Choosing an appointment scheduling app comes down to a handful of practical questions. Do you need a free plan, or are you ready to pay? Do you take payment at the time of booking? Do several staff members share one calendar? Do you want to approve each booking yourself, or have it confirmed instantly? The right answer is different for a solo consultant, a two-chair barber shop and a five-person clinic.
This guide compares five appointment scheduling apps that suit small and local businesses: Book My Appointments, Calendly, Square Appointments, Acuity Scheduling and Setmore. Competitor prices below were read from each vendor’s own pricing page on 18 October 2026, and each product’s limitations are stated as plainly as its strengths.
Quick Comparison
| App | Free plan | Paid pricing (monthly / billed annually) | How you pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Book My Appointments | Yes, no time limit | Pro $1.99/month per business, 7-day free trial | Per business |
| Calendly | Yes: 1 event type, 1 calendar connection | Standard $12 / $10 per seat · Teams $20 / $16 per seat | Per seat |
| Square Appointments | Yes: one location, funded by card fees | Plus $49 · Premium $149 per location, per month | Per location |
| Acuity Scheduling | No, 7-day trial only | Starter $20 / $16 · Standard $34 / $27 · Premium $69 / $55 | Per plan, by number of calendars |
| Setmore | Yes: up to 4 users | Pro $12 / $5 per user | Per user |
Prices as published on each vendor’s own site, checked 18 October 2026. Scheduling software pricing changes often, so check the vendor’s page before you commit.
What Is the Best Appointment Scheduling App for Small Businesses?
There is no single best app for every small business. These five products are built for different jobs, and the right one depends on which trade-off you can live with.
- If cost is the deciding factor and you’re happy to approve booking requests yourself, Book My Appointments is the cheapest option here: a free core plan with no time limit, and Pro at $1.99 a month per business.
- If you mainly book meetings, calls and consultations and want booking to sit on top of your work calendar, Calendly is the smoothest experience.
- If you take payment at the time of booking and want a point-of-sale system in the same account, Square Appointments is built for exactly that.
- If you rely on intake forms, packages, memberships or gift certificates, Acuity Scheduling is the most capable, but there is no free plan at all.
- If you want a free plan for a small team that already includes email reminders, Setmore has one of the strongest free tiers in the category.
Two things separate these products more than anything else: how a booking gets confirmed, and how much you pay as you add people. Both are covered product by product below.
1. Book My Appointments
Who it’s for: Local and small service businesses such as salons, barbers, tutors, consultants, auto shops and small clinics that want a shareable booking page at a very low price, and are comfortable confirming bookings themselves rather than letting every slot auto-book.
How booking works
Book My Appointments uses a request-and-approve model. A customer picks a time and sends a booking request, and it is not confirmed until the business accepts it. Requests that go unanswered clear automatically after 48 hours, and the customer gets a branded confirmation email the moment you accept.
That is a real difference from most of this list. Calendly, for example, confirms an invitee’s chosen time immediately, with no approval step for the host. If you want to vet every booking, the request model is the point. If you want hands-off instant confirmation, it isn’t the right tool.
What the free plan includes
The free plan has no time limit and is a complete product rather than a trial:
- A public booking page at go.bookmyappointments.com/your-business
- A service menu with custom durations per service
- Flexible and split weekly hours, plus per-service availability windows
- Vacation and time-off blocking
- Accept or decline every request: this approval control is free, not a paid add-on
- Double-booking prevention
- Google Calendar sync: accepted appointments are pushed into your Google Calendar
- Instant push notifications to the business on every new request
- Branded confirmation emails to customers
- A free customer account where people can see their bookings and cancel
- A website embed, timezone handling, a free directory listing, and web, iOS and Android apps
Customers also get email reminders before their appointment.
Pro: $1.99 a month per business
Pro costs $1.99 per month per business and comes with a 7-day free trial, on the web and in the apps. An early-bird rate holds the price at $1.99 for the first 10,000 businesses to sign up. Pro adds team features:
- Staff members, each with their own hours and days off
- A “choose your pro” option so customers can pick a specific team member
- Fair automatic assignment and rotation when they don’t pick
- Individual staff logins
- Creating an appointment manually yourself
- Rescheduling an appointment from the business side
Advantages
The price is the standout. Pro is $1.99 a month per business, against $10 to $20 per seat on Calendly and $16 a month and up on Acuity. The free plan is a working product, not a countdown to a paywall. And approval control being free, rather than an enterprise feature, suits businesses that don’t want a stranger auto-booking their Saturday morning.
Limitations
- No instant confirmation. Every booking waits for you to accept it. If you can’t check requests regularly, customers wait.
- Customers can cancel but can’t reschedule themselves. Cancelling needs a free customer account. Rescheduling is done by the business, on Pro.
- Calendar sync is one-way. Accepted appointments push into Google Calendar, but existing calendar events don’t block booking slots, so it can’t stop a clash with something already on your calendar.
- Book My Appointments branding stays on the booking page on both free and Pro. Calendly, Setmore and Acuity sell branding removal on higher tiers, so this is a difference in where you pay rather than a feature nobody else charges for.
- No payments or deposits at booking, no intake forms, no SMS reminders, no recurring appointments, no waitlist, no no-show fees and no multi-location support.
2. Calendly
Who it’s for: Individuals and teams who schedule meetings, calls and consultations, and want booking to sit neatly on top of an existing calendar and video-conferencing stack.
Pricing: The free plan covers one event type and one calendar connection. Standard is $12 per seat billed monthly, or $10 billed annually, and adds unlimited event types, automated reminders and Stripe or PayPal payments. Teams is $20 per seat monthly, or $16 annually, and adds round-robin assignment and routing. Enterprise starts at $15,000 a year with a 50-seat minimum.
Strengths: The best meeting-scheduling experience in this list, with strong calendar and video integrations. Reminders are included from Standard.
Limitations for a small local business: Calendly is built around meetings, not a storefront of bookable services with staff, so a service menu with per-service durations isn’t its natural shape, and the free plan’s single event type means it can’t carry one at all. Per-seat pricing adds up quickly: four people on Teams cost roughly $64 to $80 a month depending on billing. Round-robin staff assignment needs the Teams tier, and removing Calendly branding is a paid feature.
3. Square Appointments
Who it’s for: Businesses that take payment at or around the time of booking and want scheduling wired into a full point-of-sale system, such as salons, spas and retail-adjacent service businesses.
Pricing: The free plan covers one location with an online booking site, unlimited staff calendars and customer reminders. Plus is $49 a month per location and Premium is $149 a month per location, both with a 30-day free trial.
Card processing is charged separately, and it’s how the free plan is funded: Free 2.6% + 15¢ in person and 3.3% + 30¢ online · Plus 2.5% + 15¢ and 2.9% + 30¢ · Premium 2.4% + 15¢ and 2.9% + 30¢.
Strengths: Payments are built in rather than bolted on. The free plan includes reminders and unlimited staff calendars, which is more than many paid tiers elsewhere. For a business that needs a POS anyway, it’s a genuine all-in-one.
Limitations for a small local business: The paid tiers are the most expensive here, and they’re priced per location. The free plan only makes sense if you process payments through Square. The platform is also much heavier than a business that just wants a booking link needs.
4. Acuity Scheduling
Who it’s for: Established service businesses that need detailed intake forms, packages, memberships or gift certificates, and want fine-grained control over the booking flow.
Pricing: There is no free plan, only a 7-day trial that doesn’t need a card. Starter is $20 a month, or $16 billed annually (1 calendar). Standard is $34 or $27 (up to 6 calendars, plus text message reminders). Premium is $69 or $55 (up to 36 calendars, the option to hide Acuity branding, and a BAA for HIPAA-covered businesses).
Strengths: The deepest customisation and intake capability in this comparison, with payments and email reminders on every paid tier.
Limitations for a small local business: No free tier, so the cheapest way to run Acuity is $16 a month. It’s also the most involved product here to set up, and much of what makes it powerful is beyond what a simple “share a link, get booked” business will use.
5. Setmore
Who it’s for: Small teams that want a free plan with email reminders already included, and a cheap upgrade path to SMS and two-way calendar sync.
Pricing: The free plan supports up to 4 users and includes email reminders and confirmations, plus iOS and Android apps. Pro is $12 per user billed monthly, or $5 per user billed annually, and removes the user cap.
Strengths: One of the most generous free tiers in the category, and the annual Pro price is low.
Limitations for a small local business: SMS reminders, two-way calendar sync, recurring appointments and removing Setmore branding are all Pro-only. Pricing is per user, so the bill grows with your team, and the monthly Pro rate is more than twice the annual one.
Which Booking App Should You Choose?
- Choose Book My Appointments if price is the priority, you want a free plan that’s a complete product rather than a trial, and you’re happy to approve booking requests yourself. Skip it if you need payments at booking or instant confirmation.
- Choose Calendly if you mainly book meetings and calls, want the tightest calendar and video integrations, and per-seat pricing works at your team’s size.
- Choose Square Appointments if you take payment at booking and want scheduling inside a point-of-sale system. Its free plan is hard to beat if you process card payments anyway.
- Choose Acuity Scheduling if you need intake forms, memberships or deep customisation and don’t mind paying for it. Budget at least $16 a month.
- Choose Setmore if you want a free plan with reminders for a team of up to four, and a low-cost path to SMS later.
If a free plan is what you’re really after, we’ve written a longer breakdown of the best free appointment scheduling software for small businesses, including what each free tier leaves out. You can also see the full feature list for Book My Appointments.
FAQ
What is the best free appointment scheduling app?
It depends what “free” has to include. Book My Appointments has the most complete free core product with no time limit: a booking page, a service menu, availability control, accept or decline on every request, and email confirmations. Setmore’s free plan supports up to four users with email reminders. Square Appointments’ free plan includes reminders and unlimited staff calendars, funded by card-processing fees. Calendly’s free plan is limited to one event type and one calendar connection. Acuity has no free plan, only a 7-day trial.
What is the easiest booking system for a small business?
For a simple “share a link, get booked” setup, Book My Appointments and Setmore are the quickest to get running. Calendly is easiest if you mainly book meetings. Square is easiest if you already use Square for payments. Acuity is the most powerful but takes the most setup.
Can customers book appointments without downloading an app?
Yes. With Book My Appointments, customers book through a web link with nothing to install. The mobile apps are for the business owner. Calendly, Square, Acuity and Setmore all offer web booking pages too.
Can I create a booking link for my business?
Yes. Book My Appointments gives every business a shareable booking link on the free plan, at go.bookmyappointments.com/your-business, which you can also embed on your own website. Calendly, Square, Acuity and Setmore all provide booking links as well.
Can customers choose a staff member when booking?
With Book My Appointments this is a Pro feature at $1.99 a month per business: “choose your pro” lets customers pick a team member, or bookings are rotated fairly across staff when they don’t. Square, Acuity and Setmore support staff selection. Calendly handles team assignment through round-robin on its Teams tier.
What is a good Calendly alternative for a local business?
If Calendly’s per-seat pricing is too steep, Book My Appointments is the most budget-friendly alternative at $1.99 a month per business, as long as you’re happy to approve each booking. Square Appointments is the better alternative if you take payments at booking, and Setmore if you want a free plan for a small team.
Do these apps send appointment reminders to customers?
Yes, all five can. Book My Appointments sends email reminders to customers. Square and Setmore include email reminders on their free plans. Calendly includes reminders from its Standard tier, and Acuity includes email reminders on every paid tier, with text reminders from Standard.
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