Calendly vs Acuity (2021)

There are tons of Schedule booking apps. The top two at the moment is Acuity (Squarespace) Scheduling and Calendly. This blog post aims to clarify which is better for you. I’ll be updating this post regulardly.

What are they and what’s similar?

Calendly and Acuity Scheduling are scheduling apps. Like Acuity’s website says: Never ask “what time works for you?” again. They’re a solution to the same problem. They both:

• Let customers book a time slot from your calendar.

• Can be embedded to a website or sent them as a link

• Allow having multiple appointment types, like 30 minute consulting via Google Meet, or a 1.5h yoga session

• Sync to your Calendar

• Allow accepting payments for the booking

How much do they cost?

Acuity is $14 – $45 per month.
Calendly is $0 – $16 per month (but also has enterprises pricing for custom stuff)

Cool things both Calendly and Acuity have

+ Automatic Google Meet links
+ Accepting payments
+ Automatic timezone support. You’ll set your availability in your timezone, but customers see available slots in their time zone. (I for example have clients in 78 countries so I could not live without this. )
+ Multiple appointment types
+ Automatic Google Analytics integration
+ Creating group events for things like yoga. Normally, when someone books a time slot, that time slot is taken and others can’t book it.

Calendly — What I like

+ The free option!
+ It might be a little easier to use at first. Acuity has tons of flexibility but can seem just a little overwhelming when you first start it.
+ There’s a simplicity to the website scheduling widget I enjoy
+ Easy redirection to an external thank you page (without javascript)
+ Two-way calendar sync. If you remove the event in your Google Calendar, it’s removed from Calendly as well
+ Adding multiple personal calendars for setting your availability. So if for example you have a lunch date with Michelle in your personal calendar or a movie night in your family calendar, Calendly can block off that time from your availability.

Acuity Scheduling — What I like

+ The classy, stylish “premium” look & feel
+ Advanced options. For example “Resources” -option. For example, two masseuses could both have their own calendars, and both could have multiple appointment types for different massages in their calendars AND they could also share one room as a “resource”, so customers could not book the same room at the same time. The flexibility is amazing, and allows for very complex setups — if that’s what you need.
+ Built into Squarespace which is the best website platform for most websites in 2021
+ Custom CSS option
+ Ability to change the text labels. For example when using the widget for in store pickup you can have it say “When will you pick up your order?” instead of the default “Choose a time for your appointment”. This is a great feature for everyone, but it’s a must-have for some cases.

+ Hidden fields that can be pre-populated. If you’d like to have scheduling in your e-commerce thank you page, you could prepopulate the email field and have a hidden, prepopulated ORDER-ID -field only visible to you.

+ Adding a notification alert to Google Calendar, X hours before

+ The Appointment Block in Squarespace. It has automatic height adjusting with no annoying scrollbars – ever.
+ Custom conversion tracking (like Google Ads)
+ Sending a link or embedding specific appointment type is easier.
+ Preferences on how your website embed looks like is easier, and there are a lot more options.
+ Monthly and daily views
+ More flexibility in scheduling limits and features like “Minimize Gaps” between bookings and “Look Busy”