“Free” means four different things in scheduling software, and the difference decides whether you’re still using the tool in six months.
Sometimes free means a free trial — full product, then a card. Sometimes it means a free plan that’s really a demo, capped so tightly you can’t run a real business on it. Sometimes it’s a genuinely free plan that pays for itself another way, usually through payment processing fees. And occasionally it’s a complete small product, free forever, with the extras sold separately.
This page compares the free plans of five appointment scheduling apps, says which kind of free each one is, and is specific about what you don’t get. Prices and plan limits were verified on each vendor’s own pricing page on 8 September 2026 — check the vendor’s site before you commit, because scheduling plans change often.
Quick comparison of free plans
| App | Free plan | Who the free plan covers | Customer reminders on free? | First paid tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book My Appointments | Yes, forever, no time limit | One business, single owner | No — none at any tier today | Pro $1.99/mo per business, unlimited staff, 7-day trial |
| Setmore | Yes, forever | Up to 4 users | Yes — email reminders | Pro $12/user/mo monthly, $5/user/mo billed annually |
| Square Appointments | Yes, forever (funded by card processing fees) | Unlimited staff calendars, one location | Yes | Plus $49/mo per location; Premium $149/mo |
| Calendly | Yes, forever | One person, one event type, one calendar | No — from Standard | Standard $12/seat/mo monthly, $10/seat/mo annually |
| Acuity Scheduling | No — 7-day trial only | — | — | Starter $20/mo monthly, $16/mo billed annually |
The one-line version: if you need automatic customer reminders for free, use Setmore or Square. If you need approval control over who books you and staff scheduling at the lowest possible price, use Book My Appointments. If you book meetings rather than services, use Calendly. Acuity is a good product with no free plan at all.
Book My Appointments — best free plan for approval control and cheap staff scheduling
Free plan: free forever, no time limit, no card.
Book My Appointments is our own product, so the useful thing we can do here is be exact about the line between free and paid — including what isn’t there.
What the free plan includes:
- Your own booking page at go.bookmyappointments.com/your-business
- A full service menu, with a duration you set per service
- Flexible and split weekly hours (open, close for lunch, reopen)
- Per-service availability windows — a 2-hour treatment can be bookable only on Tuesday mornings
- Vacation and time-off blocking
- Accept or decline every booking request — this is free, not a paid upgrade
- Double-booking protection
- Google Calendar sync — accepted appointments push automatically to your Google Calendar
- Website embed
- Branded confirmation email to the customer when you accept
- Instant push notification to you when a request arrives
- Unanswered requests auto-clear after 48 hours
- Timezone handling
- A free listing in the Book My Appointments directory
- Apps for web, iOS and Android
Where the line sits. Everything above is free with no time limit. The paid Pro plan is $1.99/month for the whole business — not per user — with a 7-day free trial, and it adds exactly one category of thing: staff.
- Staff members, each with their own working hours and days off
- “Choose your pro” so a customer can request a specific person
- Fair auto-assignment when they don’t choose
- Individual staff logins
- Creating an appointment manually yourself
- Rescheduling an appointment from the business side
Adding a fifth staff member costs nothing extra. An early-bird rate holds $1.99 for the first 10,000 businesses to sign up; it rises after that. Note that calendar sync is not held back for the paid tier: Google Calendar push is on the free plan. Calendly’s free plan connects one calendar, and Setmore’s two-way sync is a paid feature.
How the booking works, precisely: a customer picks a service and a time and sends a request. It is not confirmed until you accept it. You’re notified instantly; the customer gets a confirmation email once you accept; unanswered requests clear after 48 hours. If you want bookings confirmed the instant someone picks a slot with no action from you, this is the wrong model and Calendly or Square is the better fit.
What it does not do — say it plainly:
- No automatic reminders to customers. None, at any tier, by email or SMS. Setmore and Square both include reminders on their free plans. This is planned for a future update and is not available today. If no-shows are your main problem, this is the deciding factor and you should pick a different app on this page.
- Customers can’t reschedule or cancel themselves. They contact you and you do it from the business side (a Pro feature). Self-service is planned and will require the customer to sign in when it ships.
- No payments or deposits at booking, no recurring appointments, no intake forms, no waitlist, no no-show fees, no client history or CRM, no reporting, no two-way calendar sync, no API, no per-staff booking links (one business link plus “choose your pro”), no buffer time between appointments.
- Google Calendar sync is included free — when you accept a request, the appointment is pushed to your Google Calendar automatically. It is one-way: your bookings appear in Google Calendar, but events already in your Google Calendar don’t block off booking slots. You control availability inside Book My Appointments instead, through weekly hours, per-service windows and time-off blocking.
- Your booking page carries Book My Appointments branding on the free plan, and Pro doesn’t remove it — Pro is staff features only.
Best for: a local service business — salon, barber, tutor, garage, small clinic, trades — that wants to vet bookings before committing a chair or a bay, and that has staff but doesn’t want to pay per person. Not for you if reminders are non-negotiable today.
Setmore — best free plan if you need reminders and up to four people
Free plan: free forever, up to 4 users, including email reminders and email confirmations to customers.
Setmore’s free tier is unusually generous on the two things small teams actually hit first: it covers a small team rather than a single person, and it sends customers an email reminder before the appointment without asking you to upgrade. For a four-chair salon or a three-person clinic that just wants fewer no-shows at zero cost, it’s the strongest free plan on this list on those two axes.
Where the line sits: paid Pro is $12 per user per month billed monthly, or $5 per user per month billed annually, and it’s where SMS reminders, two-way calendar sync, recurring appointments and removing Setmore branding live. So the free plan reminds by email only, and calendar sync is one-directional until you pay. Note the pricing shape: it’s per user, so the cost scales with your team the way Calendly’s does, not the way Book My Appointments’ does.
Best for: a team of up to four that wants reminders for free and doesn’t need SMS. Watch for: the per-user price once you grow past four, and SMS being a paid feature if texting is how your customers actually read things.
Square Appointments — best free plan if you take payment at the appointment
Free plan: free forever, unlimited staff calendars for one location, and it includes appointment reminders and an online booking site.
On paper Square has the most generous free plan here: unlimited staff calendars plus customer reminders, at no monthly cost. The reason it can be that generous is worth understanding rather than glossing over — Square makes its money on card processing, at 2.6% + 15¢ for in-person payments and 3.3% + 30¢ online on the free plan (verified 8 September 2026).
That’s the real trade. “Free” here means no subscription, not no cost. If you take card payments anyway and are happy processing them through Square, the scheduling is genuinely a free add-on to something you were already paying for, and it’s an excellent deal. If you get paid in cash, by bank transfer, or through a processor you already use and intend to keep, Square’s free plan means running a second payments stack to get free scheduling — which is a bigger commitment than picking a booking app.
Where the line sits: the paid Plus plan is $49/month per location, with Premium at $149/month per location; both come with a 30-day free trial and slightly lower processing rates (2.5% + 15¢ in person and 2.9% + 30¢ online on Plus). Paid tiers add cancellation policies and no-show fees, multi-staff bookings, waitlists and the deeper staff-management and reporting features.
Best for: appointment businesses that take card payment on site and want scheduling, staff calendars, reminders and POS in one system. Not for you if you don’t want to move your payment processing.
Calendly — best free plan for booking meetings, not services
Free plan: free forever, one event type and one connected calendar.
Calendly is the best-known name here and it is a genuinely excellent product — but it’s a meeting scheduler, not an appointment booking system for a service business, and its free plan makes that distinction sharply.
One event type means one bookable thing. “Book a 30-minute consultation” works perfectly. A menu of six services with different durations does not — you’d need the paid plan just to list them. One connected calendar is fine for a solo operator and limiting the moment you have a second calendar you need respected.
Where the line sits: Standard at $12 per seat per month billed monthly ($10 billed annually) unlocks unlimited event types, up to six connected calendars, payments via Stripe and PayPal, and automated reminders. Teams at $20 per seat per month billed monthly ($16 annually) adds round-robin assignment and lead routing. Seats are the number to watch: a four-person team that needs staff routing is on Teams at $64–$80 a month, roughly $768 a year even on the annual rate.
What Calendly does better than anything else here: true two-way calendar sync. It reads your existing calendar so it never offers a time you’re already busy, and writes bookings back. If your day genuinely lives in your calendar, that’s worth real money and no free plan on this page replaces it.
Best for: consultants, agencies, recruiters, sales teams — anyone whose “appointment” is a call or a meeting. Not for you if you need a service menu, because the free plan can’t carry one.
Acuity Scheduling — powerful, but there is no free plan
Acuity comes up in every “free scheduling software” search and it shouldn’t, so it’s worth being clear: Acuity has no free plan. There’s a 7-day free trial with no card required, then it’s $20/month ($16 billed annually) for the Starter plan with one calendar, $34/$27 for Standard with up to six calendars and text reminders, and $61/$49 for Premium with up to 36 calendars.
It’s a strong product — intake forms, payments, packages and memberships, deeper customisation than anything else on this list — and if you’re comparing paid tiers it deserves a serious look. But if your requirement is genuinely “free”, Acuity isn’t a candidate, and any roundup telling you otherwise is describing the trial.
Which free plan should you pick?
You need automatic reminders and don’t want to pay → Setmore (email reminders, up to 4 users) or Square Appointments (reminders, unlimited staff calendars, if you’re happy taking payments through Square). Book My Appointments cannot do this today at any price.
You need to approve bookings before they’re confirmed → Book My Appointments. Accept/decline is on the free plan. This matters when a booked slot commits a chair, a bay, a room or an hour of your time, and when you’d rather screen a first-time customer than tighten your availability to avoid them.
You have staff and want the cheapest way to schedule them → Book My Appointments Pro at $1.99/month for the whole business, with no staff limit. Setmore and Calendly both charge per user, so their cost rises with your team and this one doesn’t.
You book meetings, calls and demos rather than services → Calendly. Its free plan handles a single meeting type well, and its calendar integration is the best here.
You take card payments at the appointment → Square Appointments, provided you want your payments there too.
You need intake forms, deposits, packages or memberships → none of the free plans covers this properly. Look at Acuity or Square’s paid tiers.
What to check before you commit to any free plan
- Is it a free plan or a free trial? Acuity’s is a trial. The other four are plans with no time limit.
- How many people does it cover? One (Calendly free, Book My Appointments free), four (Setmore), or unlimited staff calendars (Square).
- Does it remind your customers? Setmore and Square, yes. Calendly free and Book My Appointments, no.
- What does it cost when you outgrow it? Per seat (Calendly $10–$20, Setmore $5–$12), per location (Square $49), or per business (Book My Appointments $1.99).
- How does the free plan get paid for? Square’s is funded by processing fees. That’s fine — as long as you know before you migrate your payments.
- Can you export your data and take your customers with you? Ask before you build a year of booking history somewhere.
FAQ
What is the best free appointment scheduling software for small businesses?
It depends on the one thing you can’t do without. Setmore has the best all-round free plan for a small team that needs email reminders (up to 4 users). Square Appointments’ free plan covers unlimited staff calendars and reminders if you’re willing to take payments through Square. Book My Appointments is the best free plan if you want to approve or decline each booking request and want a full service menu without paying. Calendly’s free plan is the best for booking a single type of meeting. Acuity has no free plan.
Is there genuinely free appointment scheduling software, or is it all trials?
Both exist, and the distinction matters. Book My Appointments, Setmore, Square Appointments and Calendly all have free plans with no time limit. Acuity Scheduling has a 7-day free trial and no free plan.
Which free scheduling apps send appointment reminders to customers?
Setmore includes email reminders on its free plan, and Square Appointments includes reminders on its free plan. Calendly’s reminders start on the Standard plan at $12/seat/month ($10 billed annually). Book My Appointments does not send automatic reminders at any tier today — it sends a confirmation email when you accept a request, and reminders are planned for a future update.
Can I schedule staff on a free plan?
Partly. Square’s free plan includes unlimited staff calendars, and Setmore’s covers up to 4 users. Book My Appointments’ free plan is for a single business owner; staff scheduling, individual staff hours, “choose your pro” and fair rotation are on Pro at $1.99/month for the whole business with no staff limit. Calendly’s free plan is one person.
What do you actually get free with Book My Appointments, and what costs money?
Free, with no time limit: your booking page, a service menu with custom durations, split weekly hours, per-service availability windows, time-off blocking, accept/decline on every request, double-booking protection, one-way Google Calendar sync, a website embed, branded confirmation emails, instant notifications, timezone handling, a directory listing, and web/iOS/Android apps. Paid, at $1.99/month for the whole business: staff members with their own hours, “choose your pro”, fair auto-assignment, staff logins, creating an appointment manually, and rescheduling from the business side. There are no automatic reminders and no customer self-service rescheduling on either plan today.
Is a free booking app good enough to run a business on?
For a lot of small businesses, yes — as long as you’re honest about which features are load-bearing for you. A free plan that books appointments reliably but doesn’t remind your customers will cost you in no-shows. A free plan tied to a payment processor you don’t want will cost you in switching. Pick for the constraint that actually bites, not for the longest feature list.
Do free scheduling apps put their branding on my booking page?
Usually, yes. Book My Appointments booking pages carry Book My Appointments branding on the free plan, and Pro doesn’t remove it. Calendly lists “Remove Calendly branding” as a paid-plan feature, Setmore’s “Remove Setmore branding” is on Pro, and Acuity’s “Hide Acuity logo” is on its Premium plan. Check the vendor’s own pricing page — this is one of the most common differences between a free plan and the first paid tier.
What’s the cheapest paid scheduling plan if the free one isn’t enough?
Of the apps here, Book My Appointments Pro at $1.99/month is the cheapest, and it’s priced per business rather than per user, so it doesn’t get more expensive as your team grows. Setmore is $5/user/month billed annually ($12 monthly), Calendly $10/seat/month billed annually ($12 monthly), Acuity $16/month billed annually ($20 monthly), and Square Appointments $49/month per location.