlines my daily workflow. I no longer have to input appointments on my calendar, I can just send participants the link via text or email to pick the date and time that works best for them. It truly is a wonderful product. What do you dislike about Calendly? I wish I could move bookings between Event Types. Also, it would be helpful if Event types could overlap on certain dates. Right now, if two event types share a date (with say 4 openings on each for a total of 8) when someone books one event type it completely blocks out the other event type. So no one can schedule that other event type. |
Lisa P., a coach, explains how Calendly helps her in her everyday work:
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What do you like best about Calendly? Calendly has saved me literally hundreds of hours and emails when scheduling clients. I have been able to earn more revenue by letting people pick up appointments when someone cancels and offer new services with the ability to collect payments for my coaching services. I use Calendly literally every day in my business! It takes just a few to set up and saves countless hours of time in the work day. What do you dislike about Calendly? I wish there was an option to let someone book multiple appointments at once. I have a tutoring service and it would be helpful to let parents book multiple sessions at once. |
Ultimately, your choice between Setmore vs. Calendly will depend on the type of business you run and your priorities.
👉 If you have a B2C service-based business, Setmore will be your best bet. With advanced branding, reviews displayed right on the booking page, and staff scheduling features, Setmore allows you to collect and manage customer bookings easily.
👉 If you have a B2B-based business and your booking needs are more diverse, Calendly’s adaptable scheduling tool will better meet your requirements. Calendy’s updates and diverse features are tailored to many different types of meetings and industries, giving you more flexibility in scheduling.
YouCanBookMe’s sole focus is to make it as easy as possible for your customers (whoever they may be) to book a meeting with you.
Its standout feature lies in its complete customization. With YouCanBookMe, you can seize control of your schedule and customize every detail of the booking experience to suit your customers' preferences. From setting your availability and different meeting types and lengths to fine-tuning breaks, notifications, and branding—it's all up to you.
Start by syncing your calendar and crafting a standout booking page that matches your brand and goals. Then, simply share your unique booking link across all platforms—be it your email signature, social media posts, website, or even printed materials with the convenience of a QR code.
Once your customers click your link, the entire booking process unfolds in just a matter of seconds!
And the cherry on top? Your meetings will be a breeze as everyone arrives well-prepared and on time, thanks to the seamless automation of confirmations, reminders, and follow-ups.
Jason R., a technology consultant shares, “YouCanBookMe is the only option for me.”
He adds: “While YCBM has many of the features that the competition has, it also has two key features that I could not find elsewhere:
I also love how customizable the notification system is, using both email and SMS.”
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Ready for an added bonus? YCBM smoothly integrates with your favorite tools, including Google Calendar, Zoom, Google Meet, Stripe, Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and thousands of others through Zapier. |
YouCanBookMe’s paid plans start for 25% less than both Setmore and Calendly, at only $9 per month. 🎉
Even at the lowest tier, you already get access to…
And that’s just the start of the list!
YouCanBookMe additionally provides a more basic free forever plan and a free, 14-day trial of its paid plans, allowing you to test the tool out risk-free.
You can't escape meetings but you can bid farewell to the monotonous tasks accompanying them. Say goodbye to sending endless back-and-forth messages, creating meeting links, following up post-meeting, and reminding people to attend.
With YouCanBookMe, it’s all handled for you. Try it out today to give your customers the hassle-free booking experience they truly deserve.
Your choice between Setmore vs. Calendly will depend on your specific needs. If you have a B2C service- or appointment-based business, Setmore may be the tool for you. Its features, including tools for staff scheduling, reviews featured on booking pages, and advanced branding, are tailored for B2C businesses such as salons, spas, tutoring centers, and gyms. Calendly, on the other hand, is geared towards corporate teams in various industries, including sales, marketing, recruiting, and customer success. Its vast integrations allow many different types of teams to add the tool to their existing setup.
Calendly stands out with its easy-to-use interface, numerous advanced features, and over 100 integrations. The scheduling tool is known for being adaptable to the needs of different industries, including sales, marketing, recruiting, customer success, and IT.
Calendly offers more integrations (over 100) than its competitors, allowing you to seamlessly plug the tool into your existing workflow. It has a few unique features worth looking into, including meeting polls, routing logic, and an activity dashboard that provides advanced insights into your meetings.
Yes, Calendly offers a free plan with basic scheduling features, including one booking page to schedule unlimited appointments. If you need more advanced features, such as multiple calendar connections and different meeting types, you’ll have to upgrade to one of Calendly’s paid plans.