Calendly vs. Acuity Scheduling: Which should you use?

Calendly and Acuity are two of the most popular online appointment scheduling softwares.

I’ll compare Calendly vs. Acuity Scheduling to see which one is better.

Appointment scheduling software can be a game-changer for your virtual business.

But it can be tough to wade through all of the different options out there. 

Calendly and Acuity are two of the most well-known solutions. In this Calendly vs. Acuity Scheduling showdown, we’ll compare their pros, cons, and feature sets so you can decide which is the better fit for your needs.

Calendly vs. Acuity Scheduling at a Glance

Criteria	Calendly	Acuity Scheduling	Winner
SMB Guide’s Rating	9/10	9.3/10	Acuity Scheduling
Appointment Workflow Automation	✅	✅	Calendly
Customization Options	✅	✅	Acuity Scheduling
Calendar Management Features	Sync with Google, iCloud, Outlook, and Exchange calendars	Sync with Google, iCloud, Outlook, and Exchange calendars	Calendly
Automated Reminders and Notifications	✅	✅	Calendly
Client Management & Communication	❌	✅	Acuity Scheduling
UX and UI	High user-friendliness	High user-friendliness	Tie
Integrations & API Capabilities	100+ integrations	37+ integrations	Acuity Scheduling
Supported Platforms	Web-based, iOS and Android mobile apps	Web-based, iOS and Android mobile apps	Calendly
Customer Support	Automated chat box, support tickets, live chat (on paid plans)	Support tickets	Calendly
Pricing	Free – $20/mo (per seat)	$20/mo – $61/mo	Calendly
Scalability	Highly scalable	Highly scalable	Tie

Calendly: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Calendly is a dedicated web-based appointment scheduling software that’s meant to make “finding time” a breeze.

It’s one of the most well-known schedulers out there. Calendly is easy to use, integrates seamlessly with your calendar, and offers a range of plans – including a free forever subscription.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

Calendly offers a free plan that includes basic scheduling functionality along with three paid plans with a wider feature set.

They also offer a free 14-day trial of their Teams plan if it’s your first time signing up with them.

Similar to a lot of other calendar and scheduling solutions, Calendly uses “per seat” pricing – meaning your total cost directly correlates with how many user accounts you need.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the plans Calendly offers:

• Free: $0 per month forever
• Standard: $12/seat per month
• Teams: $20/seat per month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing for teams of 30+

Acuity Scheduling: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Acuity Scheduling is an online scheduling tool that’s owned and integrates directly with Squarespace.

However, you don’t have to be a Squarespace user to use it. Acuity offers appointment scheduling, client invoicing, and is set up to allow you to easily charge for meetings and consultations.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

Acuity Scheduling offers three different pricing tiers with no free option available.

The smallest plan offers basic scheduling features, while its most expensive plan is better suited to larger businesses with multiple locations or those that need a HIPAA-compliant tool.

While no free plan is a bit of a bummer, you can get a free 7-day trial of any of Acuity’s plans if you’re a first-time user.

Here’s a quick breakdown of Acuity’s plans:

• Emerging: $20 per month
• Growing: $34 per month
• Powerhouse: $61 per month

Appointment Workflow Automation

Calendly’s appointment workflow is pretty seamless. Once you’ve created an event, you can start directing people to your scheduling page.

From there, they’ll be able to select the type of event they want to book (if you’ve created more than one), and then choose a time based on your availability.

Besides the initial event setup, there’s no input required on your end unless you need to cancel or reschedule a specific meeting – which is also extremely easy to do within the software.

Acuity’s workflow is pretty similar. You just need to create appointment types, set your availability, and then provide your clients with the link to your scheduling page.

In the scheduling process, you can require clients to fill out an intake form or fill out other information about why they’re requesting the meeting.

The main difference between Calendly and Acuity’s appointment workflow automation is the visual appearance.

Calendly’s interface, in my opinion, looks much nicer and is also more user-friendly.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Customization Options

Calendly’s options for customizing your scheduling page are limited. You can customize the URL for it and individual appointment types you offer on all plans.

On the Standard plan and up, you’ll also get the ability to remove Calendly’s branding from your scheduling page and add your company branding and logo instead.

Acuity’s offers a bit more when it comes to customization options. Not only are you able to customize your business name, logo, and button/accent colors on your scheduling page, but you can also embed the scheduling form directly into a page on your website.

And if that’s still not enough for you, you can customize your scheduling page even further if you know CSS.

✅ Winner: Acuity Scheduling

Calendar Management Features

Both Calendly and Acuity Scheduling allow you to connect your Google, iCloud, Outlook, and Exchange calendars to prevent accidental double-booking.

However, there are some important nuances to consider. With Calendly, for example, you can only connect 1 external calendar if you’re on the Free plan.

This can be a problem if you use multiple different calendars for your personal life and work.

If you need more, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan – then you’ll be able to connect up to 6 different calendars.

You can set up either one-way or two-way sync with Acuity. However, you can only connect one of each type of supported calendar per Acuity user – so one Google, one iCloud, one Office 365, one Exchange, and one Outlook.

I thought this was kind of a weird restriction that could be troublesome for a lot of users.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Automated Reminders and Notifications

When someone books with you in Calendly, they’ll automatically receive a calendar invitation in their inbox.

On paid Calendly plans, you can set up additional text and email reminders to send out at intervals of your choosing.

Acuity also allows you to send out automatic reminders. On the Emerging plan, you’ll get access to email reminders only.

On the Growing and Powerhouse plans, you can send both email and text reminders.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Client Management & Communication

Calendly unfortunately doesn’t store client information in any sort of database – but Acuity does.

Acuity’s Client list allows you to see at a glance all of the different people you’ve had appointments with and important or export them to a spreadsheet.

It also stores more detailed information about each individual, such as their contact information, any notes you’ve taken about them, intake forms they’ve filled out, and all upcoming and past appointments they’ve had with you.

✅ Winner: Acuity Scheduling

User Experience and User Interface

Both Calendly and Acuity Scheduling have user-friendly interfaces that are pretty easy to get the hang of even if you’ve never used scheduling software.

Below is what Calendly’s dashboard looks like when you log in. You can easily copy your scheduling link, create a new event type, or view your meeting stats from the last 30 days.

Acuity’s dashboard is set up a bit differently, and I honestly liked the layout a bit more than Calendly’s.

Your calendar is available in the left hand sidebar so you can easily click through to view your appointments for any given day.

You also have easy access via the menu to your Clients, Invoices, and Reports. Here’s what Acuity’s dashboard looks like:

The one thing I will say is that Acuity’s neutral color scheme can make it difficult for your eyes to follow where to click on the page.

It’s a small thing, but worth mentioning for those who have a visual impairment.

✅ Winner: Tie

Integrations & API Capabilities

Calendly offers 100+ integrations with marketing automation, project management, applicant tracking systems, and other third-party tools.

Acuity Scheduling offers 37+ integrations with third-party applications including accounting, email marketing, payment processing, video conferencing, and more.

Both software offer a lot of different integrations that make them convenient to use, but Calendly wins in this category just based on their higher number of integrations.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Supported Platforms

Calendly and Acuity Scheduling are web-based softwares that work on any major browser including Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge.

If you’re someone that prefers mobile experience over visiting a website from your browser, both softwares have you covered there.

Here’s how Calendly and Acuity’s respective apps stack up against each other:

• Calendly: 4.9 stars (App Store) and 4.7 stars (Google Play Store)
• Acuity Scheduling: 4.8 stars (App Store) and 4.1 stars (Google Play Store)

Both sets of apps are highly rated, but Calendly’s ratings are just a bit higher, so they come out on top here.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Customer Support

As far as support, Calendly has an automated chat box for simple queries or you can request assistance from a live human by submitting a support ticket.

However, you’ll need to be signed into your Calendly account in order to submit a ticket.

On paid Calendly plans, you’ll also get a live chat option for support. As far as I could tell, there’s no phone support available – that’s a feature you get only if you’re subscribed to one of their custom plans.

Acuity only offers one method for support – submitting a support request.

It’s unclear what the turnaround time is to receive a response, so if fast communication is important to you, Calendly is probably the better pick.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Pricing

Calendly offers a basic subscription option that’s free, plus three paid plans with a wider variety of features.

Paid subscriptions start out at just $12 per user per month. Pricing switches to a custom model if you have 30 or more people on your team that need Calendly access.

If you’re a new user, you’ll receive a free 14-day trial of their Teams plan ($20/month value) when you sign up.

Acuity Scheduling has three different pricing tiers that start at $20 per month and go up to $61 per month.

They offer a free 7-day trial for new users, but the lack of a free forever plan puts them behind Calendly in this category.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Scalability

Both Calendly and Acuity Scheduling are well-suited to scaling with large organizations.

Calendly offers a custom plan for teams of 30+ that can be tailored to your specific needs, and Acuity’s Powerhouse plan includes features like HIPAA compliance and custom API and CSS that can be useful for large organizations.

✅ Winner: Tie

Standout Features of Calendly

Calendly has been proven to reduce meeting no-shows. Pretty much all scheduling tools – including Calendly – aim to do this.

But unlike many other tools, Calendly actually has stats to back up their claim. In a 2020 survey, they found that:

• 88% of Calendly sales users that were surveyed said meeting no-shows decreased by using automated reminders.
• On average, Calendly sales users have decreased their no-show rates by 28% using automated reminders.

Standout Features of Acuity Scheduling

Acuity Scheduling has an invoicing feature included with their software. This feature is still in beta at the moment, but I tested it out and it seemed to work pretty well.

Create and send customer invoices directly within Acuity’s app. If you use Stripe, Square, or PayPal to process payments, you can connect that to Acuity to accept invoice payments.

Calendly vs. Acuity Scheduling: SMB Guide’s Verdict

Both Calendly and Acuity Scheduling are solid appointment scheduling softwares, but Calendly comes out on top based on the pros, cons, and features we compared. 

All you need to do is create a free Calendly account to get started. You’ll get a free 14-day trial of the Teams plan as a first-time user!

Acuity Scheduling is better for Squarespace users since they’re automatically integrated with each other.

To get started with Acuity, start your free 7-day trial today.