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All appointment scheduling apps have a freemium plan. The idea of a freemium plan is that it helps solopreneurs and small businesses get started with automated appointment scheduling without worrying about subscription costs. However, not every free plan is the same in their capabilities. Businesses should do as much research on them as they do on paid plans.

In your preliminary research, you can see whether the free plan has the essential features you need, such as:

Essential features of an appointment scheduling app

  • The ability to set up work and off hours with flexibility.
  • An external calendar sync to eliminate double-booking.
  • The ability to create different types of services, so customers can book the specific service they need.
  • A booking page that lets customers see your availability and book appointments.
  • Notifications and reminders to keep you and customers updated about appointments.
  • Built-in online meeting capabilities so you can book appointments with clients across the globe
  • iPaaS (e.g., Zapier, Zoho Flow) integration, to connect to the other apps you use.

Finding the best free plan from 50+ appointment scheduling apps based on these requirements is a tedious job. Here, we do that work for you. Today, we'll find out the appointment scheduling app with the best free plan. We'll be evaluating the free plans based on the following criteria:

  • 1 Are essential features included in the free plan? If not, there will be gaps in your appointment scheduling abilities.
  • 2 Are there features available beyond the essentials? It's one thing to provide the bare essentials, but another to add features that support those essentials. For instance, the ability to add available hours is less useful without the additional option to add buffer time between appointments.
  • 3 Is the free plan flexible? A common problem of free plans is having limits (on users, calendar connections, appointments booked, services you can add, etc.). If the limits are too low, you won't be able to use the app for long.

Now that we've seen the criteria for a good free plan, let's start comparing some of these plans. We'll look at the apps that usually appear on the first page of Google results for “free appointment scheduling software” along with Zoho Bookings.

Although Acuity is a popular appointment scheduling app, we haven’t included it in our comparison because it doesn't have a free plan. Read about that here.

The scheduling apps that we'll be comparing for the best free plan are:

  • 1Zoho Bookings
  • 2Appointy
  • 3Calendly
  • 4Picktime
  • 5Setmore
  • 6SimplyBook.me
  • 7Square appointments

We went through the websites of these apps, took a trial of their free plan, and interacted with their support staff to understand their product.

Other apps vs Zoho Bookings

How do the free plans of the scheduling apps fare on essential features?

Scroll right to see how they compare  

  •  PicktimeAppointySetmoreSimplyBook.meCalendlySquareZoho Bookings
  • Essentials       
  • Setting up availability       
  • 2-way Calendar sync    (optional)   
  • Creating services       
  • Booking page       
  • Email Notifications       
  • Email reminders       
  • Online meeting    (optional)   
  • iPaaS Integration    (optional)   

Optional: In the free plan, you can only opt for one of these features in Simplybook.me's custom feature list.

All of these apps offer availability setting, booking pages, services, and notifications in their Free plans. There are differences in the other features. Zoho Bookings is the only appointment scheduling app that has all of the essential features in its free plans.

Simplybook.me has all of the features, but with a limitation. Two-way calendar sync, online meeting, and iPaaS integrations come under custom features, and you can have only one in the Free plan.

Calendly and Picktime don’t allow iPaaS integration and email reminders in their free plan, and Picktime only offers a one-way calendar sync. Square Appointments lack many essential appointment scheduling features but has some other useful features if you’re running a retail store.

Setmore and Appointy don't allow two-way calendar sync in the Free plan. Without the two-way sync, you can't automatically add new appointments to your Google/O365 calendar or block time on your appointment calendar for events in your Google/O365 calendar. This often leads to double booking and confusion when scheduling appointments.

Winner of this round: Zoho Bookings

Zoho Bookings

How do the free plans of the scheduling apps fare on convenience features?

Scroll right to see how they compare  

  •  PicktimeAppointySetmoreSimplyBook.meCalendlySquareZoho Bookings
  • Convenience       
  • Buffer time        
  • Last-minute booking window       
  • Cancellation window (optional)      
  • Add time off       
  • Automatic time zone conversion for customers       
  • Embed booking page on your website       
  • Add custom fields to the booking form    (optional)   
  • Buffer time: This feature allows you to add a break between appointments to rest or prepare for the next meeting. This time isn't shown to the customer. Appointy doesn't have buffer time as a feature. You’ll need to make your customer slots larger to accommodate your buffer time. Then, you’ll have to choose another setting to hide he slot duration from the customer. It's not straightforward, but you can do it. In other apps, you can add buffer time without making it part of the appointment slot duration.
  • Last minute booking window: This lets you set a time window between the appointment date and the booking date where customers can't book your services. This will help you avoid last-minute hassles and be fully prepared for the appointment. All apps have included this feature in their free plans, due to the importance of this functionality.
  • Cancellation window: This allows you to limit the time window during which customers can cancel their appointment. This helps to prevent last-minute cancellations, which cost you time and money. This feature is present in all apps.
  • Add time-off: You can mark a day off or a vacation on your schedule with the time-off feature.
  • Automatic time zone conversion: This lets you show your availability and booking page to customers in the local time zone. This is another fundamental feature, and except for Picktime, it’s included in free plans of all the other apps.
  • Embed a booking page on your website: All apps allow you to embed your booking page on your website. This provides a seamless booking experience to your customers.
  • Add custom fields to the booking form: Except for Appointy and Picktime, all of the other apps allow you to add custom fields to your intake form. With custom fields, you can ask customers specific questions to qualify and prepare for your appointments.

All apps stand fairly equal in terms of features that add convenience. Picktime and Appointy miss out on one or two, but they have workarounds available. Whereas Simplybook.me has two features under their custom feature section; with the free plan, you can only opt for one of those features.

Winners of this round: Zoho Bookings, Setmore, Calendly

Zoho Bookings, Setmore, Calendly

How do the free plans of the appointment schedulers fare on limits?

Scroll right to see how they compare  

  •  PicktimeAppointySetmoreSimplyBook.meCalendlySquareZoho Bookings
  • Limits       
  • Maximum bookingsUnlimited100Unlimited50UnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited
  • Users/staff allowed31411Unlimited1
  • Calendar connections per user 11111-1
  • Event types/servicesUnlimited5UnlimitedUnlimited1 event typeUnlimited1 event type
  • Email reminders-100 per month500 per month50 per month--Unlimited

Each app has placed a limit on one or more features. Zoho Bookings offers everything unlimited, except for the number of users, event types, and calendar connections.

Calendly has more restrictions. The calendar connections and the event types are limited to one each. This makes it difficult for people who use multiple calendars—as most people do—to keep personal and professional appointments separate. Perhaps you want to have separate calendars for the different services you offer. In Calendly's free plan, you can only sync one external calendar, which doesn’t include any calendars shared with it.

SimplyBook.me doesn’t have restrictions only on the event types that you can create. They allow up to five staff/users. However, they've capped the maximum bookings to 50. For anyone taking 10 appointments a day, this will be depleted in five days including the 50 reminders that’s included with the free plan.

Picktime allows unlimited bookings and event types in its free plan. It sets a restriction by allowing only three users and one calendar connection per user. Email reminders cannot be sent in the free plan.

Setmore offers unlimited bookings, up to four staff, one calendar connection, and unlimited event types. However, they have an unusual limit on reminders. That's an indirect way of limiting the maximum bookings to 100 or less. Any bookings made without reminders are mostly no-shows.

Appointy limits bookings and reminders to 100, staff to one, and event types to five. When compared to the other five apps, there are more limits in Appointy.

Square Appointments doesn’t have any limit on services, appointments, or staff. They charge only for the number of locations. However, they don't have calendar sync or email reminders.

Winners of this round: Zoho Bookings, Setmore

Zoho Bookings, Setmore, Calendly

Comparison of the seven free appointment scheduling apps

Let's put our findings into a table. Because all of the scheduling apps fared equally on convenience features, those features aren't included in the table.

Scroll right to see how they compare  

  •  PicktimeAppointySetmoreSimplyBook.meCalendlySquareZoho Bookings
  • Essentials       
  • Setting up availability       
  • 2-way Calendar sync    (optional)   
  • Creating services       
  • Booking page       
  • Email Notification       
  • Email reminder        
  • Online meeting    (optional)   
  • iPaaS Integration    (optional)   
  • Limits       
  • Maximum bookingsUnlimited100Unlimited50UnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited
  • Users/staff allowed31411unlimited1
  • Calendar connections11111-1
  • Event types/servicesUnlimited5UnlimitedUnlimited1 event typeUnlimited1 event type
  • Email reminders-100 per month500 per month50 per month--Unlimited

Winners of the final round: Zoho Bookings, Setmore

Setmore and Zoho Bookings

The best free appointment scheduling apps are Zoho Bookings and Setmore.

These two apps have all of the essential features in their plan, and with fewer limits on their features. That makes them the best apps for small businesses looking to get started with automated online appointment scheduling.

Here are the best free scheduling apps, in order of their usefulness:

  • 1Zoho Bookings
  • 2Setmore
  • 3Appointy
  • 4Picktime
  • 5Calendly
  • 6Square appointments
  • 7SimplyBook.me

We compared the apps objectively for this study. However, the best app for you is a subjective decision. We recommend that you take a trial of these apps, ask questions, and go with the one that fits you. Sign up for a trial of Zoho Bookings here. Access Zoho Bookings

The best free appointment scheduling apps

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Frequently Asked Questions

1. Which is the best free appointment scheduling app?

Based on our analysis, here are the best free scheduling apps

  • 1. Zoho Bookings
  • 2. Setmore
  • 3. Appointy
  • 4. Picktime
  • 5. Calendly
  • 6. Square Appointments
  • 7. Simplybook.me

2. Do all scheduling apps offer a free plan?

No. Not all scheduling apps provide a free plan, and it’s best to check their pricing page to verify.

3. What are the restrictions in a free plan?

Different scheduling apps have different restrictions in their free plan. In general the apps would have a restriction for the number of services/staff added, appointments booked, integrations and some significant features.