The Best Appointment Scheduling Software for Your Business

As the old saying goes, when managing a business, time is money. Even for a small enterprise, scheduling can be difficult and take up precious time. Being the one in charge means that everyone needs you, from customers to employees, clients to colleagues. This means it can take a lot of time and effort to keep and maintain a calendar to organize your daily tasks and meetings. Thankfully, there is a host of great appointment scheduling software to help.

What is an Appointment Scheduling App, and Why Use One?

These useful pieces of software take much of the repetitive tasks that are involved in bookings and automate them. For example, a salon may use a public calendar to show when booking slots are available. Customers can then make their own appointments based on that and can even be taken right through the payment process, all using an automated piece of scheduling software. This becomes more important as businesses and their client bases grow.

It can be difficult to decide on which option is right for you, however. Every business has different needs, and each of these pieces of software has different features to offer. Before we look at a list of the 38 best pieces of appointment scheduling software, it’s important to think about ways to zone in on what to look for during the vendor evaluation.

What Features Make a Great Appointment Scheduling App?

While it may sound as though they all do something similar, appointment scheduling apps can encompass a huge array of extra features. You may not need some of these – others, you may end up wondering how you ever managed without.

The best scheduling apps make users’ lives as easy as possible. They can add and reschedule appointments, display your available times so that you are not disturbed, and so much more. Keep in mind these 4 important features when searching for the appointment scheduling app that best suits you.

Reasonable Pricing

While some scheduling software does need to be paid for, make sure you aren’t paying more than you need to.

Often, paying a reasonable amount will unlock a huge range of useful features. However, sometimes these apps overcharge, and it can save you money in the long run by double-checking to see that another cheaper app can’t do the same things.

Calendar Syncing

Most apps you will find allow for syncing with your calendar. Many even require it. This is the most important feature of an appointment scheduling app.

Always make sure you have this as a feature, no matter which software you choose. It makes life so much easier.

Payment Processing

Ensure that whichever appointment scheduling software you decide to use allows for direct, integrated payment.

A lot of service business owners want a tool to accept bookings directly, but it’s more important for that tool to handle payments too.

If you can take payments at the time of booking, then this allows you to ask for a deposit before the appointment, saving you time and money.

Booking Forms for Clients

Forms such as these help hugely in collecting the data of your client.

This helps in multiple ways, such as keeping in touch with customers in the future, or allowing doctors, beauticians, personal trainers, etc. instant access to a patient’s information and details.

When you know your client’s information beforehand, you save time during their appointment, letting your employees do what they do best without having to deal with paperwork.

38 of the Best Examples of Appointment Scheduling Software

The best 3:

• Amelia
• Trafft
• Setmore

Let’s look at all of them now.

Keeping those previous points in mind, take a look at our list of the 38 best examples of appointment scheduling apps.

1) Amelia

Amelia is a powerful WordPress booking plugin that works flawlessly with WordPress sites of all kinds. It has a minimal, yet powerful appointment booking interface designed to ease your workflow, automate repetitive tasks, avoid double booking, and make appointment booking a breeze for your customers.

You can even have email notifications and SMS notifications so that nobody forgets about their appointment bookings.

In order to book an appointment, the complete user interaction takes a few clicks with this WordPress plugin. Moreover, with it you can accept payments via PayPal and Stripe, perfect for those who want to pay in advance to book appointments.

As a business owner, you can monitor KPIs in the WordPress dashboard and analyze other important data to keep a pulse on your business. Amelia is a straightforward, no-nonsense booking calendar plugin and an amazing option for those who want an around-the-clock solution for their WordPress site.

Amelia also has an Events Calendar module integrated within its features.

You can now automate your event bookings as well. To be more precise, it means that you will be able to schedule a single day, a multi-day, and also recurring events with Amelia.

Did we mention that you can manage multiple locations and that you have Google Calendar integration?

All of these and much more are under only one license, no add-ons are needed.

To test things for yourself, I’d suggest checking out the demos and seeing how things look on the front end as well as in the back end.

Medical/Health online booking page demo

A website of a demo private clinic, where a visitor can read about provided medical procedures and services, and schedule an appointment.

Barbershop booking page demo

A dummy WordPress website for Barbershops with online booking – a nice and easy implementation with the Bridge theme and the Amelia WordPress booking plugin.

Fitness Gym / Yoga booking page demo

A pseudo Yoga/Gym online booking page where you can browse through possible Yoga classes, schedule individual or group training, and book a package of appointments.

Spa/salon booking page demo

A dummy cosmetology website – look through different cosmetic procedures and treatments, pick an employee and schedule appointments.

Consultant booking page demo

A pseudo Business Consultant / Coach / Lawyer website, where a customer can browse through provided consultancy and lawyer services and book an appointment.

Hands down, this is the one you should pick from this list. Yet, you can check out the other options as well to see for yourselves why Amelia is #1.

2) Trafft

Trafft is a great option to use because it’s not just a scheduling tool. Trafft is a professional service business management software, a professional tool, and a digital business partner that covers different aspects of running a business.

It’s the kind of app that small and medium business owners, administrators, managers, and key staff in the service industry are using to take their processes and businesses to the next level.

How does it do that? Well, Trafft is a combination of an online no-code platform and human service from a team of service business automation experts. While that’s a mouthful, we can make it simple by saying that it provides all the necessary tools to organize schedules, accept bookings and payments, send reminders and integrate with other tools.

Trafft differentiates from typical apps and tools that automate smaller tasks like online bookings or personal schedules, and are usually hard to configure and maintain, and support is hard to get.

The Trafft app and its team do that by providing support for the complete workflow cycle of a service business, and has an extremely intuitive interface and UX.

What does that mean practically for you? You would not need to waste time on repetitive tasks like calling clients and confirming or rescheduling, and you won’t even need to hire additional people to do that.

It also comes with all the features that you need to get started, such as:

• Automatic online payment processing through multiple providers
• Two-way synchronization using external calendars (such as Google Calendar and Outlook)
• The ability for clients to reschedule
• The ability to create a call-to-action (CTA) booking page
• In-depth overviews of your business performance using key performance indicators
• Client management using email and SMS notifications and reminders
• Discount/loyalty coupons when managing appointments
• Ability to manage bookings, employees, locations, services, schedules, and more

3)   Setmore

Setmore is another great online booking system. It has integrated access to a huge array of productivity software, some of which you may already be using. This includes MailChimp, Quick Books, Zendesk, Zoho CRM, and Salesforce. Simply use the provided codes to embed the relevant tools into your site.

Along with this, Setmore also gives users the ability to view appointments offline by using its desktop application.

4)   vCita

This appointment scheduling tool was initially developed for small-scale businesses such as consultants, attorneys, fitness trainers, etc. But since then it has expanded its user base due to its useful features.

This includes customizable scheduling pages, which enable your customers to view your current appointment times. Easily embed this information into your website for extra integration.

It also allows you to choose your preferred service providers and allows customers to make online bookings 24 hours a day, from any location.

5)   Picktime

Another great option for appointment scheduling is Picktime. This service allows you to get free customer booking and offers such features as schedule creation and editing, report generation, payment systems, reminders, and invoicing.

6)   Omnify

Omnify is designed with fitness businesses in mind. The client app offers great tools for client scheduling and makes the process simple.

It is built to allow many bookings across multiple classes and trainers, increasing the flexibility of your scheduling system without added complexity.

7)   Appointment

As the name would suggest, Appointment is built to be a powerful scheduling platform. Doesn’t really succeed in our opinion, but with its wide array of tools, it can handle the scheduling needs of service businesses large and small, including those with multiple locations.

It uses SSL encryption to ensure that all client appointments are safe and secure, and also gives users the control to alter exactly what information is available and who can see it.

8)   Doodle

Doodle is geared towards teamwork in a unique way. This isn’t the best appointment scheduling software out there, but it allows colleagues to all vote on which day meetings should be held, which is an interesting feature.

Then, selected members can decide on the final date and time and add it to the shared calendar. This keeps work democratic and inclusive while still maintaining a leadership role.

9)   InviteOnce

InviteOnce caters to a wide range of service businesses, including B2B, SaaS, finance, consulting, healthcare, education, and more.

The scheduling app handles all bookings with a powerful interface. Customization is a focus, as well as teamwork, with its dedicated “round-robin” feature. This ensures every member of the team is kept up-to-date on the goings-on.

10)  Acuity Scheduling

This software allows for a high degree of customization. Its booking page lets clients book recurring appointments and allows them to pay in advance. This can be useful for certain businesses.

It also includes the ability to offer multiple packages, subscriptions, memberships, and many more services, which add functionality and choice for your customers.

11)  BookingKoala

BookingKoala is a decent appointment scheduler, built mainly with the service industry in mind. It offers dashboards for clients and users, booking forms, scheduling, themes, mobile apps, and much more. It truly has a huge arrayof features to offer.

12)  ChiDesk

This integrated scheduling and management software is designed especially for salons and spas. It is cloud-based, allowing for remote use. It not only enables bookings, but keeps track of sales, manages employees, and uses smart insights to get an overview of your business.

The cloud functionality is a big bonus, allowing users to access it from anywhere, at any time.

13)  AppointmentPlus

AppointmentPlus is designed to scale up alongside your business. Start small with the program, then have no fear that you will outgrow it as your business grows. It includes a great enterprise option.

14) Square Appointments

Square has already established itself as a leading force in payment processing and is now branching out to appointment scheduling.

It uses the same streamlined, intuitive approach to interface design that Square is known for, to provide a great scheduling platform for businesses.

15)  Full Slate

This software promises to give your business a “Full Slate”, by making booking and client management as easy as possible. It has quickly become famous for its simple, intuitive interface, making booking appointments a quick and reliable process.

It has many reviews that praise its customer service, and its ability to fix any issues that arise quickly and efficiently – vital for any business.

16)  Checkfront

This booking software is designed with accommodation providers and activity providers in mind.

It gives users the ability to take bookings, create invoices, make reports, and much more. It can also be accessed from anywhere and is based on a calendar interface, making appointments intuitive.

17)  AppointEze

Designed especially for smaller businesses, AppointEze is a CRM based software solution with optimization at its core. It allows bookings to be made directly on the website with its integrated interface.

It is cloud-based, allowing appointments to be made easily from any location. It also provides great payment gateways such as Stripe and PayPal.

18)  Appointlet

This great scheduling app can work for any sized business, from large to small. It offers more under its free tier than perhaps any other piece of scheduling software. Its fluid, intuitive interface makes bookings and management easy and fast, both for customers and for managers.

19)  Jezzam

Jezzam is another great solution for small businesses and their booking needs. This booking software features a simple but powerful interface that allows for the taking of multiple bookings easily. It is designed around a flexibility of use that makes taking complicated bookings involving multiple elements a breeze.

It includes payments and management systems, making the whole process streamlined and simple.

20)  ScheduFlow

ScheduFlow is a part of another larger system known as Duoserve. Duoserve is a cloud productivity company that offers many rich features. ScheduFlow is the scheduling aspect of this system. It offers a formidable system of features including bookings, payments, assignments, and much more.

21)  Fresha

This great app used to be known as Shedul. Unlike many of the options out there for scheduling, Fresha offers its system free of charge. The only catch is that you are required to register your business in the Fresha Marketplace. This a directory thatsimilar to Yelp where spas and salons are listed for a 20% commission on first-time customers.

It also does not include a two-way syncing calendar, meaning that it may not be the right option for some businesses. Many, however, find it useful.

22)  Neko Salon

Another solution designed specifically around the needs of spas and salons isNeko Salon. It provides a great booking system for all sizes of businesses. It has some great features, including tools for handling bookings, management, and reports.

It includes a booking wizard to aid in quick bookings and a handy payment system that sends SMS messages and email reminders.

23)  Genbook

Another great example of appointment scheduling software is Genbook. It has a full-featured system for managing bookings and can be operated remotely from any internet-enabled device. It is also cross-platform, so can function on most operating systems. It has integrated functionality with Google Maps, a review section, and extra logos and details for your business to increase brand visibility.

24)  10to8

10to8 is much like every other appointment scheduling software. It has all the functionality needed to effectively make and manage appointments and bookings for customers, however, it has an extra bonus.

Along with the usual feature of being able to send reminders to clients and customers via email and SMS, it also gives the recipients the ability to reply directly to these reminders with questions or comments. This adds another level of interaction which can make all the difference for a business.

25)  GigaBook

It might appear a little old fashioned (at least in internet terms), but Gigabook is a workhorse. It is a reliable scheduling service that has everything you need to manage upcoming appointments easily. Its features allow the management of a wide variety of business types. No matter what kind of product or service you provide, you can manage it through Gigabook.

It is not the most intuitive design, but reviews claim that once you grow used to its interface and workings, it is a must-have tool.

26)  Bookwhen

Here is another great option for a variety of business types.Bookwhen offers a multitude of features. These include customizable booking forms, exporting capabilities to Excel, and great payment solutions that integrate directly with Stripe, PayPal, and WorldPay.

27)  Tappointment

This cloud-based scheduling software is a fantastic management service. With its shared calendars, coupled with the cloud capabilities, booking appointments is a breeze. The ability to make bookings remotely is truly an asset.

28)  Calendly

Calendly is built for those businesses that deal with a high volume of customers and clients. The free version offers a host of great features, such as booking pages and tools to embed directly on your own site.

However, the paid version has many extra features, many that are made to handle projects and appointments at large scale. It allows for the assigning of different team members to different appointments. It also has a rules-based system you can implement to make these functions automatic in the future. The downside is that when a customer confirms their appointment, the software prompts them to sign up with Calendly themselves.

29)  Joan

This software is an example of scheduling software that is built for any sized business. It allows for the reservation of specific rooms and workspaces, depending on the needs of the individual user. Its room grid helps visualize these bookings and availabilities in an incredibly useful way.

Joan can be configured in multiple ways, such as in multiple languages, different time zones, and more.

30)   Appointy

Appointy has a system that offers an increasing number of features depending on the payment plan you sign up for. Its useful features include the ability to flexibly schedule everything from events, workshops, meetings, tours – any kind of service you might offer.

It also has integrated payment functionalities, including Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net.

31)  TimeTap

This self-declared “swiss army knife of online scheduling”, really does offer a huge range of tools. Its existing customers include organizations as varied as churches, schools, medical offices, salons, mechanic service shops, financial offices, and many more.

It utilizes a solidly reliable interface and booking system set up to meet the needs of your business no matter what you may require.

32)  SuperSaaS

Another all-round great scheduling solution is SuperSaas. It offers highly customizable interfaces for scheduling meetings, reservations, groups, and more. There are also many third-party apps with which it can integrate.

For example, it can be used on Facebook, where a “book now” button can take the customer directly to your bookings page. It also sends automatic SMS messages and emails to limit late arrivals to events.

33)  ScheduleOnce

This option is based around making multiple bookings as easy as possible. If you need to be able to make several bookings or sessions at once, say because you are offering them as a bundle or deal, SchedulOnce makes this simple.

It also has a great deal of integration built right in. It syncs smoothly with iCloud, Office365, Salesforce, PayPal, your own website, and much more.

34)  Mana Scheduler

This is another great appointment scheduling solution that has some fantastic features. These include appointment reminders, analytics for your site, signable pages, and much more.

35)  SimplyBook.me

This is another example of powerful scheduling software developed for use in a wide range of businesses. It handles customers right from the booking stage through to the service delivery. Some great features include message reminders (both email and SMS), recurring appointment functionality, and a high level of customization builtin.

36)  Sagenda

There is a free version of Sagenda that offers some really great features. It supports unlimited bookings, data storage, and clients – really a huge number of useful features. There are extra add-ons that can only be used in the paid-for version such as advanced email integration, text reminders, and – crucially – the ability for your clients to pay for their bookings as they make them.

However, if you feel your business does not need these extras, then Sagenda still has much that it might be able to offer you and your organization.

37)  Coaching Lobby

Coaching Lobby has many benefits that are common to much scheduling software. These will ideally save you time and money, such as quick, streamlined bookings, and automatic email reminders.

The great benefit of Coaching Lobby, however, is its increased integration with third-party software. This includes integration with Office 365, Outlook, iCloud, and Exchange. This will undoubtedly streamline much of your regular tasks.

38)  Setster

Setster boasts an omnichannel interface that helps to increase efficiency and expand your customer interaction. This is key when handling an ever-increasing load of bookings and appointments.

It has a great range of customizable options, allowing the user to set specific rules for each booking.

FAQs about appointment scheduling software

1. What features are included in appointment scheduling software?

Features including calendar integration, automated appointment reminders, online booking, payment processing, and reporting/analytics are frequently found in appointment scheduling software. Additional functions offered by some software may include client management, employee scheduling, and marketing tools.

2. How does appointment scheduling software help to save time and streamline scheduling?

Many scheduling tasks, including sending reminders, confirming appointments, and rescheduling, are automated by appointment scheduling software. By doing so, appointment management may take less time and effort, giving staff members more time to work on other projects.

3. Is appointment scheduling software suitable for different types of businesses or is it specific to certain industries?

A wide range of enterprises, including healthcare providers, spas and salons, fitness studios, and professional services like lawyers and accountants, can use appointment scheduling software. Some software, however, might be better suited to certain industries and provide capabilities like HIPAA compliance for healthcare providers.

4. Can appointment scheduling software integrate with other software programs, such as CRM or invoicing software?

Yes, a lot of appointment scheduling tools provide interfaces with other types of software, including CRM and invoicing solutions. This can facilitate workflows and lessen the need for human data entry.

5. How does appointment scheduling software handle cancellations and rescheduling of appointments?

Clients often have the ability to cancel or reschedule appointments through a self-service portal or by calling the company directly with appointment scheduling software. When changes are made to the appointment, the software may also automatically notify the customer and the company.

6. Is it possible to customize appointment scheduling software to fit my business needs?

Numerous appointment-making software programs provide customization possibilities, including branding, unique fields, and scheduling guidelines. Additionally, some applications may have a developer API that may be used to create unique integrations or add features.

7. How does appointment scheduling software handle multiple locations or staff members?

When making an appointment, clients can select their preferred location or service provider thanks to appointment scheduling software, which can often accommodate numerous locations and staff members. Additionally, the program could include functions like shift management and staff scheduling.

8. Can customers book appointments online using appointment scheduling software?

The option for consumers to make appointments online, either through a self-service portal or via a widget on the company website, is undoubtedly one of the essential aspects of appointment booking software. This may lessen the number of scheduling-related calls and emails.

9. Does appointment scheduling software have a mobile app or is it accessible via mobile devices?

A lot of appointment scheduling software options have a mobile app or are mobile-friendly websites that can be accessed from mobile devices. This enables customers to schedule and manage appointments from their mobile devices while also assisting businesses with on-the-go appointment management.

10. Is appointment scheduling software secure and compliant with data privacy regulations?

The majority of appointment-making software programs are safe and in compliance with data protection laws like GDPR and HIPAA. It’s crucial to pick a software program that satisfies your company’s particular security and compliance requirements.

Ending thoughts on the best appointment scheduling software for your business

As we have seen, there is a vast array of choices when it comes to deciding on which appointment scheduling software is right for you and the needs of your business.

Run a small business on your own with only a handful of clients? You can’t go wrong with many of these choices. Have a large and expanding business with a rapidly growing client base? Many of these appointment scheduling apps are built to handle appointment information at scale.

Remember that a professional business treats every point of contact with its customers as an extension of its brand. Want to come across as efficient and reliable? Then even something as simple as your scheduling system should come across this way.

As long as you have considered exactly what your needs are, and have thought about how these needs may change in the future, we are confident that you will find the right scheduling software solution for your business!

If you enjoyed reading this article about appointment scheduling software, you should read these as well:

• • Important Features That an Appointment Booking App Must Have
  • Calendly vs YouCanBook.Me: Which One Should You Pick?
  • Alternatives to the Acuity Scheduling WordPress Plugin
  • Something Better than the WooCommerce Appointments Plugin?

Author Ljubica Buha

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