The Best Meeting Scheduler Apps for Small Businesses and Freelancers

Appointment scheduling can be a time-consuming process involving a long string of emails. Using a meeting scheduler app streamlines the process and makes it hassle-free. It removes the risk of double booking by indicating the availability of attendees.

There are a variety of meeting schedulers designed for small businesses. They range from email plugins to mobile apps, to web-based solutions. The available options have been tested and listed below are the best online meeting schedulers available.

What to Look For In a Meeting Scheduler App

The following criteria are most important when selecting a meeting scheduler app:

User-Friendly

The meeting scheduler software must be easy to use. Learning how to configure the app should be straightforward and the dashboard should be simple and intuitive.

Customizability

The meeting scheduler should help to promote your brand and be fully customizable. It should display your logo and brand colors, as well as taglines and other important signage. This will help to create an affinity for your brand amongst your client base.

Good Security

Because of their nature, meeting scheduler apps contain a lot of personal information. It is important to ensure that the platform used is secure and has a reliable privacy policy.

Email Integration

In the business world, most communication is electronic. Integrating your meeting scheduling app with your email software makes scheduling convenient and responsive. Effectively, any changes made on either platform will correspond.

Value for Money

The recommended apps all have a free version available. Should you require a few extra features, the paid options are within a reasonable range too.

Meeting Scheduler Apps for Small Businesses and Freelancers

• Amelia
• Trafft
• Meetingbird
• HubSpot Meeting Scheduler
• Pocket Informant
• NeedToMeet
• Calendar
• Google Calendar
• Boomerang Calendar
• Demodesk
• Calendly
• Doodle
• X.ai
• Arrangr
• Rallly
• FreeBusy
• Appointlet
• iCloud
• Jorte
• YouCanBook.Me

Now let’s look at them in detail.

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 scheduling appointments 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 schedule meetings, 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.

It has awesome integrations like the one with Zoom that helps you do video conferencing easily. Setting up video chat meetings has become even easier than before.

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 to help you schedule events easier.

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 a group meeting, 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.

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

Meetingbird

Meetingbird has grown over many years to become an all-encompassing solution for scheduling meetings to help you avoid back and forth conversations via email.

With a Google or an Office 365 account, you can log in and begin scheduling meetings almost immediately. To begin, click the “create my first scheduling link” button. Meetingbird will prompt its user and provide concise instructions on the next steps to take. You will be able to send polls to gauge availability and include as many time and date options as necessary.

HubSpot Meeting Scheduler

This free meeting scheduler from HubSpot provides users with personalized booking links. Share this link with others and they can view all your available time slots. A suitable appointment can then be scheduled via the link. This will trigger the event and add it to the user’s calendar.

The HubSpot meeting scheduler integrates with Google, Office 365 Calendars, and with the HubSpot CRM.

Pocket Informant

Pocket Informant can help freelancers stay in control of work tasks and personal commitments. It acts as a virtual assistant, storing the user’s calendar, tasks, projects, notes, and contacts.

The calendar app is straightforward and user-friendly, offering one-button navigation. Users can identify new events using specific keywords or attributes. This makes creating agendas for meetings simple and stress-free.

NeedToMeet

NeedToMeet can be used to create a simple meeting link. Users enter a brief description of the event and highlight their availability on the calendar.

You can use it as a free meeting scheduler but that does not offer calendar syncing at this time. However, the premium version can be integrated with Outlook. The platform allows a bulk meeting period to be made available to a group of people. They can then select a slot for a one-on-one session. This makes scheduling easier, allowing managers to meet with a team of people one at a time.

Calendar

Calendar is a simple meeting scheduling solution that emulates the functions of Google Calendar. It is available on both web and mobile.

Calendar uniquely tracks and presents statistics to its users. This enables you to note trends in meeting and scheduling habits. With this information you can track meeting attendance, identifying recurrent absentees. It can also help you gauge how much time is spent in meetings over various time periods.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar is an extremely well-developed app that is affordable and easy to use. The integration capability of Google Calendar with other Google platforms is exceptional and very efficient.

Using Google Calendar to schedule a meeting is easy. In the app, create a group calendar and share it with other group members. You can view responses and keep track of the invitees’ availability.

Boomerang Calendar

Boomerang Calendar browser extension is available for both Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. It fully integrates with your Google Calendar and Gmail account, making scheduling easy. There are various methods available for booking meetings using the extension.

For instance, when composing an email, Boomerang will pull up the calendar allowing you to view your availability. It notes your free time slots and shares them with your chosen recipients. They can respond and select a time that best suits them. Boomerang can even suggest the best times to schedule meetings.

Demodesk

Demodesk is a comprehensive meeting scheduler designed specifically for sales demo scheduling.

The platform allows you to create custom booking pages, sync your calendar, and view meeting analytics. Users can access advanced screen sharing capabilities and virtual display options. It also has native integrations with many tools including CRMs.

Calendly

Calendly provides hassle-free, automated scheduling by working with your calendar to verify availability. The meeting scheduler has great features such as providing a buffer time between meetings, and time zone detection. It is compatible with apps like Salesforce, GoToMeeting, and Zapier.

Calendly prompts users to specify the length of the required meeting. Based on this it will calculate your availability and email various options to your recipients. Once a slot has been selected, the meeting is automatically added to your calendar.

Doodle

Doodle is designed to schedule group meetings within the same organization. The host will send out time and date options to all participants. Based on participant responses the host finalizes the meeting time. Doodle then automatically creates an event in all participants’ calendars.

The meeting scheduler offers many features to schedule meetings and other internal appointments. Some of these include a shareable URL, one-on-one meetings, and update broadcasts.  Doodle also auto-identifies time zones, sends automatic reminders, allows customized branding, and syncs with Slack.

X.ai

X.ai has created two AI assistants named Amy and Andrew Ingram. Once you have created an account, these assistants can be used when scheduling meetings. The user would simply CC them on the meeting request email. The AI assistants will correspond with the invitee to finalize an appointment time.

X.ai is compatible with Google, Office 365, and Outlook for easy calendar integration.

Arrangr

This tool will reserve tentative meeting times and release unused slots back into your calendar. Arrangr integrates with calendars and CRMs and can schedule group meetings. It may even suggest the perfect meeting location.

Rallly

Rallly uses the concept of a ‘show of hands’ to gauge the availability of all parties. A unique feature of this platform allows all respondents to remain anonymous.

Users can also invite attendees to answer a poll. This is done by either entering their email addresses or sending them a link. A discussion box is available below each poll, allowing participants to leave comments.

FreeBusy

FreeBusy is a meeting scheduler that sets itself apart with its capabilities. It assists with scheduling and allows for internal or external members to be added by either party. It provides screen shares and can integrate the web conferencing platform of your choice. FreeBusy automatically creates and adds the conference call to the appointment.

Appointlet

Appointlet can schedule appointments both within and outside a business. This meeting scheduler’s design focuses on sales leads scheduling but is applicable within other structures.

Appointlet boasts advanced functionalities alongside the standard email confirmations and reminders. It offers time zone support, team availability, customizable schedule breaks and time limits, multi-language support, custom branding, and personalized links.

Users can integrate their schedules into sales funnels and facilitate payments from customers. This makes maintaining leads painless.

iCloud

iCloud features a user-friendly calendar that fully integrates with any Apple device. This meeting scheduler allows your team to schedule meetings, share information, and communicate with ease. Toggling capabilities allow users to select their preferred calendar view. It has a simple interface and similar capabilities to Google Calendar.

Jorte

This meeting scheduler allows users to create task lists, make diary entries, and save pictures. The user experience is reminiscent of using a well-organized digital scrapbook.

Jorte is fully compatible with other calendar services including  Google, Apple, and Yahoo! This makes it a great option for those who work across multiple device brands.

YouCanBook.Me

YouCanBook.Me is a paid subscription meeting scheduling service. It allows business professionals to book meetings with clients.

The service is incredibly flexible and boasts a wide variety of useful features.

Ending thoughts on the best meeting scheduling apps for small businesses and freelancers

With so many meeting schedulers available, it is important for users to find one which best suits them. There are a variety of price ranges, features, and supported integrations available.

Remember to consider whether the focus is on meeting with employees or with clients. Ensure that the platform is compatible with multiple calendars so that it would be compatible with the people that will use it.

These tools all offer creative ways to gauge the availability of those you need to meet with. They can prevent any unwanted double-bookings which cost you time and money.

If you enjoyed reading this article about meeting scheduler apps, you should read these as well:

• Important Features That an Appointment Booking App Must Have
• The Very Best Group Scheduling Apps Out There
• The Best Appointment Scheduling Software for Your Business
• Get a Free Scheduling App for Your Business From this Curated List
• Double Booking Appointments? Here’s How to Avoid That

Author Isidora Markovic

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