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Calendly and Doodle are two great options when it comes to online appointment scheduling softwares.
I’ll compare Calendly vs. Doodle to see which one is better.
Pricing:
Free - $20/mo (per seat)
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Pricing:
Free - $19.95/user/mo
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Best For:
Everyone from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies looking for a tool to make scheduling (and remembering) meetings easier.
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Best For:
Entrepreneurs, freelancers, leaders, and teams of all sizes who need better collaboration.
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Trying to coordinate meetings with large groups of people can be stressful – even more so when half of your participants end up being no-shows.
Calendly and Doodle are two appointment scheduling softwares meant to help combat these issues, but they each have their own way of doing so.
In this Calendly vs. Doodle review, we’ll compare each software’s pros, cons, and feature sets so you can decide which is the better fit for your appointment scheduling needs.
Calendly vs. Doodle at a glance
Criteria | Calendly | Doodle | Winner |
---|---|---|---|
SMB Guide’s Rating | 9/10 | 8.5/10 | Calendly |
Appointment Workflow Automation | ✅ | ✅ | Calendly |
Customization Options | ✅ | ✅ | Tie |
Calendar Management Features | Sync with Google, iCloud, Outlook, and Exchange calendars | Sync with Google, iCloud, and Office 365 | Tie |
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 | 9+ integrations | Calendly |
Supported Platforms | Web-based, iOS and Android mobile apps | Web-based, iOS and Android mobile apps | Calendly |
Customer Support | Live chat, automated chat box, email support tickets | Automated chatbot, email support tickets | Calendly |
Pricing | Free – $20/mo (per seat) | Free – $19.95/user/mo | Calendly |
Scalability | Highly scalable | Highly scalable | Doodle |
Calendly: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing
Calendly is a modern appointment scheduling tool designed to make “finding time” a breeze.
It’s a well-known software that’s easy to use, integrates seamlessly with your calendar, and offers a free subscription option for basic scheduling needs.
Pros & Cons
Free forever plan
iOS & Android apps
100+ integrations
Easy to build workflows
Too many features
Expensive for larger teams
Pricing
If you’re a freelancer or small business owner just getting started, you may find that Calendly’s free plan works perfectly for your needs.
However, if you want access to a wider range of features, Calendly offers three paid plan options with a free 14-day trial of their mid-tier “Teams” plan.
Like most scheduling softwares available, Calendly’s pricing is based on number of users.
Here’s a quick rundown on the subscription tiers Calendly offers:
- Free: $0 per month forever
- Standard: $12/seat per month
- Teams: $20/seat per month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for teams of 30+
Doodle: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing
Doodle is a web-based scheduling software best known for its group polling feature.
If you have a large team that relies heavily on meetings, Doodle will make your life a million times easier when it comes to coordinating them.
Pros & Cons
Free forever plan
Integrations via Zapier
Easy to use interface
Built for teams
No mobile app
Limited visual customization
Pricing
Doodle’s free plan is pretty generous. While it only allows you to create one booking page and one 1:1 event type, you can use it to create unlimited group polls.
Like Calendly, paid Doodle subscriptions also use a per-user pricing model.
You can only have up to 20 team members on the Pro and Team plans – any more than that, and you’ll need to contact sales for a custom enterprise quote.
If you’re willing to pay up front for an entire year, you can save up to 55% on your plan.
Here’s a quick rundown on the plans Doodle offers:
- Free: $0 per month forever
- Pro: $14.95/user per month
- Team: $19.95/user per month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Appointment Workflow Automation
Calendly’s appointment scheduling workflow is pretty seamless. All you need to do is create an event – a one-on-one, group, collective, or round robin – and provide your customers a link to your scheduling page.
From there, they’ll be able to book an appointment with you based on your set availability.
Before you can even start building your booking page in Doodle, you’ll have to connect at least one external calendar.
I found this to be unnecessary and kind of annoying, but once you connect, you’ll be able to finish creating your page.
Once you’ve created your first “doodle” – either a 1:1 meeting or group poll – and set up your booking page, you’ll be all set to start accepting appointments.
Both tools convert between time zones automatically and prevent people from scheduling slots that are already booked on your external calendars.
✅ Winner: Calendly
Customization Options
If you’re a paid Calendly user, you’ll be able to customize your account in the following ways:
- Change the URL of your scheduling page
- Change the URL of individual event types
- Add your branding and company logo (and remove Calendly’s branding)
- Create four different event types: one-on-one, group, collective, or round robin.
On paid Doodle plans, you can customize your Doodle account with a custom background color and image as well as your company logo.
Both tools also have a neat feature that allows you to set up company-wide branding across all users under your account.
This can be really helpful if projecting a consistent image is important to you.
✅ Winner: Tie
Calendar Management Features
With Calendly, you can connect your calendars on Google, Outlook, iCloud, and Exchange.
Similarly, Doodle can connect with Google, Office 365 (which includes Outlook and Exchange), and iCloud calendars.
The main difference here is the number of calendars you’re able to connect. With Calendly, that number is 1 for free plans or 6 for paid plans.
Doodle, on the other hand, allows you to connect up to 10 calendars from each supported calendar provider (for a total of 30 possible connections).
Another area these two tools differ is rescheduling. Either party can reschedule a booking in Calendly, but in Doodle, only the participant can.
This is a major con in my opinion.
Both tools ultimately have their own shortcomings when it comes to calendar management, so they tie in this category.
✅ Winner: Tie
Automated Reminders and Notifications
Both Calendly and Doodle send out an automated confirmation email when someone books a meeting with you.
This is pretty standard for appointment scheduling softwares. Calendly allows you to set up additional text and email reminders if you’re a paid user.
You can customize what these reminders say as well as the interval you want them to go out.
While Doodle does have an automated reminders feature, it’s not very customizable.
It’s simply a box that you check when you set up an event. The reminder text will just be a generic message with preset intervals for when they go out.
All that’s to say, if you want to be able to customize what your reminders say and when they’re sent, Calendly is the way to go.
✅ Winner: Calendly
User Experience and User Interface
The interface and user experience was on a comparable level for both Calendly and Doodle.
You won’t have trouble finding your way around either software. That said, I personally prefer Calendly’s interface.
Here’s what the main dashboard looks like:
Doodle takes a more simple, bare-bones approach to the dashboard:
I don’t think I can fairly compare the interfaces of these two apps, as they both look good and are easy to use.
At the end of the day, it really boils down to your own personal preference.
✅ Winner: Tie
Integrations & API Capabilities
Calendly offers over 100 third-party integrations while Doodle only offers 9 (as far as I could tell from their website).
If you want to create more complex workflows with Doodle, your best bet is to connect your account with Zapier (one of their supported integrations).
This will give you access to Zapiers 3k+ connected apps. Unfortunately, you can only take advantage of Doodle’s integration with Zapier if you’re on one of their paid plans.
✅ Winner: Calendly
Supported Platforms
Both Calendly and Doodle are primarily web-based softwares that also offer mobile apps for both iOS and Android.
Here’s how their respective apps stack up against each other:
- Calendly: 4.9 stars (App Store) and 4.7 stars (Google Play Store)
- Doodle: 4.7 stars (App Store) and 2.0 stars (Google Play Store)
Calendly is pretty highly rated across the board, whereas Doodle’s customer ratings particularly on the Google Play Store leave a lot to be desired.
✅ Winner: Calendly
Customer Support
For paid users, Calendly has a live chat option for support. Alternatively, you can take advantage of their automated chat box for simple queries or submit a support ticket if the issue isn’t urgent.
Doodle has a similar automated chatbot, as well as a form for submitting email support tickets.
Neither tool offers phone support, but since Calendly has a live chat option to get assistance from a real person quickly, they come out on top here.
✅ Winner: Calendly
Pricing
Calendly offers a free plan as well as three paid subscription options that range from $12 – $20/user per month.
Doodle also has a no-cost plan, but their paid plans start at a slightly higher price point – ranging from $14.95 – $19.95/user per month.
An important thing to note here is that new users can get a free 14-day trial of Calendly’s Teams plans.
As far as I’m aware, Doodle doesn’t offer any kind of free trial for their paid subscriptions.
✅ Winner: Calendly
Scalability
With custom plan options available for large teams, both Calendly and Doodle are well-suited to scaling with your business as it grows.
Calendly’s Custom plan is offered for teams of 30+ while Doodle’s Enterprise plan is built for teams of 20+ people.
It’s hard to compare the actual value of these plans since pricing isn’t publicly available, but the features offered seem to be pretty similar for both.
The one area where I think Doodle has an edge when it comes to scalability is their group polling feature.
This is what Doodle is primarily known for, so it makes sense that they excel at it. It’s really an awesome feature if your business relies on frequent group meetings.
✅ Winner: Doodle
Standout Features of Calendly
Calendly has actually been proven to reduce meeting no-shows. In a 2020 survey, 88% of Calendly sales users said that meeting no-shows decreased when they used Calendly’s automated reminders.
Standout Features of Doodle
Doodle allows you to book meetings on another team member’s calendar using their book on behalf feature.
A few potential use cases for this feature are:
- Scheduling a candidate interview with your company’s hiring manager.
- Managing your supervisor’s schedule as an executive assistant.
- Scheduling time between a potential client and someone on the sales team.
Another useful feature for businesses with a lot of team members is the admin console.
You can think of this as a sort of hub where you can pull different reports to measure productivity, decide which integrations users can or can’t use, and set up company-wide branding that’ll be consistent across the board.
Calendly vs. Doodle: SMB Guide’s Verdict
Calendly and Doodle are both pretty decent scheduling tools, but Calendly comes out on top based on its features, pricing, and ease-of-use.
Just create a free Calendly account to get started. If you’re a first-time user, you’ll get a free 14-day trial of the Teams plan.
Where Calendly works great for a variety of use cases, Doodle really only makes sense for teams that rely heavily on collective meetings and need a group polling feature.
If that sounds like what you need, you can get started with your first poll by creating a free Doodle account today.
Flexible scheduling software designed to help you grow — because booking time should never get in the way of success.