The importance of scheduling software for the education industry cannot be overstated. With so much work to do—like lesson planning, conducting and evaluating assignments, tracking student progress, mentoring, parental communication—why let scheduling bother you? Online booking systems automate scheduling and free up time for things that matter.
In this guide, we'll explore five online booking systems and help you pick the right one for your needs.
Important characteristics of an online booking system for classes
Let's explore some of the vital features of an online class booking system:
1. Create different types of sessions
The scheduling software you pick should support multiple session types. For instance:
One-on-ones: To provide individual attention to candidates
Group sessions: When you're working with multiple students
Collective sessions: When you collaborate with a colleague. Ex: Evaluating a staff member's classes
Hybrid sessions: To host online/offline classes
Having a flexible system helps you cater to a variety of scheduling needs.
2. Showcase your availability
A common problem with manual scheduling is the endless back-and-forth between participants. This arises due to the ambiguity of a teacher's availability.
Choose a system that helps you showcase your availability on the booking page. You should also be able to mark yourself as unavailable on public holidays or set special availability if you're working on those holidays.
3. Automate your scheduling process
The traditional method of scheduling:
Adds redundant work to your plate
Restricts your appointment collection window to your working hours
Makes cancellation and reschedule requests a significant challenge to deal with
Hence, the system you choose should automate scheduling tasks, collect appointments around the clock, and allow students to self-schedule appointments.
4. Keep attendees in the loop
Keeping students informed about upcoming classes is a significant task. Your online class booking system should help you automate email notifications and reminders, so you can reduce no-shows and ensure timely participation.
5. Offer sophisticated customization
Customization is a crucial part of any appointment scheduling software, as it reflects your brand identity. Whether you white-label the booking page, add brand colors, or set backgrounds, the higher the possibilities, the better. Class booking systems featuring in-app customizations that help you effectively navigate the app interface would be a cherry on top.
The five best online class booking systems
Zoho Bookings
Setmore
Bookeo
Momence
Appointy
Application | Top features | Pricing | Available platforms |
Zoho Bookings | Booking page customization An array of meeting types Individual and team-friendly software Sophisticated email customization | Free plan available $6/month for basic plan $9/month for premium plan | Web, Android, iOS |
Setmore | User-friendly UI Showcase reviews on the booking page | Free plan available $5/month for the pro plan $5/month for the team plan | Web, Android, iOS, Windows and Mac |
Bookeo | Memberships and packages Broaden your range of appointment collection with integrations | Free for 30 days $14.95/month for the solo plan $29.95/month for the small plan $39.95/month for the standard plan $79.95/month for the large plan | Web only |
Momence | Best for fitness and dance instructors Tuition ledgers to collect payments in multiple installments Automated sequences to target certain students | Custom pricing Offers premium add-ons | Web, Android, iOS |
Appointy | Simplify area-specific appointments for students Comprehensive customer dashboard | Free plan available $19.99/month for growth plan $49.99/month for professional plan $79.99/month for enterprise plan | Web, Android, iOS |
1. Zoho Bookings: To deliver a tailored booking experience for your students
Cost: Free plan available, $6/month for basic plan, $9/month for premium plan
Available platforms: Web, Android, iOS
Zoho Bookings is a user-friendly and robust class booking system that automates scheduling processes. It offers numerous features useful for private tutors and academic teams.
Create various types of bookings that can be conducted online and offline, such as one-on-one, group, and collective sessions. Use resource bookings to track your organization's internal resources like library workspaces, labs, and gymnasiums.
Add working hours to showcase your real-time availability to students on the booking page. You can tweak it further with a custom booking range or booking notice, add unavailability, or set up a cancellation window.
Keep students informed of classes with email and text notifications to avoid no-shows. You can include the agenda or prerequisites for the session, as these emails are unique and fully customizable. Send up to five email or text notifications and three reminders.
You can integrate with:
Calendars: Eliminate double-bookings and keep appointments synced across systems.
Video conferencing tools: Generate meeting links for online classes dynamically.
Payment services: Host paid classes for students.
Website: Collect online bookings right from your webpage.
It also offers team-based features like user roles for efficient staff management and specialized pricing for experienced teachers.
Unique features of the app
Customizable booking page, domain, and emails
Ability to set your own sender email
A load-balancing algorithm to distribute appointments equally among faculty
API integration with other apps
2. Setmore: For a simplified class scheduling experience
Cost: Free plan available, $5/month for the pro plan, $5/month for the team plan
Available platforms: Web, Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac
With its simple and user-friendly navigation, Setmore helps you easily schedule appointments. You can share your booking link, enabling students to book appointments for any class you handle.
Create services and one-time or recurring classes to cater to students' scheduling needs. You can also add colleagues to appointments and manage faculty with user roles.
Setmore offers basic customization for the booking page and outgoing emails. You can send one reminder email per appointment and change its sender name and signature.
Set up booking policies to control how students book appointments with you. View and download appointment reports for any custom duration. Integrate with an array of apps, from video conferencing to payments, and unify your tech stack.
Unique features of the app: Showcase staff reviews on the booking page and share them as a QR code.
3. Bookeo: For a feature-rich online class booking system
Cost: Free for 30 days, $14.95/month for the solo plan, $29.95/month for the small plan, $39.95/month for the standard plan, $79.95/month for the large plan
Available platforms: Web only
If a vintage UI isn't a deal breaker, Bookeo offers numerous features to aid your class booking needs.
Create services and workshops to deliver classes to your students. Workshops include waiting lists, preventing you from missing out on potential class bookings. Set up an approval-based appointment system to oversee every student booking.
Use booking policies to control student bookings and offer special pricing during a custom duration. Bookeo also offers a sophisticated customer dashboard to track student information.
Bookeo offers a good amount of customization on the booking page. Tweak colors, font, and other elements to deliver a tailored booking experience to your students. You can also set up a reminder to notify clients of upcoming appointments, and purchase in-app credits to send text or fax messages.
Create in-app campaigns to stay in touch with old students, offer memberships, integrate with analytics, generate in-depth reports, and more.
Unique features of the app: Retain students who abandon a booking with emails and offers, define taxes for your services, and exempt certain clients from paying it.
4. Momence: Comprehensive online class booking system for fitness and creative instructors
Cost:Custom pricing, also offers premium add-ons
Available platforms: Web, Android, iOS
If you're a fitness or dance instructor looking to offer courses and classes, Momence is the app for you. It eases onboarding with checklists and help docs, making the UI easier to grasp. Depending on your industry, Momence customizes its in-app labels to deliver an immersive navigating experience.
The app's dashboard greets you with all the important information upfront: sales, bookings, cancellations, upcoming classes, and more. Create classes, workshops, private sessions, and other events, either one-off or recurring, from the list of options.
Keep clients informed with customizable emails. It also features an inbox, so you can send emails, text messages, or in-app messages to your students. The inbox provides important contact and account information, such as active memberships, when you communicate with students.
It offers its integrations with video conferencing, accounting, email marketing tools, and calendars. Despite limited integration options, Momence makes up for it with its numerous features.
Create packages, offer subscriptions, set up waiting lists, provide on-demand content, customize the booking page, add taxes for services, create tier-based community content, offer discount codes, access insights and analytics, allow clients to generate gift cards, and more.
Enable students to pay for courses in multiple installments using tuition ledgers. Collect payments online via Stripe or in-person with a card reader. Momence can also convert booking page pricing to local currency, offer pro-rated prices for courses and semesters, and offer credits for certain cancellations.
Unique features of the app: Sell products and use automated sequences to target specific student groups.
5. Appointy: Versatile online class appointment scheduling software
Cost: Free plan available, $19.99/month for growth plan, $49.99/month for professional plan, $79.99/month for enterprise plan
Available platforms: Web, Android, iOS
Appointy is class booking software that packs a lot of features. It's quick setup helps you ease into the application. The dashboard displays key information about your business, the number of online bookings, new students, estimated sales, and review-based student satisfaction rates.
With a reasonable variety of event types, you can accept bookings, create services, recurring bookings, or rent out resources using Appointy. You can also customize the intake form or enable students to choose multiple services when they make an appointment.
Accept bookings directly from your website using the embeddable widgets. You can also change colors, add logos, and offer multiple languages for the booking page. The email templates can also be customized with dynamic variables.
Appointy offers numerous integrations to choose from: calendars, social platforms, online payments, analytics, video conferencing, payment providers, external platforms like Reserve with Google, and more.
Exercise complete control over student booking by customizing the booking sequence, advance booking, and cancellation policies. Other notable features of the app include a sophisticated customer dashboard, the ability to collect reviews from students, gift certificates and discount codes, and reports.
Unique features of the app: Allow students to book multiple seats in a single booking, Assign teachers to area codes to collect appointments from students in specific regions effectively.
What's your pick?
All the listed applications—Zoho Bookings, Setmore, Bookeo, Momence, and Appointy—excel in their own regard. Choose an app that outperforms the others based on your requirements.
If you're in the market for appointment scheduling software to deliver a completely customizable booking experience with a variety of event types, we believe Zoho Bookings is the right choice.
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