7 Top-Rated Affordable Appointment Scheduling Software
Appointment scheduling software surpasses traditional methods by sending reminders for upcoming appointments, maintaining client records, and facilitating online payments. This helps reduce no-shows and payment delays. Business managers in various industries, including fitness, medical, and legal, can benefit from a scheduling app to manage their clients' data and bookings.
Since there are various appointment scheduling tools that can simplify the booking process, we suggest you start with an affordable solution, especially if you’re on a budget.
To make your search easier, we have highlighted the seven top-rated affordable appointment scheduling software based on their pricing, as found on vendor websites and verified software reviews. Based on our research, we've considered products priced less than $16.69 per month as affordable software and have arranged them in ascending order. Read more.
The tools listed in this article are dedicated appointment scheduling software offering online booking and appointment reminders as core features.
1. BookyWay
BookyWay is an online appointment scheduling app catering to service industries. It allows businesses in various sectors, including health, fitness, sports, and cultural centers, to list themselves on the platform and get their profiles customized. BookyWay’s creative team designs personalized homepages with your business’s branding elements. You can have them create multiple proposals so that you have various options to choose from.
Product features of interest*:
Virtual bulletin boards: Use the bulletin board as a digital announcement space for your business. You can use the board to inform clients about schedule changes, upcoming events, or special offers.
Waiting list: Manage class or appointment overflows by letting interested clients join a waiting list. If a spot becomes available, the system automatically notifies the next person on the list, offering them the opportunity to book appointments.
Absence management: Track client no-shows and cancellations to enforce attendance policies. This feature identifies absentees, automatically notifies them, and can impose penalties or restrictions on bookings.
Starting price: $1.50 per user
Billing cycle: One-time payment
Customer support options: Knowledge base, tutorials, FAQs, and email support
Who should consider BookyWay?
BookyWay is free for users who sign up within 30 days of the software setup, making it a budget-friendly choice for startup businesses with small teams in service industries. These businesses can benefit from getting their homepages customized by the creative experts of BookyWay. This way, they can have a unique presence on the platform without having to worry about hiring a graphic designer.
Analysis performed December 2023**
2. Picktime
Picktime is another appointment scheduling software with resource management features. It caters to a wide range of industries, including beauty, wellness, fitness, and sports. From meeting rooms to equipment, it lets you book resources that you need for your appointments. Efficient booking and resource management prevent scheduling conflicts and streamline the whole appointment scheduling process.
Product features of interest*:
Team management: Coordinate your team’s appointments and work hours to ensure efficient allocation of resources. This feature aids in preventing overbooking and scheduling conflicts while promoting better team collaboration.
Recurring booking: Allow your clients to schedule appointments that repeat at regular intervals, such as weekly or monthly, without having to book each one individually. This option is beneficial for ongoing consultations and simplifies the booking process for clients.
Invoice generation: Automate creating and delivering invoices to clients post-appointment by including necessary details such as services provided, costs, and payment terms. It simplifies the billing process, saves time, and ensures accuracy in financial transactions.
Starting price: $3 per user, per month
Billing cycle: Annual
Customer support options: Knowledge base, video tutorials, and live chat
Who should consider Picktime?
Businesses, such as medical clinics, beauty and wellness, and sports clubs, that heavily rely on equipment can benefit from the resource management feature of Picktime. This functionality enables these businesses to simultaneously reserve essential equipment when scheduling appointments to ensure that the necessary tools and devices are available and reserved for specific services or sessions.
Analysis performed December 2023**
Pro tip
Verify the limit on participants who can join an appointment to ensure the tool can accommodate your specific needs, especially if you plan to conduct group sessions. Understanding this limit helps avoid overbooking and ensures the software meets the scale of your operations.
3. 2meetup
2meetup is a meeting scheduler tool for coaches and psychologists, offering integrated customer relationship management (CRM) features. It helps manage client interactions by storing and organizing crucial client details such as contact and billing information. Additionally, it supports digital note-taking, allowing you to efficiently record and access client notes within the tool, enhancing quick reference, and streamlining client management processes.
Product features of interest*:
Meeting reminders: Notify the meeting organizer and participants about the upcoming meeting to reduce no-shows and ensure timely attendance. These automated reminders can be delivered through various channels, such as emails, text messages, or in-app notifications.
Calendar integration: Synchronize the booking tool with calendars such as Zoom and Google Meet to automatically update all the appointments in your calendar. It helps avoid scheduling conflicts and double bookings, providing a clear overview of availability.
Smart time zone: Adjusts meeting times to the respective time zones of the participants to ensure that when a meeting is scheduled, each attendee sees the correct time in their local time zone, regardless of where they are located globally.
Starting price: $4 per month
Billing cycle: Annual
Customer support options: FAQs and chat support
Who should consider 2meetup?
Coaches, psychologists, and consultants can rely on 2meetup to simplify client management along with booking management. The tool's CRM capabilities enable the storage of essential client data, including notes, which are easily accessible to authorized users. This feature is particularly beneficial for ongoing consultations, as it allows for quick retrieval of past records and tracking of client progress. The combination of booking and client management in one tool simplifies the workflow for professionals in these fields, enhancing efficiency and client engagement.
Analysis performed December 2023**
4. Probooking
Probooking scheduling platform helps manage the team along with managing clients and meetings. Its ‘round-robin’ functionality ensures fair distribution of clients among team members. The tool allocates appointments evenly across the team, ensuring no member is overburdened while others are underutilized. Probooking also helps create and manage grouped availability for group appointments. It automatically finds a suitable time for appointment booking for all the parties involved, enhancing the client’s ease of online scheduling and optimizing the business's appointment management.
Product features of interest*:
Buffer time: Set additional time before or after appointments to create a gap between meetings. This ensures sufficient time for preparation or follow-up activities and avoids back-to-back bookings, reducing the rush and stress often associated with consecutive appointments.
Group meetings: Allow multiple participants to register for the single time slot. It simplifies scheduling process for events such as workshops, classes, or group consultations, where several attendees join simultaneously.
Notice period: Set a minimum lead time required for booking or canceling appointments. This ensures that clients cannot make last-minute bookings or cancellations, providing the business with a predictable schedule and adequate time to prepare for appointments.
Starting price: $5 per user, per month
Billing cycle: Annual
Customer support options: Knowledge base, emails, and inquiry via a web form
Who should consider Probooking?
Probooking can be particularly beneficial for businesses with a team of experts or multiple service providers, such as medical clinics, fitness studios, salons, and consulting firms. Its ‘round robin’ feature ensures a fair and efficient distribution of appointments among team members, optimizing resource allocation. Probooking's availability collection feature is also useful for businesses offering group services, such as group fitness classes or therapy sessions. It identifies times suitable for all participants, enhancing scheduling convenience and efficiency.
Analysis performed December 2023**
Pro tip
Look for a tool with an activity dashboard that provides a centralized overview of all bookings, client information, and schedules. It helps monitor and manage appointments and keeps you updated about booking trends.
5. Setmore
Setmore online appointment scheduling app allows you to create a customized booking page that acts as a standalone business website. You can list your services, availability, pricing, and contact details on the booking, offering customers a smooth scheduling process. The page can be personalized with brand elements and integrates with payment systems such as Square or Stripe. The booking page can also be linked to business websites and social media, making it accessible to a wider audience.
Product features of interest*:
HIPAA compliance: Adhere to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act's (HIPAA) standards by encrypting clients’ data and preventing unauthorized access. Secure data storage will protect clients’ privacy and maintain the confidentiality of their information.
Branding: Customize the booking interface with your own branding elements. This includes adding logos, choosing brand colors, and customizing the layout to match the company's visual identity. Doing so creates a cohesive and professional appearance across their scheduling platform, enhancing brand recognition and client trust.
Online payments: Allow clients to pay for services during the booking process. This feature integrates payment gateways such as Stripe and Square, enabling secure and convenient transactions. It simplifies the payment process for businesses and clients, reducing the need for in-person payments or separate billing systems.
Starting price: $5 per user, per month
Billing cycle: Annual
Customer support options: Knowledge base, chat, and phone support
Who should consider Setmore?
Setmore is ideal for businesses seeking to give clients the autonomy to schedule their own appointments. Customers can use the tool to create a booking page. Integrating this page with a website or social media will allow them the flexibility to book services at their convenience. This not only makes the business more accessible to clients but also significantly reduces administrative tasks by automating appointment scheduling and eliminating the need for manual coordination.
Analysis performed December 2023**
6. Doodle
Doodle, a booking software, supports group booking and allows you to create group polls to find the best times for events or meetings. You can send participants a set of possible times, allowing them to indicate their availability. This feature lets you invite anyone, track responses, automatically send calendar invites to respondents, and add meeting details, including agenda and location.
Product features of interest*:
Activity reports: Get detailed analytics and insights about appointments and client interactions. It typically includes data on the number of appointments scheduled, no-shows, cancellations, and peak booking times.
Admin console: Control access to the software and manage what integrations team members can use. This feature helps maintain security and ensures that only authorized personnel have access to certain functionalities within the Doodle platform.
Data privacy: Ensure security of data with single sign-on[1], service level agreements, and SOC Type 2[2]. These data safety measures ensure the protection and confidentiality of client information and safeguard the data against unauthorized access or breaches.
Starting price: $6.95 per user, per month
Billing cycle: Annual
Customer support options: Knowledge base and inquiry via a web form
Who should consider Doodle?
Corporate teams, event organizers, and education institutions can rely on Doodle to effectively accommodate multiple people’s availability while creating bookings. The polling feature helps determine the best dates and times for scheduling a meeting and automatically sends out meeting invites as per the poll results. Additionally, features such as data privacy and an admin console ensure secure handling of information, preventing unauthorized access and maintaining data integrity. This makes Doodle an effective tool for collaborative scheduling in various professional settings.
Analysis performed December 2023**
Pro tip
Opt for a booking platform that offers customizable invoice templates as they allow for quick and professional invoice creation, saving time and reducing errors. It is particularly useful for service-based businesses, as it ensures timely and accurate billing, enhances client satisfaction, and helps maintain a smooth cash flow.
7. Book Like A Boss
Book Like A Boss (BLAB) enables the sale of both digital and physical products through its booking pages. You can offer a variety of items, including memberships, workshops, ebooks, and t-shirts, alongside scheduling appointments. The platform integrates with multiple payment processing tools for online transactions. It also features a customizable dashboard in five languages, including English and Spanish, to monitor appointments and orders, enhancing the management of services and product sales.
Product features of interest*:
Coupons: Offer discounts and special deals to customers to promote services, attract new clients, or reward loyal customers. Customers can apply coupon codes during the booking process to receive a discount on their purchases.
Membership: Provide subscription-based services to clients so that clients can sign up for recurring services. This feature automates the process of recurring bookings and payments, providing a steady revenue stream for the business.
Testimonials: Allow your customers to share their experiences and display these reviews and testimonials on your booking pages. These testimonials provide valuable social proof and credibility to potential clients, often influencing their decision to book services.
Starting price: $8.33 per month
Billing cycle: Annual
Customer support options: Knowledge base, video tutorials, and chat support
Who should consider Book Like A Boss?
Businesses such as fitness centers selling sports equipment or medical clinics offering wellness products can benefit greatly from BLAB. This online scheduling tool allows them to manage various products and services through a single interface, enhancing customer engagement with features like coupon offerings. Additionally, the ability to embed customer reviews and testimonials directly on the booking pages helps attract new customers and build trust.
Analysis performed December 2023**
How much does appointment scheduling software cost?
An appointment scheduling software solution can cost as low as $4.59 per month or all the way up to $137+ per month, depending on various factors—features, number of users, infrastructure requirements, business size/type, training availability, deployment options, integrations, and storage. Most scheduling apps typically include the following pricing plans:
Free trial: No-cost trial plans of up to 14 days give users access to either all or limited features of the software. These are ideal for businesses that wish to try out a tool before purchasing it.
Free version: Free software plans offer basic features and limited premium feature access. These are ideal for small business owners with a limited budget.
Entry-level: Starts at $4.59 per month and offers limited features, such as appointment reminders and integration with calendars such as Google Calendar and Outlook. These are ideal for small businesses with basic appointment scheduling needs.
Mid-tier: Range from $6.86 to $129 per month and offers advanced features such as group booking and customized booking pages. These are ideal for businesses that have outgrown basic appointment scheduling solutions but don’t require the full range of functionality offered by enterprise-level tools.
High-end: Advanced plans going up to $137 per month offer unlimited appointments, advanced reporting, integration with multiple tools, HIPAA compliance, and priority support. These are ideal for large businesses spread across the globe.
Hidden costs associated with affordable appointment scheduling software
Besides the software license itself, there may be additional costs associated with affordable appointment scheduling software, including:
Commission charges: Some platforms charge a commission on each new client booking, which can significantly eat into profits.
Processing fees: Processing fees for transactions made through the software's integrated payment system.
Online booking fees: Fees may be charged for each appointment booked online, adding up quickly for businesses relying heavily on online bookings.
Frequently asked questions when selecting appointment scheduling software
Does the tool support credit card processing?
Opting for appointment scheduling apps that support credit card processing is advantageous because it offers convenience and efficiency in handling payments. It allows clients to pay for services immediately upon booking, which streamlines the transaction process. This feature also enhances the customer experience by providing a seamless and secure payment method, and it helps you maintain steady cash flow by ensuring timely payments.
Does the tool maintain a customer database?
An appointment scheduling tool that maintains a customer database allows for efficient management and tracking of client information. It enables you to store contact details, appointment history, preferences, and other relevant data, facilitating personalized service and follow-up. A robust customer database aids in building long-term relationships, enhances targeted marketing efforts, and provides valuable insights for business growth.
Does the tool help with email marketing?
Email marketing capabilities in appointment scheduling apps are beneficial to enhance client engagement and business growth. It lets you send targeted, personalized email campaigns to your client base directly from the platform. It's effective for promoting new services, sharing updates, and maintaining client relationships. By integrating your appointment scheduling software with email marketing, you can increase appointment bookings, foster client loyalty, and effectively communicate with your audience.
Methodology
For this article, we selected the top seven products that met the following criteria:
Each product should be a part of Software Advice’s Frontrunners report 2023 for appointment scheduling software.
We assessed all 25 products in the Frontrunners report for their monthly pricing (as of Dec. 13, 2023) and considered the products with publicly available pricing information. Based on the assessment, the average price was calculated to be $16.69. Products with a monthly subscription price lower than $16.69 were then shortlisted to be included in this list and arranged in ascending order.
Each product must include online booking and appointment reminders as core features.
Each product must meet our market definition for appointment scheduling software: “Appointment scheduling software streamlines the process of scheduling clients, patients, and meetings. This type of software promotes efficiency by eliminating double bookings and automating the scheduling of recurring appointments.”
*Our research team identified these features from vendor websites (as of Dec. 13, 2023) based on their analysis of what users find valuable in or expect from appointment scheduling software. This list is not exhaustive. For additional features, refer to the vendor's website.
**We selected products for this article based on their average ratings as of December 2023; however, the article displays each product’s current average rating, which may differ if more reviews have been left since our analysis.
We select and rank products based on an objective methodology developed by our research team. While some vendors may pay us when they receive web traffic or leads, this has no influence on our methodology.
Products evaluated for the pricing calculation were taken from Software Advice’s appointment scheduling software directory. The pricing ranges exclude freemium versions of the products. The features highlighted were identified based on their relevance and the percentage of products in the Software Advice directory that offer them.
Definitions:
Single sign-on is a user authentication process that permits a user to access multiple applications with one set of login credentials, enhancing convenience and security.
SOC Type 2 is a certification that indicates a service organization has undergone a detailed audit of its control activities, including those related to the security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy of a system.