Efficient scheduling and booking systems are of the essence in the modern business world which is characterized by high rates of activities and provision of good customer care. The most popular sources that help to meet such requirements are SimplyBook.me and Calendly.
This article gives a critical comparison of these tools in terms of free package, user friendliness and their effectiveness in the various types of business. Also, we consider the main characteristics like processing payments, customer support, notification, analytics, and others so that you make a wise decision.
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Overview of SimplyBook.me
SimplyBook.me is the effective system to create online booking with a focus on service-based organizations. The list of available features is wide, including a wide range of features such as scheduling, Admin and stats, booking site, SMS and email notifications, and some integrations.
Specifically, it is ideal for businesses that need a custom booking journey, including wellness centers, consulting companies, fitness studios, barbershops, photography studios, and personal trainers.
SimplyBook.me also includes such advanced functionality as a payment processor, gift cards, coupons, product sales, so it is a great solution to control the bookings-based business and revenue.
Overview of Calendly
Calendly is a meeting scheduling automation system that eases the procedure of booking a meeting. It is characterized by being user-friendly and is preferred more by freelance workers, small organisations and even businesses, particularly in business sectors that deal with providing digital services.
Calendly works well with the calendar services such as Google Calendar and outlook calendars that enable people to carry out their meetings without the continuation of emails. Although it is mostly focused on scheduling, it also provides such features as automatic notifications and simple analytics, which explains its popularity among sales and marketing departments.Comparison of Free Plans
Both SimplyBook.me and Calendly offer free plans, but they cater to different needs:
Feature |
SimplyBook.me Free Plan |
Calendly Free Plan |
|---|---|---|
Bookings/Meetings |
50 bookings per month |
Unlimited meetings for one event type |
Custom Features |
One custom feature |
Booking page customization |
Providers |
Supports one provider (employee) |
One user |
Booking Tools |
Booking website or widget |
One calendar connection |
Notifications |
Email notifications only |
Automated email notifications |
SimplyBook.me Free Plan: It offers 50 monthly bookings, up to one custom feature, and one provider; it also includes a booking site or widget. It has an email notification only. It is a suitable plan to small businesses or persons who are new.
Calendly Free Plan: It provides a single type of event which includes unlimited meetings, one calendar connection, customization of the booking pages, as well as automated event reminders through the email. The users that can utilize this plan are those that require planning of massive amount of meetings that belong to the same kind of events to take place.
When your business receives numerous bookings, it would be better to utilize the free plan offered by Calendly because it has no limits to the number of meetings of a particular event type.
Still, in case you require more customization and attributes, it would be more attractive to use the free plan offered by SimplyBook.me, although it has a limit on the booking.
Ease of Use and Setup
Although the user interface of the two platforms is made to be friendly, both platforms host different users tastes:
SimplyBook.me:
Although it might be a little bit demanding to learn, as it has a lot of features, it also provides useful instructional videos which help to install it more simplistically.
After having been established it offers a convenient experience when handling the bookings.
The interface used in the platform is user-friendly, and it has a help center as well as a live chat that is used in resolving issues.
Shana who uses both the platforms explained that the set up of SimplyBook.me was not complicated since it has videos that guide its use.
Calendly:
Calendly is simple and can be set up in several minutes, and it is better to use it when a consumer is interested in ease and speed.
Its web development is also clean and clear, which makes it user-friendly in the first place.
According to Shana, the web design of Calendly was more comfortable to use originally, yet she enjoyed the support of SimplyBook.me regarding its configuration.
The two platforms have mobile apps available in iOS and Android so that the user can manage their plans using a mobile gadget.
The installation of SimplyBook.me is enhanced by the fact that its installation can be easily followed by instructional materials whereas Calendly is highly usable among persons with least technical knowledge.
Suitability for Different Businesses
Although the user interface of the two platforms is made to be friendly, both platforms host different users tastes:
SimplyBook.me:
Although it might be a little bit demanding to learn, as it has a lot of features, it also provides useful instructional videos which help to install it more simplistically.
After having been established it offers a convenient experience when handling the bookings.
The interface used in the platform is user-friendly, and it has a help center as well as a live chat that is used in resolving issues.
Shana who uses both the platforms explained that the set up of SimplyBook.me was not complicated since it has videos that guide its use.
Calendly:
Calendly is simple and can be set up in several minutes, and it is better to use it when a consumer is interested in ease and speed.
Its web development is also clean and clear, which makes it user-friendly in the first place.
According to Shana, the web design of Calendly was more comfortable to use originally, yet she enjoyed the support of SimplyBook.me regarding its configuration.
The two platforms have mobile apps available in iOS and Android so that the user can manage their plans using a mobile gadget. The installation of SimplyBook.me is enhanced by the fact that its installation can be easily followed by instructional materials whereas Calendly is highly usable among persons with least technical knowledge.
Key Features and Considerations
In the battle between SimplyBook.me and Calendly, you may want to use the following characteristics as an essential guide:
Integrations:
There is more than 50 integrations offered by SimplyBook.me, such as links with the tools as Zapier, Facebook or Instagram.
Calendly has more than 100 integrations, and its workflow automation is more powerful when using Zapier, LOREAL so it is more adaptable when it comes to complicated workflows.
Customization:
The customization of SimplyBook.me is extensive, and, therefore, businesses may customize the booking process by using such tools as intake forms, coupons, and gift cards.
Calendly has a simple customization, which is mainly based on the booking page design, but this will be enough when it comes to simpler scheduling requirements.
Scalability:
Calendly is better when it comes to scaling, and it offers custom pricing to organizations with 30+ users, which allows using it to support bigger companies.
The SimplyBook.me platform allows up to 60 users and it is completely suitable to businesses that deal with numerous providers and locations.
Payment Processing:
Simplybook.me has payment processing abilities whereby companies are in possibility to take e-payments and onsite payments which is very important to service-based companies.
In the free version, Calendly lacks support with payment processing features that restrict the ability of businesses handling payments to use its services.
Analytics:
SimplyBook.me has an inbuilt analytics system, which gives details on booking, cancellation and revenue, which are useful in the running of businesses.
Calendly has simple meeting analytics which are enough to follow the scheduling process but are not so detailed as in SimplyBook.me. The team members can benefit from these insights for better scheduling.
Customer Support:
SimplyBook.me has a well-developed system of customer support with a help center and online chat, due to which the user easily copes with the problem.
The provider also maintains a steady customer service on multiple channels, and the reviewers tend to compliment it on how responsive it is.
Notifications:
SimplyBook.me offers SMS as well as e-mail reminders to aid in preventing no-shows on the part of clients of service-based organizations.
The calendly has automated email notifications, which are convenient in case of digital businesses but not possible to use with SMS in the free version.
Additional Features:
SimplyBook.me allows to use various features that can be classes, memberships, and sales of products, which is important to fit in various business needs.
Calendly is oriented towards simplicity as well, having such features as time zone detection and buffer time between meetings, which are ideal to have when scheduling.
Shana, a user of both platforms and a person who had valuable integrations with bothation at all the pricing levels, pointed to the relevance of such useful integrations. She does not want to be charged higher to get some features that aren t needed when the features are contained in the minimum plans.
This requirement is fulfilled to a certain degree in both platforms, yet SimplyBook.me, with its large array of features, can easily impress businesses that require more functionality, and Calendly, as one of the most straightforward tools ever, can act as an ideal approach to companies who cannot do without ease.
Why SimplyBook.me would work superior in 2025?
SimplyBook.me proposes a comprehensive and simple to use solution of booking which is powerful. It has booked pages, in-build payment processing, embeddable widgets, and quick setup of its appointment scheduling that take less than minutes of the business setup, and custom fields, engagement coupons and gift cards through its branded emails increase customer engagement without extra plug-ins.
Moreover, the apps marketplace will offer real-time chat, text reminders, loyalty campaigns, and in-depth analytics to businesses and ensure that less money is lost due to no-shows and the increase of the revenue.
It is a logical business solution that can be applied in any business that requires a service because it has a rich functionality, data-driven scheduling tool made to scale.
Conclusion
SimplyBook.me is the best option available in business that provide face-to-face services either barbershop, gym, or medical practice since the system has built-in invoices, high customization levels, and opportunities to monitor business with great success in analytics. Its capability to develop a single branded booking portal and the multiple service providers capability is what would best suit the organization that has a complicated scheduling system.
In comparison, Calendly is better when it comes to purely Internet-based enterprises such as marketing companies or consultants that primarily requirements are convenient scheduling of appointments and an effective calendar connection. The aspects to consider when choosing between the two platforms may include the volumes of the bookings, necessity, and custom features in the use of the platform, integration requirements, and the ability to scale in the long term.
The two platforms have free plans and thus you can test them before deciding on either of them. The solution, which fits your particular needs, will not only ease your scheduling process but will lead to the increase of customer satisfaction.
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FAQ
Calendly's pros include its user-friendly interface and seamless integration with various calendar apps, making scheduling easy. However, cons include limited customization options and potential costs for advanced features. Overall, it’s excellent for straightforward scheduling but may not suit users needing extensive personalization in their booking processes.
Not all the scheduling tools can be compared to Calendly, and it is possible to find several tools that outperform Calendly in a particular feature. To take an example, Acuity Scheduling does not require add-ons to include payment processing and client intake forms, whereas SimplyBook.me has more advanced functions, such as gift cards, coupons, and live chat available on its free and less costly packages. This will be determined by which better: more integrations, more customization or cheaper advanced features.
Running Microsoft Bookings is native in the Microsoft world, and it will work better in a company that already has an Office 365 environment and wants to combine different solutions: it supports multiple calendars of the staff, integration with Outlook, and allows organizing meetings in Teams. Calendly, in its turn, has an even more convenient UI, the high quotas of the free plan (one type of events), a wider range of integrations (Zoom, Slack, CRMs). Bookings should be the choice when you require a firm Microsoft 365 connection; Calendly is more user-friendly and integrates with more applications.
Free-limited: One type of event and one connection to a calendar, which may be problematic in cases when the business requires various services, or many employees.
Add-on costs: Organisational features such as SMS reminders, group events and custom branding are on Pro or upwards.
There are no in-built payments: You need to upgrade and integrate with Stripe or PayPal in paid plans to be able to accept payments.
Simple analysis: It can only report on better plans and does not have the breadth that some competitors enjoy.
Sure, the Appointments plans of Google Calendar allow you to make time-space blocks that can be reserved by other people in your calendar. It will assist in different schedules, personal availabilities, and auto-created Google Meet links. Although it does not include any advanced branding or payments, it is free and part of Google Workspace, which makes it a good option in case the requirements are not complex.
Both SimplyBook.me and Calendly can be implemented quite fast but Calendly has a slight advantage when it comes to simplicity during the first stages. and with Calendly you just plug in your Google Calendar, or Outlook, and create a template of your choice of one event, and share your Calendly link and don t need to add it to your web page. SimplyBook.me provides additional customization features (booking website, integration of widgets, coupons, gift cards), which will, however, require a few additional steps in implementation, although its instructional videos make it pretty easy to set there.
The leading appointment-setting tools are convenient intermediate and integration, and pricing:
Calendly: clean interface, you can do one-on-one unlimited on the free plan, Zoom/Teams apps
SimplyBook.me: Extensive functionality on offer including, gift cards, coupons, live chat, and other flexible payment processing
Acuity Scheduling: Client intake forms are included, Stripe/PayPal payments, powerful automation
Setmore: It has a free plan that is suitable for multiple staff, Square integration, mobile apps
Doodle: Group voting on perfect time, and easiest notification and reminders
In case of the concern of spam bookings, technologies that have CAPTCHA, email verification, or manual approval procedures are to be found:
SimplyBook.me: Has a CAPTCHA on booking page and in-built customer care to raise suspicion on bookings made
Acuity Scheduling: integration of reCAPTCHA and hand-testing of approval of appointments
10to8: Two-way SMS/email reminders as well as spam filters over the booking forms
Appointlet: Email-meeting links to confirm attendence prior to booking an appointment
Zoho Bookings: CAPTCHA selections and form fields that are adjustable so as to filter bots
Gift cards & coupons: Sell the deal first-hand on your booking site
Live chat app: In-time assistance of visitors without the use of third-party plug-ins
Apps marketplace: Additional analytics, loyalty and SMS reminders
Various types of services: Track different services (classes, goods and memberships) in the same account
Booking site: Free and paid packages contain a fully hosted and well-optimized page for search engines
Versatile payment processing: Stripe/ PayPal integration is provided at low tiers as well
Customizable options: Endless booking custom-fields, custom email templates and widget themes
All these features enable the service-based businesses to customize their online reservation system more than the essential Calendly features offer.
