Are you considering using Acuity Scheduling as your online booking system? Wondering if there are any Acuity Scheduling alternatives could work better for you?

Let’s be honest - It’s practically impossible to run a business without scheduling appointments. This has become even more critical now as COVID has changed the way businesses are interacting with customers. In-person interactions are replaced with virtual meet-ups. Whether you run a yoga studio, a law firm or a beauty parlor, it is important to provide customers a means to book and schedule appointments themselves. 

Hence the need for booking software of some sort like Acuity Scheduling. 

But is Acuity Scheduling the best option for your business? Are there any other alternatives that you could use instead? 

Let’s find out. 

What is Acuity Scheduling?

Acuity is by far one of the most popular appointment scheduling platforms on the market today. It’s a tool many small businesses, beauty salons, wellness centers, spas, as well as professional service companies use for appointment booking. 

No surprise. Acuity’s appointment scheduling software provides quite a number of features that a company would need to process online bookings:

• Calendar sync
• Website booking widget
• Accepting online payments and most popular credit cards 
• Appointment reminders
• Recurring appointments
• Video conferencing integrations, and more. 

What’s more, Acuity Scheduling is fully HIPPA compliant, making it a tool of choice for medical practices and businesses in the healthcare industry. 

Finally, Acuity Scheduling also offers an API so that its users can build custom scheduling flows with the platform. 

However, a quick search around the web reveals that customers face various issues with the platform.

Now, don’t get us wrong. Acuity is an amazing system. However, before you decide to use it, it might be worth knowing what issues customers report about the product. 

First of all, in 2019, Acuity Scheduling was acquired by Squarespace. That, according to customers, seems to have a less than desired effect on the development of the platform. 

The company still receives many positive feedbacks on platforms like Capterra, GetApp or Trustpilot. Here are just some examples.  

However, customers have been reporting issues with customer service since the acquisition.

Others mention the complexity of the platform’s interface and are unhappy about how difficult it is to navigate the system. Granted, it’s impossible to tell how tech-savvy a reviewer was when trying out Acuity, and how equipped they were to set up such a tool. Yet, it’s still feedback worth knowing about and reading.

Other complaints mention the lack of many critical integrations, and a slow rate of development which becomes more salient since the Squarespace acquisition.

So, what if you’re worrying that you might encounter similar problems? Are there any Acuity Scheduling alternatives to consider instead?

Let’s find out. 

13 Best Acuity Scheduling Alternatives of 2022

#1. CozyCal

CozyCal (disclaimer: this is our tool,) is a robust and easy to use online appointment scheduler that saves you time and helps propel the business forward. 

In fact, we built it to help businesses across many industries to empower their customers to schedule appointments directly on their websites, without needing to email or call a business directly.

CozyCal helps businesses like yours create a seamless, customized scheduling flow that displays service availability, collects client information, sends automated white-label email notifications, and receives payments, all in one place. 

Because of its unique and advanced feature-set, CozyCal is ideal for small businesses across multiple industries. Companies like these are using CozyCal to book and manage appointments with customers:

• Professional service firms like lawyers, coaching and consulting firms, photography studios, counseling practices, financial services, and more. 
• Real estate agents
• Sales teams
• Hair or nail salons
• Spas
• Wedding boutiques
• Medical practitioners like chiropractors, dentists, physicians, therapists, and more
• Wellness centers like gyms, personal trainers, yoga studios, and more.

As the architects of CozyCal we have always put an emphasis on design because we want it to be a product that is delightful to use for people of all levels of tech-savviness. The product is not burdened with bell-and-whistle features that make the system difficult to navigate. Instead we only build scheduling features that are essential to help businesses achieve their full potential. 

We’ve reflected that in CozyCal’s feature set too. With CozyCal, you can:

Create a customized booking page. Use it to showcase offerings, accept client bookings, manage schedules, and sync with external calendars to streamline the scheduling experience and maximize online bookings.

Set up intake forms, and send white-label email reminders to automate the booking process.

Manage team scheduling flexibly and control how your business gets booked.

Collect online payments for bookings through Stripe integration.

Install booking widget on the site, or use a custom link to share the booking page with customers.

Other features include:

• Eternal calendar sync with the most popular calendars like Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar
• Flexible event and time settings to control your availability
• Automatic time-zone detection for scheduling appointments across multiple locations and time zones
• Package booking to bundle services and products, or give discounts on bulk purchases
• Manage the availability of resources such as meeting rooms or co-working spaces
• Integrate virtual meeting links (Zoom or Google Meet) with booking notifications
• Accept or decline event requests
• White-label email notifications to keep booked guests informed
• SMS reminders, and more. 

Besides these features, we are constantly adding new features based on a tight customer feedback loop. By openly sharing CozyCal’s product roadmap and changelog, we want to evolve into a product that solves businesses’ pain points. 

Pricing: CozyCal offers simple pricing, with just one price plan at $20/mo per user. You can also pay yearly and get 25% off.

Want to see how easy it is to book appointments with CozyCal? Try it out free for 10 days. No credit card is required to sign up.

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#2. Simplybook.me

Simplybook.me is another online booking software allowing companies to schedule and manage appointments. Simplybook.me focuses on service-based industries, and allows customers to run the scheduling process through multiple channels, from website to social media accounts.

Like other similar tools, the platform allows you to accept online payments, notify customers about bookings via email and SMS, create intake forms, and sync data with Google Calendar and Outlook.

Pricing: Simplybook.me offers a limited free plan. Its paid plans give you access to different functionality, depending on the plan. The basic paid plan starts at €8 per month.

#3. 10to8

10to8 gives customers the ability to book appointments, pay for sessions through Stripe and Paypal integrations, and receive automated appointment reminders. The platform also syncs with Google, Outlook, iCal, Exchange, and Office 365 calendars, so that you can keep all bookings in one place.

10to8 features a 2-way chat functionality allowing you to communicate with customers, manage bookings, reschedule or cancel appointments so that you can save time in the process.

Finally, 10to8 offers enhanced security, making it a viable option for enterprise-level businesses. The company is compliant with GDPR, CCPA, and HIPPA meaning that it can also handle medical data in the US. 

Pricing: 10to8 features a limited free plan. Other plans vary by the number of appointments per month, and staff logins. Plans start at $12/mo.

#4. Square Appointments

Square Appointments is an all-in-one scheduling solution that’s part of the Square platform. Because of that, the solution is ideal for businesses that already use Square to accept online and mobile payments, take payments through its POS system, track time, store client profiles, and so on. 

Square Appointments lets you manage bookings in two ways. One is by using the booking app, the other is by adding the functionality to Square’s POS solution. 

Regardless of the option you choose, the software lets you create a custom booking page, accept online payments, manage staff bookings, and more. 

Pricing: Square offers a free plan (however, the company still charges per transaction fees for booking payments.) Paid plans start at $29/mo per location (plus transaction fees.)

#5. Booker

Booker is a dedicated appointment scheduler for spas and salons providing all features such businesses would need to manage online bookings - a booking page, scheduling and management, various calendar integrations, ability to accept online payments, booking reminders, and more. 

The platform also offers a unique AI-based receptionist feature that automatically responds to missed calls through a text message, allowing you never to miss any opportunity. 

Pricing: Booker offers four price plans that differ by the features and functionality you get access to. The smallest plan costs $129/mo and gives you access to a limited set of staff profiles, and 3000 reminders.

#6. Timely

Timely is another online booking app focusing on a particular niche only. In this case, the platform provides booking functionality to beauty professionals. Aside from common appointment booking features such as calendar sync and booking management, Timely also offers business management tools for beauticians. With Timely, you can manage clients, create checkout experiences and collect payments online and in-store, run basic marketing campaigns, track inventory, manage staff, and more. 

Pricing: Timely pricing depends on the number of staff you have, and the functionality you’d like to use. The smallest plan costs £15 per user. 

#7. Youcanbook.me

Youcanbook.me offers simple tools to allow you to book meetings and appointments without the never-ending email back and forth. The platform’s scheduling tools aren’t as extensive as what other software on this list offer. Yet, Youcanbook.me lets you build a simple booking page, and get customers to select the best time for the appointment. Youcanbook.me will also send them booking notifications, and allow you to manage the team to maximize their time. 

In short, Youcanbook.me is a simpler tool that makes it a viable Acuity Scheduling alternative if you’re not looking for all the bells and whistles the other tools offer. 

Pricing: Youcanbook.me offers one price plan only, at $10/mo.

#8. Calendly

Calendly is one of the most well-known Acuity Scheduling alternatives. It’s also a booking software with some of the most advanced features and capabilities. Its feature set includes advanced availability options, team scheduling, workflows, various calendar embedding options, meeting polls, various integrations, and more. 

Calendly supports anything from scheduling one-on-one meetings, group meetings to round-robin team scheduling for rotating availability. You can define limits on sessions per day in the platform and set buffer time to control your schedule's flexibility. 

Pricing: Calendly offers a limited free plan that’s good for individuals who do not need to schedule a large number of meetings. Paid plans start at $10 for individuals and $15 for teams.

#9. Setmore

Setmore is another alternative to Acuity Scheduling that offers all the standard functionality any small business would need to book appointments easily. The software allows you to build a booking page, intake form, and even include reviews on it to provide social proof. On top of that, the software offers email and SMS notifications, video conferencing integration, calendar sync, website widget, and more. 

Pricing: Setmore offers a basic free plan. Paid plans start at $12 per month. 

#10. Doodle

Doodle allows you to schedule meetings both with customers and internally, with co-workers. Because of that, the software offers a unique time-polling feature that assists you with finding the best time for all team members and colleagues to meet. 

With Doodle, you can create a meeting poll, and let the platform suggest a meeting time based on the attendee’s availability. 

Aside from time polling, Doodle offers all the features you’d expect from a robust Acuity Scheduling alternative - a booking page, calendar integrations, and calendar view, giving everyone a clear view of your availability, reminders, and more. 

Pricing: Doodle’s price plans start at $6.95/mo for 1 user. 

#11. ScheduleOnce

ScheduleOnce is part of OnceHub, a powerful inbound sales, and lead generation platform. For that reason, ScheduleOnce focuses on connecting you with leads and prospects and allowing them to select the best time to meet and discuss business. 

ScheduleOnce lets you schedule one-on-one meetings, panel meetings, group sessions, and more. With the software, you can create a booking page on which leads can book meetings, specify meeting types, manage availability, cancellations, rescheduling, and more. 

Pricing: ScheduleOnce offers a free plan. Paid plans start at $12 per user per month. 

#12. SavvyCal

SavvyCal is a relatively new Acuity Scheduling alternative with strong potential. What makes SavvyCal unique is an interactive interface that allows users to overlay their calendar with yours to find a suitable time to meet. Aside from that, SavvyCal features all the functionality you’d expect from a solid appointment scheduler - time zone scheduling, a booking page, website widget and shareable links, team schedules, and more. 

Pricing: SavvyCal offers two price plans - Basic at $12 per user per month, and more Premium at $20 per user per month.

#13. Rallly

Rallly focuses on allowing groups and teams to schedule events together. Because of its focus on collaborative scheduling, the tool offers capabilities like time polling that suggest the most suitable time for everyone to meet. With Rallly, you can also create a booking page where participants can vote for the best time that would work for them, and select the most optimal meeting time for the entire group.

Pricing: Rallly is free to use

And there you have it…

The 13 amazing alternatives to Acuity Scheduling that you could try today. Each of these tools is unique in some way, so I recommend you review them all and see which one seems to suit your needs best.