You need a haircut. You need your teeth cleaned. You need advice on your taxes. You're not going to actually go to the gym without a trainer, and hey—with all the hassle of calling and finding appointment times, you might need a massage, too.
Appointments. They're the lifeblood of today's service industry—but the process of scheduling (and rescheduling) appointments often drains the life from the people providing those services. Even with a full-time receptionist, the constant back-and-forth with customers is enough to frustrate anyone, not to mention the time it takes away from your core business!
Scheduling appointments is one of those tasks you should be passing on to your computer—and luckily, there are a lot of great apps that make scheduling appointments online as pain-free as possible. These apps will make sure your schedule is never overbooked—and that appointments can get re-scheduled without you having to double-check your calendar every time.
What Makes a Great Appointment Scheduling App?
In looking for the best software to help those in the service industry schedule appointments, I tested nearly 30 apps to find those that really stood out for their ease of use and comprehensive tools. Each takes a unique approach to appointment management, but all have a few things in common:
- Easy to Manage. You don't want to replace your current system with a system that causes you even more hassle! These apps all feature intuitive, easy-to-learn dashboards so you can get started quickly and not spend a lot of time learning your new interface.
- Good User Booking Experience. It's not enough if only your team has a good time with the software. These apps all provide a smooth user experience for your customers, too, so they can book appointments at their leisure, without any frustration.
- Flow of Information. In a service business, there are a lot of moving parts and important pieces of information—reminders, notifications of reschedules, updates to staff schedules, key forms and paperwork… the list goes on. These apps take this into account and each have a system for managing your data efficiently.
- Comprehensiveness. Last but not least, each of these apps has the power and suite of features necessary to handle everything related to booking appointments for your business, so you don't have to jump back and forth between several different apps.
Here are the best:
The Best Appointment Scheduling Apps
| Icon: | App | Best for: | Pricing: | Platform: |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
10to8 | Advanced communication and management for appointments | Free; from $9.60/mo for advanced features | Web, iOS, Android |
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Acuity Scheduling | Easy online appointment scheduling | Free; from $15/mo for advanced features | Web, iOS |
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Appointlet | Customizable appointment scheduling for multiple services | From $15/mo | Web |
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Calendly | Minimalistic appointment scheduling | Free; from $8/mo for advanced features | Web |
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GigaBook | Complex, powerful booking tool for multiple industries | $7/mo per staff member or resource | Web |
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Launch27 | Advanced booking features for larger teams | From $59/mo | Web, iOS, Android |
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MyTime | Scheduling, marketing, and managing inventory | From $74/mo | Web, iOS, Android |
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ScheduleOnce | Easily customizable booking pages | From $5/mo | Web |
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Setmore | Powerful free app for scheduling appointments | Free; from $25/mo for advanced features | Web, iOS, Android |
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SimplyBook | Custom features tailored to specific industries | Free up to 50 bookings; from $9.90/mo for advanced features | Web, iOS, Android |
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Square Appointments | Integrating appointment scheduling with your point of sale system | From $30/mo | Web, iOS |
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vCita | Managing your appointments in a CRM system | Free for up to 300 clients; from $29/mo for more clients & features | Web, iOS, Android |
10to8 (Web, iOS, Android)
Built-in communication tools
10to8 is a sleek online booking app designed with built-in communication tools.
Start by defining the types of appointments you offer and when customers can book these various appointment types. From this first setting screen, you can also choose whether to set your availability in 10to8—or you can sync with an external calendar (such as Outlook or Google Calendar) instead to import your existing appointments and days off. You can then create your ideal schedule by setting working hours and availability, including any holidays or exceptions to regular business hours. If you're a company that wants to offer appointments with specific staff (such as a coaching business, salon, or health care clinic), you can define staff for each booking so customers can schedule an appointment with the professional they know.
Then, customize your booking page link, messaging, branding (for paid users), and define form questions for your customers—and you're good to go! You can use a booking page hosted by 10to8 (don't worry—you can still set a custom URL), or you can embed a 10to8 booking form on your website or Facebook page.
You can also dig into advanced features, such as scheduling rooms or locations. This will not only give your customers increased clarity, but will keep your team from double-booking important resources. You can even accept payments directly from your booking page through PayPal or Stripe.
One of its truly stand-out features, though, is how it helps you communicate with customers after they book an appointment. You can engage customers directly from your 10to8 dashboard via 2-way chat, send personal messages to clients ahead of their scheduled appointments, and get their responses right away via SMS. This beats email for client communication and ensures that your messages are received and read right away. Need to change anything about an appointment during the conversation? You’ll find more options below the chat window to add notes or modify the client’s booking, or to view key information like whether a client with an upcoming appointment has opened their booking confirmation or reminder emails.
10to8 Pricing: Free for core features and SMS messaging for 2 users and 100 appointments per month; from $12/month Basic plan for customizable branding.
See 10to8 integrations on Zapier
For a deeper look at 10to8's features and pricing, check out our 10to8 review.
Acuity Scheduling (Web, iOS)
Automated availability scheduling
Acuity Scheduling puts the bulk of the scheduling effort where it belongs: in your customer's hands. Instead of needing a lot of back-and-forth between you and your customers, Acuity lets you set up a scheduling page where customers can easily book one-time or recurring appointments, fill out important forms, and pay you—all in one place.
On your end, it's almost as easy. Acuity Schedule packs a lot of punch without becoming overly complicated. Set up your calendar manually by defining available times, or two-way sync Acuity Scheduling with your Google Calendar, iCal, or Outlook calendar to pull in your existing schedule.
Once you have your schedule defined, create group or 1-1 appointment types to best represent your service offerings. You can even define available "add-ons" to your appointments (such as a 15-minute guided meditation to the end of your coaching session, or a 10-minute foot massage to your back massage appointment). Acuity Scheduling makes it easy to customize your service offerings, even down to creating appointment packages, coupons, and gift certificates.
Once you've defined the settings on your end, all you have to do is customize your Client Scheduling Page, and you're all set! You can either host your appointment booking page on a customized Acuity Scheduling link, add a button to your website that links to this page, or embed your entire scheduling form on your website. Acuity Scheduling gives you plenty of options while keeping your experience simple and intuitive.
Acuity Scheduling Pricing: Free for unlimited services and appointments; from $15/month for the Emerging Entrepreneur plan 1 calendar and advanced features
See Acuity Scheduling integrations on Zapier
*For a deeper look at Acuity Scheduling's features and pricing, check out our Acuity Scheduling review.*
Appointlet (Web)
Customizable appointment scheduling for multiple services
While some apps are better suited to small businesses, Appointlet is ideal for the individual businessperson, entrepreneur, or coach. With Appointlet, you will create a simple booking page with your availability that you can then share directly with leads, clients, or customers.
Set up multiple services, each with its own booking page and unique details such as location, price, duration, and cancellation policies. Each service can also have a unique set of form questions for your customer to fill out. You'll create these form questions in a separate menu, then select which services you want each form question to apply to, which makes it easy to duplicate common form questions and customize service forms accordingly.
Once an Appointlet booking has been confirmed (either automatically or manually, depending on your settings), the appointment will automatically sync with your Google Calendar or Office 365 calendar, as well as send a calendar invite to your client.
Accept payments for appointments through PayPal, Stripe, or QuickPay—or don't, if you want to use Appointlet to schedule lead or client conversations, or to schedule coaching calls that are already paid for. (Note that you can't accept payments with the Basic plan–you'll need at least their $27/mo Solo plan to accept payments.) The simplicity of Appointlet's booking and payment options make it ideal for a small team or individual who doesn't want to spend a lot of time on managing their software.
Appointlet Pricing: From $15/month for the Basic plan, which gives you one user
See Appointlet integrations on Zapier
*For a deeper look at Appointlet features and pricing, check out our Appointlet review.*
Calendly (Web)
Minimalistic appointment scheduling
Calendly lets you produce a clean, simple booking page so clients can book you when you're available. Set up a few various appointment types and your availability for each, then email clients and customers a link that will show them your availability, or link to it from your website.
Natively integrated with Google Calendar, iCal, Outlook, and Office 365, Calendly automatically syncs scheduled appointments with your calendar of choice, as well as your invitee's calendar. (You can also send invitees custom reminders, just to make sure they don't forget.)
With a Pro Calendly plan, you can accept full or partial payment upfront via Stripe. It's as simple as connecting your Stripe account via the Integrations page within Calendly. Once you've done that, simply select "Accept Payments" when setting up an individual appointment type, and you're good to go—customers will pay you through Stripe before completing the appointment form. Stripe will then send your customers their receipt.
Calendly Pricing: Free; from $8/month for Premium features like integrations and customized branding and reminders
See Calendly integrations on Zapier
GigaBook (Web)
Complex, powerful booking tool for multiple industries
Customization is the name of the game for GigaBook, a detailed booking system for service business of all stripes. Jumpstart the process with GigaBook's Smart Start wizard, which walks you through setting up all the critical information—availability, locations, staff and staff schedules, booking and reminder preferences, and synced calendars.
While GigaBook provides the standard features of an appointment scheduling software, its standout feature is its ability to customize everything down to the smallest details. For example, when setting up services, you can define needed prep and finish time in addition to the duration for the service appointment. Services can also include images along with descriptions that will be displayed to customers on your booking page.
Do locations and physical resources (such as conference rooms, equipment, or service vehicles) factor into your business model? You can add, schedule, and track resources the same way you can add staff.
This attention to detail in the product sets GigaBook apart from the crowd and gives you the power you need to hyper-customize and manage your appointments. GigaBook also offers several unique features such as appointment-related to-do lists for your staff members, a built-in kanban-styled project management tool, and invoicing and payment tools.
GigaBook Pricing: From $7/month per staff member and/or resource
Launch27 (Web, iOS, Android)
Advanced booking features for larger teams
We know we're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but usually that's exactly what we do. Launch27 makes sure that your customer's very first (online) impression with your company inspires trust and conveys professionalism.
Launch27 offers service businesses a pretty and powerful solution for scheduling customer appointments. Set up detailed service listings for appointments, including custom pricing parameters and "extra" services that can be added to an appointment. Build booking pages from sleek, customizable templates that you can easily embed in your website or link to directly.
The best part of Launch27 is its tools for scheduling and managing teams. Setup pages for individual teams—whether those are mobile service teams, service providers at different office locations, or different service teams (such as a masseuse team and a health coach team). Organize these teams with tags and notes, and monitor team bookings to make sure no individual or team is overburdened. You can even set wages based on team, on either an hourly or percentage base.
For businesses who want to go beyond an availability page, Launch27 brings out the bells and whistles. Create a customer self-service portal, and let your regular customers save payment information and schedule recurring appointments via their own login.
While many appointment scheduling apps let you accept payments from online payment processors like PayPal or Stripe, Launch27 also allows you to collect and process credit card payments directly so you don't have to set up another payment processing services. You can also generate and accept gift certificates and discount or referral codes directly through Launch27.
Launch27 Pricing: From $59/month for the Base plan, which offers unlimited bookings and unlimited users
See Launch27 integrations on Zapier
*For a deeper look at Launch27 features and pricing, check out our Launch27 review.*
MyTime (Web, iOS, Android)
Scheduling, marketing, and managing inventory
MyTime is a marketplace, appointment scheduling app, and marketing tool—all in one.
MyTime's scheduling dashboard gives you a bird's-eye view of your upcoming appointments per staff member, with ready access to important tools for updating or adding services, adjusting your schedule, or customizing your personal booking page.
From the Marketing tab, set up automated reminder or retention messages, send out promotional campaigns to your existing customers and contacts, and add booking tools to your Facebook page or website with a customized booking widget.
MyTime will then help you market your services with their own marketplace to help users find local business offering the services they need. That gives you an automatic audience. MyTime also automatically handles reminders, review requests, and retention sequences to make your relationship with your customers even easier to manage. MyTime doesn't charge any listing fees, and running your appointments through their marketplace is free, although they do take a 10% commission on any bookings scheduled through their marketplace.
In addition to appointment scheduling, MyTime also offers a full point-of-sale and inventory system, ideal for those who sell products alongside their service business (such as a hair salon or health clinic).
MyTime Pricing: Free with 10% commision if you're using MyTime Marketplace only; from $74/month for the Scheduling plan, which offers the core features of MyTime Scheduler. A la carte features and payment options available for businesses who may not need the whole package.
ScheduleOnce (Web)
Easily customizable booking pages
ScheduleOnce is a sturdy offering for creating appointment booking pages and sharing them with your customers. The core process of setting up your bookings involves defining event types, which let you define settings like duration, category, group or one-on-one sessions, and pricing. You can set your availability either through ScheduleOnce's drag-and-drop availability calendar, but it may be faster to just link an existing calendar through one of the app's native integrations.
Where ScheduleOnce really shines, however, is in its booking page customization tools. Most appointment scheduling apps only offer minimal opportunity to change your booking page design, or they only offer customization through CSS styling. ScheduleOnce gives you several basic themes with color and design settings that are easy to change. The same goes for their very visual form editor, where you can define and rearrange form questions for each event type.
If your business routinely needs to schedule rooms and resources (such as vehicles or equipment), ScheduleOnce is ideal as it has special booking parameters and analytics for scheduling and tracking. ScheduleOnce also has a comprehensive set of integrations with key apps like payment processors, CRMs, and conferencing software—both natively and through Zapier.
ScheduleOnce pricing: From $5 per user per month for the Plus plan, which offers unlimited bookings
See ScheduleOnce integrations on Zapier
*For a deeper look at ScheduleOnce features and pricing, check out our ScheduleOnce review.*
Setmore (Web, iOS, Android)
Powerful free app for scheduling appointments
The old adage of "you get what you pay for" doesn't apply to Setmore. This app, which has the most powerful free plan of all the apps included here, gives you all the tools you need to set up an easy booking system for your customers while also managing team schedules.
Setmore helps small business stay on top of team activity with multiple calendar views (both for staff and for system administrators), reminders for both customers and staff, and an activity stream that lets an individual or administrator see a constantly-updated list of activity. Assign different services to different staff members, and let customers book a staff member individually via a staff booking page. Staff members can even define break times and time off to make scheduling even easier.
In addition to managing your team, Setmore makes it easy to manage all your services and schedules right alongside your customer information. Monitor appointment history for your customers, including tracking cash or in-person transactions and linking them to the appropriate customer and appointment records.
Another standout feature with Setmore is your ability to set up, schedule, and manage group classes session-by-session. All-in-all, Setmore is a fast app with a comprehensive set of appointment scheduling tools that make it easy to create a booking system that is ideal for your business—all for free.
Setmore pricing: Free for unlimited services, customers, and bookings and up to 20 staff members; from $25/month for the Premium plan, with advanced features like SMS reminders, recurring appointments, and 2-way calendar sync
See Setmore integrations on Zapier
*For a deeper look at Setmore features and pricing, check out our Setmore review.*
SimplyBook (Web, iOS, Android)
Custom features tailored to specific industries
While most appointment scheduling apps are flexible enough to work for a several different industries, SimplyBook is the only one that provides specific features and templates for dozens of service providers in categories as wide-ranging as sports, government, education, beauty, entertainment, medical services, and personal meetings.
Add multiple service providers within the same company and customize details like availability, location, pricing, and services for each provider. Then run reports to view workload for each service provider and make sure your work is distributed well.
SimplyBook offers several different report types, so you can monitor everything from an insight dashboard with metrics like cancelled bookings or workload by employee, to a reports of received reviews, to logs of all sent SMS reminders.
SimplyBook offers businesses a library of advanced custom features, everything from book again reminders and promotions to HIPAA compliance, to make sure you can tailor the system to the unique needs of your business.
Unlike other apps that will let you customize colors and logos for your booking page, SimplyBook lets you build an entire site around your booking page. Using one of their many templates, you can fully brand your booking page and give customers an excellent first impression. Alternatively, you can use their easy in-app design tools to create your own.
SimplyBook pricing: Free for up to 50 bookings and 1 custom feature; from $9.90/month for the Basic plan, which allows up to 100 bookings and 3 custom features
See SimplyBook integrations on Zapier
*For a deeper look at SimplyBook features and pricing, check out our SimplyBook review.*
Square Appointments (Web, iOS)
Integrating appointment scheduling with your point of sale system
Even if you don't use it yourself, chances are you've already encountered the Square point of sale system—the sleek iPad checkout experience at your local coffee shop or salon, or the square device that allows someone to process your credit card via their mobile phone. Now, they offer businesses Square Appointments, an appointment scheduling tool with Square's customary sleek user experience.
Square Appointments is designed to help business owners schedule clients and customers quickly and painlessly. You might not find as many bells and whistles with Square as you'll find with some of the other apps mentioned here, but the entire booking process is very smooth for both you and the customer.
Have customers book via your online appointment page based on your set availability (or your availability via a synced calendar), then manually or automatically approve those appointments. Keep tabs on your staff's workload by viewing staff schedules simultaneously in one calendar view.
Your online booking page will look minimalistic, but provides all the important details on your services, such as pricing, descriptions, and even individual staff available for bookings. If your clientele like to schedule appointments over the phone, no worries—you can create manual appointments in Square Appointments as easily as your customers can create them online.
As you'd expect, Square Appointments also excels at managing and accepting payments. You can collect prepayment for appointments, or even collect credit card data to enforce your cancellation policy and charge any needed cancellation fees.
Square Appointments pricing: From $30/month for the Just Me plan, with full features for a single user
See Square integrations on Zapier
vCita (Web, iOS, Android)
Managing your appointments in a CRM system
vCita is an appointment scheduling tool with a customer management twist. Schedule appointments for clients—or let them schedule their own—and keep detailed client information in the same place. Store attachment and conversation notes in addition to booking history and basic client info, so that you're always up to date on the customer relationship. You can even import customers from other apps.
Interact with customers about reschedules, cancellations, and appointment details via vCita's in-app inbox. Create email and SMS campaigns in vCita's easy drag-and-drop interface, then promote new service offerings to existing clients, offer coupons, or prompt them to schedule their next appointment.
With a paid plan, you can offer clients an appointment page and let them book their own appointments, based on individual availability set for each staff member. Or, create a client portal so recurring customers can login, save information, and schedule with you more conveniently.
vCita pricing: Free for up to 300 clients; from $29/month for the Essentials plan, which gives you 1,000 clients, as well as advanced features like online appointment booking, online payments, and event registration
See vCita integrations on Zapier
*For a deeper look at vCita features and pricing, check out our vCita review.*
Alternative Appointment Scheduling Tools
Some of the apps I reviewed weren't comprehensive enough in their industry coverage to make the "best" list, but have very strong offerings for specific use cases and niches that I felt should still be mentioned.
| Icon: | App | Best for: | Pricing: | Platform: |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Booker | Booker is a business platform built exclusively for salons and spas, with special features to support these business models. In addition to appointment scheduling, Booker also helps businesses with record keeping and customer retention. | From $85/mo | Web, iOS, Android |
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MINDBODY | MINDBODY is a powerful business management software specifically for fitness businesses that combines your scheduling, task automation, reporting tools and more into a single online platform. | From $75/mo | Web, iOS, Android |
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Planyo | Planyo is an online reservation system especially ideal for businesses offering reservations, such as vacation properties, car rentals, hotels, and restaurants.
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Free (10 resources); from $23.47/mo for more features | Web, iOS, Android |
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Skedda | Skedda is an elegant booking app designed for businesses who need to schedule the use of spaces, It's especially useful for event venues, but is also valuable for those scheduling space in offices, clinics, studios and more.
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Free (5 spaces); from $49/mo | Web |
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SuperSaas | SuperSaas is a flexible and affordable booking software that can be integrated into any site. While it doesn’t feel as modern as other tools, but its familiar paradigms can make its customizable options feel manageable and fits into the workflow of many traditional businesses.
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Free (50 appointments); from $8/mo for 100+ appointments | Web |
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Yocale | Yocale is part classifieds, part review platform. Businesses from legal firms to spas to cleaning services are using the marketplace to help them attract and retain new customers. Yocale also offers handy built-in marketing tools and features to help you retain customers.
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Free (5 staff); $25/mo (10+ staff) | Web, iOS, Android |
Whether you run a one-person coaching business, a bustling city salon, or a healthcare clinic, you need an app that will fits your unique workflows and can be your right-hand-robot for scheduling your customer appointments. Switching apps may be a frightening prospect, but it's well worth the effort and will take a lot of pressure off your team, freeing you up to serve your customers even better. And you'll never have to frantically re-book appointments just to get a day off again.
Schedule image by Freepik.
source https://zapier.com/blog/best-appointment-scheduling-apps/
Useful blog!It is more informative.Thanks and keep sharing with us.
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