Booker vs. Calendly

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Booker
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Booker is a leading appointment scheduling, point-of-sale, and business management software that powers thousands of spas and salons worldwide. The software includes a complete suite of management tools, and provides integrated online booking, marketing, and more. Booker is completely web-based, which makes it available from any computer with a browser and internet connection, anywhere at any time. It can also be used via a smartphone or iPad.
$129
per month
Calendly
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Calendly helps organizations globally automate the meeting lifecycle by removing the scheduling back and forth, with the goal of enabling companies to close deals, hire candidates faster, and build relationships.
$10
per month (billed annually) per seat
Pricing
BookerCalendly
Editions & Modules
Starter
$129
per month
Accelerate
$269
per month
Ultimate
$429
per month
Standard
$10
per month (billed annually) per seat
Teams
$16
per month (billed annually) per seat
Enterprise
Starts at $15k
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BookerCalendly
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup Fee$250 No setup fee
Additional DetailsMonthly billing also available.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BookerCalendly
Considered Both Products
Booker
Chose Booker
Ease of use of the platform, ease of access, and a wide set of features make Booker outstanding. It has a wider reach in comparison to its competitors as it has a niche customer base. Booker helps to build a strong customer base as compared to others and also is a one-stop …
Chose Booker
Doodle has been around forever and it is very easy to use. However, I have never used the paid option. Booker is very standard, looks good, and is affordable.
Chose Booker
I have used ProSalon before and loved them! Their reporting was second to none and they even customized reports for us. Though visually, Booker has them beat. We've tested many others but ultimately have stayed with Booker because it is a big undertaking to change and because …
Chose Booker
Definitely stacks up better than Virtual. Not sure about the other two as we have only seen them superficially.
Chose Booker
I currently use this at the job I am at now. The other one we have worked with was Google Calendar (not recommended). We are happy with Mind Body for the company that it is.
Chose Booker
When we tried Micros, though it has robust hardware and software, It is not meant for salons. Square again the same thing, it is meant for small non salon and non service oriented businesses. Booker is by far the best of all salon softwares we have used.
Chose Booker
AccuPOS did not have a scheduling module or gift certificate management module when we switched and those were critical needs at the time. For such a small module, AccuPOS did a fantastic job directly and concisely bridging daily activity to QuickBooks.
Chose Booker
Booker is a bit more detailed and function-savvy.
Chose Booker
I've used Millennium in the past - I love the LOOK of SpaBooker better but I don't recall ever having the amount of glitches as Booker has. Their membership process was much more streamlined as well.
Chose Booker
I was a Harms/Millennium user for years and if I could, I would go back to them.
Chose Booker
I can't say enough how easy Booker is to navigate and how user friendly it is.
Chose Booker
Spasoft was expensive and the database needs support maintenance often, plus the SQL component of the software was outdated. We received no communications from Spasoft on upgrades. Motionsoft was a property installed server based product that never worked for us. FitLinxx was a …
Chose Booker
I have used Schedulicity, Google Calendar, Square, and PayPal in the past. Booker is way more detailed. But at the same time there are more steps to get the same result and it is not as simple and clear.
Calendly
Chose Calendly
I used You Can Book Me to set up meetings, but there were a number of things I didn't like about it. When using the free version of You Can Book Me, I could only make my meeting times available in one-hour increments. With Calendly, I can select the length of meetings that I …
Chose Calendly
Calendly has a much more specific purpose geared toward business meetings or any kind of meetings where as google makes more sense in an internal meeting or a school project or something like that. Calendly is really good at getting a smooth schedule down between client and …
Chose Calendly
Calendly seems the most easy to use and has all or most of the functionality that we need. We were looking to use other tools that we already pay for that have meeting functionality, but they didn’t have automated text and email reminders or some can’t allow clients to cancel …
Chose Calendly
I haven’t explored many other options, but I am a sold-out believer in this product and have used it at multiple organizations.
Chose Calendly
I didn’t use HubSpot meeting schedules in the same capacity because I wasn’t a sales rep so it’s hard to compare but I think Calendly is my preferred option.
Chose Calendly
Calendly allows you to define different types of appointments (with different time durations), and this is amazing.
Chose Calendly
Everything I've said previously. It takes me entirely out of the loop of coordinating people's schedules, sending invites, booking time, ensuring they get a Zoom invite, etc. It does everything while I do next to nothing, which is as it should be. As a team of one, my time …
Chose Calendly
Calendly is superior to both scheduling tools - it is easier to use, allows for a lot of customization and options for reminders, and allows the users to adjust their settings as they see fit. Other tools are more expensive and quite complex that don't allow modifications as …
Chose Calendly
Bookings is ok - but the game changer or I guess the deal breaker was bookings wasn't offering reminders or notifications to clients. This is important so our users are not wasting their time once again with emails that could be automated. With Calendly not only are you set …
Chose Calendly
Initially I used only Zoom to set up meetings. Had no clue how to make the best scheduling process in place. And them, Calendly came in. This was a game changer.

Zoom allows to just create meetings, but Calendly is absolute convenience! There's zero requirement to follow up …
Chose Calendly
Acuity’s interface was difficult and clunky to navigate. It was not intuitive and overpriced for its level of outdated design. Calendly is way more efficient and their customer service is top-notch and actually available.
Chose Calendly
Before making the switch to Calendly, we used Doodle polls a ton for big meetings to avoid the constant back and forth and long email chain messages between external partners, stakeholders, donors, funders, and other clients. Doodle poll is fairly informal compared to the …
Chose Calendly
I have not used any other products other than Calendly. Calendly was actually chosen by the broker-dealer company my boss works for so we did not have an option to shop and explore other products that work similar to Calendly.
Chose Calendly
When I started using it, there were not many competitors in this space. I've seen some like Mixmax that seem to work well for solopreneurs or where free version might be better than Calendly's free version. I use the paid version of Calendly and it's just kept serving us well …
Chose Calendly
Square Appointments I like it as well it just doesn't have the robust ability that Calendly does. Personally, if there were an ability to do that, Square Appointments could give Calendly a run for their money for their own customers. I don't see how they could move the compete …
Chose Calendly
I have never used or evaluated anything besides Calendly.
Chose Calendly
More recently, I have started using Meetingbird by Front. They are essentially the same product, but Meetingbird has a decidedly better design and user experience. It's just easier to use. Also - the product is free because Front is just using it to generate leads for its …
Chose Calendly
We didn't really have any competition for Calendly. We have used them previously and thought it was so easy that it made sense to implement Calendly right away. It made sense and created an easy solution to our problems.
Chose Calendly
Calendly is not meant to be a full featured CRM. Better if you're comfortable adding a scheduling software to your overall CRM and calendar stack.
Best Alternatives
BookerCalendly
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Medium-sized Companies
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
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All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BookerCalendly
Likelihood to Recommend
7.3
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.0
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BookerCalendly
Likelihood to Recommend
Booker is very user friendly with videos to help our staff who are setting up schedules. It has very robust features that our school district didn't really need when we piloted it. It has a great option for widgets to be added to websites, whether district or school site. We find that the more widgets are available, the more appreciative our parents are. This is definitely a product that is used in the business world and not in the school district world so it doesn't really have the personalization we need as a school district or a school sites. Should the site change its potential customers, it would be a great fit for us because scheduling is very challenging in a large school district, be it at the district level or at individual school sites
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It's well suited for music students' lessons. It's well suited for online coaching, primarily through places like Zoom and more. It helps simplify things for your clients, lets you program your schedule, and allows it all to go automatically! If you are working with a senior population, it may be a little tricky for them to sign up and then really hard for them to cancel lessons. There isn't a way to go to the site and cancel. You have to pull up the confirmed email and cancel from there, but people can lose emails.
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Pros
  • Booker is great for customer management. You can easily add customers with numerous areas to put additional information for them. With the addition of Frederick, sending out Birthday emails and contacting them via email is a breeze.
  • I have found Booker to be extremely easy to teach new hires how to use. Because it is so visual, I find that anyone can pick up the basics of how to use this software very quickly.
  • Booker makes it extremely easy for a company with multiple locations to be able to toggle between those locations.
  • Frederick has been a great addition!
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  • Sales. Easy for people to book so less back and forth.
  • Managed access. Easy for me to offer people the "right kind" of slot - I have like 5 hidden event-types I share only with certain people so they can access different availability.
  • Collaborative events! Some of us frequently meet in pairs or groups, e.g., one of our regional leaders and I have a shared link we can send out to people to find a time that works for all of us. LOVE this.
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Cons
  • Having multiple salons, somehow seeing clients' history from another location easier than having to open the other location's data
  • Perhaps link telephone calls to Booker so software can recognize the client and open their profile. I know this is a long shot but ....
  • Marketing tools tha integrate to the software
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  • If you have more than one company, you cannot use one account. This is the most difficult hurdle to me but still one I am willing to jump over considering all the benefits of Calendly.
  • Adding custom color ability on event types. Example: One of my companies doesn't use any of the color choices. I would like to be able to color code those to my brand.
  • Brand/Asset kit would be a wonderful addition. In profile settings, have a place to upload brand logo, assets, and brand color codes.
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Likelihood to Renew
Because I'm so familiar with it. I'll definitely reconsider.
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For all reasons like workflows, UI, and the way Calendly keeps all of us engaged through the Collective forum. It's indeed undeniable that no other product covers all business needs like Calendly does. On the other side, this has also reduced the workload by enabling us to focus more on other tasks for the day
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Usability
I think Booker is very simple for people who are trying to run a gym of about 200 or less clients with minimal apparel/product.
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Calendly is extremely easy to use for selecting times and days for meetings. From my end, it's very easy to indicate the days and times that I am available for meetings. I have used other scheduling products, but Calendly has the smoothest way of operating. I highly recommend it for scheduling meetings
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Support Rating
There is usually a long wait when calling customer service but I now use the messaging option and my questions are answered very quickly. Booker has helped me with situations I thought were out of their range. If it wasn't for Booker support I would be very lost and confused.
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There is a lot of support for Calendly. Whenever I have had issues navigating through it, especially as a new user, I found multiple support on the web addressing my questions or concerns. There is a lot of in app informative notes accessible to users to navigate through Calendly when needed.
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Implementation Rating
As far as I know, implementing Booker into our business was fairly easy.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
AccuPOS did not have a scheduling module or gift certificate management module when we switched and those were critical needs at the time. For such a small module, AccuPOS did a fantastic job directly and concisely bridging daily activity to QuickBooks.
Read full review
Everything I've said previously. It takes me entirely out of the loop of coordinating people's schedules, sending invites, booking time, ensuring they get a Zoom invite, etc. It does everything while I do next to nothing, which is as it should be. As a team of one, my time should be spent doing what I do best and getting paid to do: coaching, teaching, consulting, speaking, writing, and creating training content and workshops.
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Return on Investment
  • Being able to book appointments as well as process payments securely is definitely a positive.
  • The time employees have to spend to process a transaction is a negative.
  • The time spent on trying to find the report you are looking for is a negative.
  • Employees have a difficult time resolving any error or possible error in Booker because reporting is difficult to understand.
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  • Over 300% as of last year. We had done a case study which was phenomenal because even I didn't know the numbers were that huge until we finally put pen to paper.
  • Time!! I'm in the money business and you know Time is Money if you're in the same industry.
  • Affordability. It doesn't break the bank for anyone - having an affordable product along with it being user friendly is a no brainer.
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ScreenShots

Booker Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of

Calendly Screenshots

Screenshot of how to share a scheduling linkScreenshot of automated workflowsScreenshot of browser extensionsScreenshot of routing formsScreenshot of round robin & collective eventsScreenshot of admin management