Appointlet vs. Calendly: Which scheduling tool is better?

Discover the differences between Calendly and Appointlet in our comprehensive comparison.

Find the ideal appointment scheduling solution for your needs.

Appointlet and Calendly are both top contenders in the appointment scheduling niche. 

Calendly is renowned for its seamless booking process, while Appointlet offers a comparable service. 

Our comparison aims to dissect and evaluate the unique features and functionalities of both platforms, equipping you with insights to make an informed decision.

You can also read our detailed reviews of Appointlet and Calendly for more information.

Appointlet vs. Calendly: At a Glance

I’ve rigorously assessed both software solutions against stringent evaluation criteria at SMB Guide, encompassing usability, features, pricing, and customer support. 

To delve deeper into our comprehensive evaluation process, explore the detailed insights provided in the SMB Guide Evaluation Criteria.

Criteria	Appointlet	Calendly	Winner
SMB Guide’s Rating	8.6	9/10	Calendly
Appointment Workflow Automation	✅	✅	Tie
Customization Options	✅	✅	Tie
Calendar Management Features	✅	✅	Calendly
Automated Reminders and Notifications	✅	✅	Tie
Client Management & Communication	❌	❌	Tie
Automatic Rules	✅	✅	Tie
In-Meeting Tools	❌	❌	Calendly
Meeting Templates	❌	✅	Calendly
Meeting Analytics	❌	✅	Calendly
UX and UI	Simple and clean UI	High user-friendliness	Tie
Integrations & API Capabilities	100+ integrations	50+ integrations	Calendly
Supported Platforms	❌	✅	Calendly
Customer Support	Live chat, Email, Self-help	Support tickets	Tie
Pricing	Free – $10/member/mo	$20/mo – $61/mo	Calendly
Scalability	✅	✅	Calendly

Appointlet: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Appointlet is a web-based scheduling application enabling the creation of booking pages that can be embedded on websites or social media platforms, facilitating online appointment bookings with customers.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

Appointlet offers three distinct plans to know.

• Free: $0
• Premium: $10/seat/month (monthly) / $8/seat/month (annually)
• Enterprise: Custom

All plans come with a 15-day free trial and unlimited appointments.

Calendly: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Calendly is a well-known online scheduling tool highly praised for its ability to simplify the intricate process of arranging ideal meeting schedules.

Its success is attributed to its user-friendly design and versatile capabilities that cater to individual users and businesses alike.

Its notable features are effortless calendar syncing, customizable meeting options, automatic reminders, and intelligent timezone recognition.

Nonetheless, despite its intuitive nature, some users might encounter constraints within its pricing structure, tailored to specific needs.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

Calendly has four pricing plans, beginning with its very popular free tier. 

• Free: $0
• Standard: $10/seat/month
• Teams: $16/seat/month
• Enterprise: Custom

Calendly also offers larger organizations that require more than 30 accounts the ability to get a custom quote, with more fine-tuned features offered.

Appointment Workflow Automation

Appointlet streamlines booking tasks for both users and administrators. It automates workflows, such as distributing appointments among staff based on skills and availability, available in Plus and Enterprise plans.

It supports recurring appointments and sends post-meeting messages for improved customer satisfaction and engagement, including surveys, reviews, and resources.

Calendly ensures seamless scheduling by sharing your personalized scheduling page link with clients.

This enables clients to independently select preferred event types and available dates, streamlining the process of self-scheduled meetings.

The platform incorporates buffer time settings to prevent back-to-back bookings, allowing easy adjustments to suit your preferences.

Upon booking, clients receive email invitations containing conference call links and the flexibility to reschedule or cancel appointments according to their needs.

✅ Winner: Tie

Customization Options

Appointlet offers extensive control over appointment settings. Users can create varied service types, each with unique durations, prices, availability, and booking rules.

Additionally, multiple booking pages cater to different purposes, like landing pages or social media posts, associated with distinct appointment types.

Businesses can personalize the scheduling page to reflect their brand. This includes using a custom domain and logo, selecting colors, fonts, and images, and adding tailored content.

Furthermore, customizable booking forms and thank-you pages enable gathering client information and offering confirmation and appointment details summaries.

Paid subscription plans on Calendly offer enhanced flexibility in creating various appointment types for booking.

The free Calendly plan restricts users to a single event type but still allows significant customization within that event type.

This customization includes specifying meeting locations (e.g., Zoom or Google Meet), permitting invitee guest additions, setting future scheduling limits, and establishing parameters like buffer time, minimum notice, and daily meeting limits.

Although customization options for the scheduling page are limited in the free plan, users can personalize the URL and URLs for specific event types.

If you want to remove the Calendly logo fully, you have to upgrade to the Standard plan or higher.

In contrast, the free plan allows the addition of a company logo but does not offer the option to remove Calendly’s branding.

✅ Winner: Tie

Calendar Management Features

Appointlet offers multi-staff schedule management, enabling the assignment of diverse services to individual team members.

These staff members can seamlessly synchronize their availability using supported calendars like Google Calendar and Office 365.

The software adeptly manages appointments across different time zones, automatically adjusting them to users’ local time.

Furthermore, it simplifies rescheduling or cancellations, sending email confirmations and updates to both parties.

Calendly seamlessly integrates with Google, Outlook, iCloud, and Exchange calendars, preventing scheduling conflicts.

With the Free plan, users can sync with a single external calendar, but this capability can be expanded to six upon upgrading.

The system automatically adapts meeting times for clients across different time zones, ensuring efficient coordination.

To reschedule, users can access the “Scheduled events” section in the menu, modify the meeting details effortlessly, and optionally provide a reason.

Clients receive notifications and maintain the ability to reschedule on their own.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Automated Reminders and Notifications

Appointlet minimizes no-shows and enhances client satisfaction through personalized and automated pre-appointment reminders.

It offers tailored reminder content, scheduling, and delivery via email or SMS.

Administrators receive notifications for new bookings or alterations, accessible via dashboards or calendars.

Additionally, automatic post-appointment follow-ups seek client feedback or referrals.

After scheduling a meeting via Calendly, clients instantly receive a calendar invitation.

Accessing extra automated reminders requires an upgrade to a paid subscription. With the Standard plan and above, users can configure text or email reminders, ensuring invitees receive essential meeting details.

✅ Winner: Tie

Client Management and Communication

Unfortunately, Calendly cannot store meeting information in a client database. If this functionality is essential for your needs, you might need to explore other scheduling software options.

Appointlet, akin to Calendly, lacks native client management features but allows integration with CRMs like Salesforce.

It enables users to add custom fields within form invitations, collecting extra client information during booking.

Appointlet fosters seamless business-client communication via email notifications, SMS reminders, and multiple sharing options like embedding booking widgets on websites, using webhooks, or sharing links across various channels.

✅ Winner: Tie

Automatic Rules

Appointlet’s automatic rules function enhances scheduling efficiency by offering several key features. This includes: 

• Maximum Meetings Per Day: Limits the number of meetings scheduled daily to prevent overbooking.
• Buffer Times Between Meetings: Adds breaks between appointments for preparation and downtime.
• Cancellation Rules: Manages and controls changes in appointment schedules effectively.

This combination of features streamlines the scheduling process, ensuring a smooth and organized approach to managing meetings.

Calendly offers a range of automated rules that greatly enhance appointment management:

• Auto-Cancellation Policies: Users can establish conditions for automatic appointment cancellations, such as setting timeframes for clients to reschedule or cancel appointments.
• Time Zone Adjustments: Automatically adapts meeting times for different time zones, ensuring accurate scheduling and reducing confusion.
• Setting Working Hours: Allows users to define their availability by setting specific working hours, restricting appointment scheduling to these designated times.

✅ Winner: Tie

In-Meeting Tools

Appointlet and Calendly facilitate efficient scheduling by enabling users to define their availability, send automated reminders, and synchronize with multiple calendar systems.

Both are adept at making the organization of meetings more straightforward but do not offer features like note-taking, sharing documents, or collaborating in real-time during meetings.

Calendly, however, distinguishes itself with its meeting polling function, aiding attendees in finding the most suitable time for meetings, thereby reducing the need for back-and-forth communication.

In contrast, Appointlet lacks both in-meeting tools and the ability to conduct meeting polls.

It does offer the ability to assign Meeting Hosts for different meeting purposes, as part of the meeting details.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Meeting Templates

Appointlet doesn’t provide pre-made meeting templates. 

However, once you create a new meeting type, you have the flexibility to delve into its specific customizations.

This allows you to fine-tune various aspects of the meeting to align perfectly with your requirements.

In Calendly’s free plan, users can create templates specifically tailored for one-on-one meetings.

However, by upgrading to the paid plans, users gain expanded functionalities allowing the creation of unique templates for different meeting styles such as Group, Collective, and Round Robin options.

This capability enables customization of settings and preferences specific to various meeting structures.

Users can develop and use distinct templates for each style, streamlining the scheduling process for diverse meeting scenarios.

Furthermore, Calendly provides recommendations on the most appropriate meeting type based on user preferences or specific needs.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Meeting Analytics

Appointlet doesn’t offer any meeting analytics features.

Calendly’s analytics features, available through its paid plans like Calendly Groups, offer comprehensive insights into meeting metrics and team-specific booking data.

The Analytics leaderboard helps administrators identify top-performing team members, fostering the development and sharing of best practices for improved performance. 

It also aids in capacity planning by analyzing meeting trends and team performance metrics, identifying peak booking periods, and recognizing successful outcomes and training opportunities within teams.

✅ Winner: Calendly

User Experience and User Interface

Appointlet offers an intuitive and clean interface, presenting a color-coded calendar view displaying staff availability and bookings.

Users can efficiently navigate through various features and settings using the sidebar menu.

Additionally, the platform’s responsive design ensures seamless adaptation across diverse screen sizes and mobile devices.

Calendly presents a user-friendly interface, offering quick access to your scheduling link upon login.

Its uncomplicated dashboard layout ensures easy navigation, simplifying the process of setting up availability and creating events, which is intuitive and straightforward.

✅ Winner: Tie

Integrations & API Capabilities

Appointlet seamlessly integrates with leading project management, communication, and collaboration tools including Zapier, Mailchimp, Zoom, Stripe, PayPal, Webex, MS Teams, Slack, and others.

Users also have access to the Appointlet API for crafting personalized integrations with different applications.

Calendly provides more than 100 integrations with various third-party apps, encompassing marketing automation, project management, and applicant tracking systems.

It effortlessly syncs with calendar apps to streamline availability management.

Moreover, Calendly offers an API enabling developers to create custom integrations, extending the software’s functionalities according to specific user needs.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Supported Platforms

Appointlet operates as a web-based software accessible across various browsers and operating systems.

Presently, it lacks dedicated mobile applications for iOS and Android. However, the website is mobile-responsive, ensuring compatibility and functionality on mobile devices while development for mobile apps continues.

Calendly offers web-based software along with dedicated mobile applications for both iOS and Android, allowing convenient scheduling of appointments while on the move.

The mobile versions have garnered strong ratings, achieving 4.9 stars on the App Store and 4.7 stars on the Google Play Store.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Customer Support

Appointlet doesn’t offer phone support but compensates with responsive assistance via email and live chat on weekdays.

The support team is resourceful and available during business hours, offering helpful guidance.

Users have access to ample self-help resources, including documentation, FAQs, video tutorials, and an active community forum fostering discussion and idea sharing among users.

Calendly’s free plan offers multiple avenues for user support. An automated chat feature handles basic inquiries effectively, and personalized assistance is available through support tickets accessed after signing into the account.

The Help Center contains written guides and video tutorials for self-guidance.

Upgrading to Standard or Teams plans grants access to live chat support. Custom subscription plans offer expedited support, encompassing onboarding and software implementation assistance tailored for teams.

✅ Winner: Tie

Pricing

Appointlet has 3 different pricing tiers:

Plan	Price
Free	Always free
Premium	$10/seat/month (billed monthly) $8/seat/month (billed annually)
Enterprise	Custom

There are four different pricing plans with Calendly to know:

Plan	Price
Free	Always free
Standard	$10/seat/mo
Teams	$16/seat/mo
Enterprise	Custom

✅ Winner: Calendly

Scalability

Appointlet’s scalability for businesses primarily relies on its Enterprise pricing plan, which caters to larger organizations seeking advanced features.

However, Appointlet offers only one pricing tier, limiting scalability options for businesses that may require various tiers with differing functionalities. 

This singular pricing plan might not fully accommodate diverse business needs or growth strategies seeking multiple tiers for scalability.

Calendly demonstrates flexibility in its pricing models, designed to suit companies of varying sizes.

Tailored for enterprise teams, its advanced packages provide collaborative scheduling, integrations, and strong security features.

Calendly positions this solution as beneficial for enterprises to:

• Improve team productivity.
• Enhance business performance and customer experience.
• Standardize and scale scheduling operations.
• Secure better security measures for sensitive data.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Standout Features of Appointlet

Appointlet’s unique features include the following:

• Appointlet ensures fair appointment distribution among team members through its round-robin setup
• You can get priority assignments based on availability or importance. 
• The co-hosted meeting feature enables multiple team members to manage a single meeting, promoting collaborative scheduling.
• Get key integrations like Zoom and MS Teams within its free plan.

Standout Features of Calendly

Key highlights of Calendly’s features include:

• Tailored event creation for diverse appointment scheduling needs.
• Automatic adjustment of meeting times across various time zones for scheduling clarity.
• Configuration of buffer times, minimum notice periods, and daily limits to avoid back-to-back appointments.

Appointlet vs. Calendly: SMB Guide’s Verdict

After our thorough examination, Calendly emerges as the winner, albeit by a slight margin. 

Calendly offers a comprehensive suite of tools suitable for businesses of all sizes. It boasts extensive functionalities, advanced analytics, and scalable options, making it adaptable to evolving business needs.

For those seeking an all-encompassing scheduling solution packed with a diverse range of features, Calendly stands as the best choice.On the other hand, Appointlet is a commendable scheduling tool, particularly suitable for smaller teams on a budget.

However, when compared to Calendly’s robust feature set and scalability, Appointlet falls slightly short. Nevertheless, for users in search of a more cost-effective alternative that doesn’t compromise efficiency, Appointlet remains a viable option.