Choosing the perfect scheduling app can be as daunting as trying to align schedules for a last-minute ad hoc meeting with 10+ internal and external stakeholders that must occur across a handful of time zones by the end of the day (do you know this feeling?).
Spoiler alert: there isn’t a “perfect” scheduling app. What’s perfect for you might not be accurate for someone in a different line of work. But plenty of options are available, and hopefully, one meets your scheduling needs. Calendly, Acuity, and Clockwise are three scheduling apps for different teams, businesses, and users.
Do you need to book a meeting with a potential investor halfway across the globe and aren’t sure what their availability looks like? You might need a tool like Calendly.
Are you offering professional services that will require your clients to book appointments with you and pay upfront? Acuity may be your best for this use case.
Are you struggling to find availability among your team members while ensuring they have enough time for deep work and aren’t skipping their lunch breaks to attend back-to-backs? You might (okay, definitely) need a tool like Clockwise.
Each scheduling app—Calendly, Acuity, and Clockwise—has unique features for specific audiences and intended purposes.
In this post, we provide:
- An overview of Calendly, Acuity, and Clockwise
- Pricing plans for each of the tools as of early 2024
- Which tool works best for each scenario:some text
- Internal scheduling
- External scheduling
- Large teams
But first, let’s dive into scheduling apps and what appointment scheduling software can do for you.
What are scheduling apps? (And how can they help me?)
Scheduling apps are sophisticated software tools crafted to enhance the efficiency and organization of individuals, teams, and business owners. They are indispensable resources for managing time, tasks, meetings, and other events, streamlining processes that would otherwise require significant manual effort (dear reader—remember the days of managing appointments and meetings with paper calendars and handwritten notes?). With these applications, users can seamlessly create, view, and edit their schedules, empowering them to maintain a well-coordinated and structured approach to their daily activities, regardless of industry or role.
Scheduling apps offer many benefits, from bolstering personal organization and project management efforts to facilitating seamless meeting scheduling. Users can easily navigate calendars and manage appointments, events, and meetings through intuitive interfaces. Additionally, scheduling apps are equipped with features such as reminders and notifications, ensuring those sharing scheduling links and their invitees on the other end follow through with their commitments.
These apps often integrate seamlessly with other core workday tools (Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook calendar, Office 365, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Asana, Slack, and more) to round out workday operations. Scheduling apps are invaluable companions in the modern workplace, empowering individuals and teams alike to optimize their time management and productivity.
Next, let’s look at Calendly, Acuity, and Clockwise and each tool’s features, use cases, and user reviews.
Calendly overview
Calendly is a popular scheduling automation platform renowned for its user-friendly interface and efficient scheduling links. If you’ve spent any amount of time scrolling X (or even LinkedIn), you may have come across a post or two talking about sharing Calendly links when booking appointments (and how much people either love them or find it “cold”). The truth is that Calendly’s scheduling links are super easy to use, and the tool has much more to offer regarding team-based scheduling, integrations, and organization-wide meeting design.
Trusted by over 20 million users globally, including industry giants like Lyft, Zendesk, and Doordash, Calendly simplifies the scheduling process for individuals and teams across various domains, from sales and marketing to customer success and human resources. The platform seamlessly integrates with Google and Microsoft calendars, ensuring compatibility with widely-used productivity tools.
The way it works is simple: you connect your calendar and generate a personalized scheduling link, then share it with others so people can book appointments or meetings when it works best for them. This approach streamlines the scheduling process, eliminating the back-and-forth communication typically associated with arranging meetings.
With native integrations with over 70 apps, Calendly offers a comprehensive solution for optimizing time management and productivity across diverse workflows and contexts.
Nandita Gupta, Accessibility Product Manager at Microsoft, has used Calendly for years and said, “One of my favorite things about the tool is that it takes the cognitive load of managing my calendar off my mind. I continue to use this tool, especially for networking and connecting with mentees, and it makes scheduling super easy.”
Pricing (free and paid plans) as of March 2024:
- Free plan for individuals doing basic scheduling
- Standard plan for $10/seat/mo with unlimited event types, multiple calendars, reminders, and more
- Teams plan for $16/seat/mo with a Salesforce connection, lead routing, and more
- Enterprise plan starting at $15k/year with advanced user provisioning, more routing features in Salesforce, expedited support, and more
Rating:
- 4.7 out of 5 stars on G2 (1,700+ reviews)
Acuity overview
Acuity is a sophisticated appointment software tool from Squarespace designed for small businesses and service providers, offering automated appointment booking solutions for all sorts of services.
Think about the last time you booked a massage, haircut, fitness class, therapy appointment, or online service. You probably navigated to the service provider’s website, searched for a “Book now!” button, clicked it, and landed on the appointment scheduling page. You chose your appointment date and time, entered your personal information (name, email address, phone number), maybe paid a deposit, and booked your slot. That’s the type of experience Acuity can create.
With Acuity, users can effortlessly create personalized booking pages for various appointments, including virtual sessions, classes, and consultations. One of its standout features is seamless client management, allowing clients to cancel or reschedule their bookings quickly. Acuity will keep your clients informed and engaged through timely text and email reminders throughout the scheduling process, ensuring a smooth customer service experience.
Additionally, Acuity offers tools to enhance customer loyalty, such as providing exclusive offerings and coupons. The Acuity scheduling platform supports various payment processing options (Stripe, Square, or PayPal), including prepayment, tipping, invoicing, and deposits, enabling businesses to handle service charges seamlessly. It also integrates with Google Meet, Zoom, and GoToMeeting for online meetings. With its robust feature set, Acuity is a comprehensive solution for small businesses and service providers seeking to optimize their online scheduling processes while enhancing client satisfaction and loyalty.
Laura E., a Pronunciation Consultant, wrote, “Acuity gives a lot of flexibility with scheduling options, and works very well for sign-ups for group events such as classes and service appointments. The platform allows you to add names to an event roster manually, or offer coupon codes for specific events or classes, etc. It is a perfect fit for my class registration and roster management needs,” in a G2 review.
Pricing (paid plans after a free trial) as of March 2024:
- Try Acuity free for 7 days
- The Emerging plan is $16/mo paid annually and includes unlimited services, payments through Stripe, Square, or PayPal, integrations for online meetings, and more
- The Growing plan is $27/mo paid annually and includes text message reminders, the ability to sell subscriptions and memberships, appointment packages, and more
- The Powerhouse plan is $49/mo paid annually and includes 36 locations, advanced customization options, and more
Rating:
- 4.7 out of 5 stars on G2 (300+ reviews)
Read more about the differences between Calendly and Acuity on Zapier’s blog: Calendly vs. Acuity: Which scheduling app should you use? [2024]
Clockwise scheduling overview
Clockwise is an AI scheduling and calendar automation tool for optimizing individual and team time management and workday productivity. Whether you use Google Calendar or Microsoft, you can use Clockwise. Clockwise offers dynamic scheduling links, allowing you to instantly share your availability while optimizing your productivity schedule (rather than opening up every free timeslot you have). We also offer a first-of-its-kind conversational calendar assistant to tackle complex scheduling challenges, last-minute meeting coordination, and thoughtless scheduling of multiple events in a single request.
Over 40,000 organizations and well-loved brands like Atlassian, Asana, Etsy, Notion, Uber, Headspace, and more make time for what matters with Clockwise.
At Clockwise, we recognize the modern workforce needs help with more than the scheduling aspect of the workday—they need time to do their best work (Focus Time), take breaks (flexible holds), eat lunch (sync a lunch hold), have time in between meetings to recharge (smart meeting breaks), and so much more. The most productive workdays result from each individual’s best possible schedule. Clockwise provides the features you need to crush your workday and have mental and physical energy remaining after work hours.
CEO and founder Nicole C. summarized Clockwise well, “Clockwise has some innovative features that simplify time management, reduce many of my scheduling conflicts, and improve the balance between focus and meetings at work. Ultimately it leads to increased productivity and a more organized and fulfilling workday.”
Not to mention that the new conversational calendar assistant will uplevel your scheduling game even further by helping you schedule meetings quickly, with no thought involved. Take a look at how easy it is to ask Clockwise to help get a meeting on the calendar without having to play calendar Tetris to find whitespace yourself:
Pricing (free and paid plans) as of March 2024:
- Get started with Clockwise for free
- The Teams plan is $6.75/user/mo, billed annually, and includes optimized meeting times, auto-scheduled Focus Time, and Clockwise Links
- The Business plan is $11.50/user/mo, billed annually, and includes meeting load measurement across your org, advanced controls, and custom workshops to improve your meeting culture
- Enterprise pricing is available upon request, so contact us!
Rating:
- 4.8 out of 5 stars on G2 (35+ reviews)
Which is best for internal scheduling?
Clockwise is undoubtedly the best choice for internal scheduling due to its unique focus on optimizing calendars to create the ideal workday and enhancing productivity across the entire organization.
Unlike Acuity and Calendly, which primarily offer booking solutions for client-facing appointments and external meetings, we’ve tailored Clockwise to address the internal scheduling challenges teams and individuals face. Typical workday challenges, like needing to schedule an ad hoc meeting in a pinch, scheduling a team meeting at a time that works best for all participants (even spread across time zones), and self-managing the workweek to ensure there’s enough time available for deep work, are what Clockwise handles best (so you don’t have to).
Additionally, Clockwise goes above and beyond from an internal scheduling perspective by offering insights and analytics into how teams spend their time. This level of transparency empowers teams to identify inefficiencies, streamline workflows, and make data-driven decisions to optimize their schedules effectively. Workload issues quickly become much easier for team members to resolve and work out. Say goodbye to burnout with more sustainable work practices.
Which is best for external scheduling?
Acuity shines as the ultimate solution for external scheduling, particularly for businesses and service providers catering to clients and customers. With its customizable booking pages and intuitive interface, Acuity offers clients a seamless and user-friendly experience, facilitating easy appointment scheduling and management. This tailored approach to external scheduling ensures that businesses can efficiently coordinate with their clients (so you can easily book your next appointment!), enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. (Who doesn’t love happy, paying customers?)
Many of Acuity’s features (self-booking appointments, canceling and rescheduling, receiving reminders via text or email, and paying deposits in advance) are core to businesses offering external services to clients. Whether you’re a yoga teacher, a tutor, a marketing consultant, or a small business or provider of any other service, Acuity will likely be your best option out of these three scheduling apps.
Which is best for large teams?
Calendly ranks as a solid choice for large teams, as it provides comprehensive solutions for internal and external scheduling. Calendly’s extensive native integrations with over 70 apps give it a competitive edge, enabling seamless coordination with other workday tools, like project management software, customer relationship management (CRM) systems (Salesforce and HubSpot), communication platforms, and more.
Additionally, Calendly provides a range of team scheduling features for coordinating meetings that require team members from various teams. Take, for example, a Round Robin meeting where you must gather team members in a particular role (but not necessarily a specific individual). With Calendly’s Round Robin automated meeting assignments, you can optimize for maximum availability (pooling availability of team members) or optimize for equal distribution to spread meetings evenly among team members. This is a great feature when you’re moving quickly, setting up many calls per day, and needing available team members to join in a flash.
Pick the scheduling app that works best for you
Whether you’re a busy VP of Sales at a startup, a solopreneur launching your service-based business, or a global enterprise serving countless clients daily, a scheduling app is available tailored to your needs so long as you know what you’re looking for. From Calendly’s scheduling links and team scheduling features for large groups to Acuity’s personalized booking experience for external clients and Clockwise’s robust features for more productive workdays and better work-life integration, each tool brings its own strengths to the table.
By harnessing the strengths of these scheduling apps in a way that best serves you and your business, you can optimize your calendaring efforts, create more time for the work you do best, and find efficiencies that enable you to live a more balanced professional life.
Assess your needs and choose the tool that best aligns with your workflow. And if Clockwise is your perfect match, welcome! Sign up for free today and automate the scheduling part of your workday.
Additional reading on scheduling apps and links
- Calendly alternatives & competitors for 2024
- 3 Reasons to Start Using Scheduling Links Right Now
- The Best Appointment Scheduling Apps for 2024
About the author
Alyssa Towns is a freelance writer for Clockwise based in Denver, CO. She works in communications and change management. She primarily writes productivity and career-adjacent content and has bylines in G2, The Everygirl, Insider, and other publications. When she isn't writing, Alyssa enjoys trying new restaurants with her husband, playing with her Bengal cats, adventuring outdoors, or reading a book from her TBR list.
