Calendly vs. Setmore: Which scheduling software is better?

Compare the robust scheduling features of Calendly and Setmore. Discover which platform aligns with your business needs and enhances efficiency.

In the bustling world of business, managing appointments can be a challenge. Choosing the right scheduling software can make all the difference.

But how do you decide between two leading platforms in the market? Enter our Calendly vs. Setmore comparison.

In this comprehensive review, we’ll delve into their features, pricing, ease of use, and more.

Are you questioning which platform offers better integration options? Or, perhaps you are wondering which one provides superior customer support?

This comparison aims to answer all your questions and guide you to the right choice.

So, without further ado, let’s dive into the details.

Calendly vs. Setmore: At a Glance

Criteria	Calendly	Setmore	Winner
SMB Guide’s Rating	9/10	9/10	Setmore
Appointment Workflow Automation	✅	✅	Tie
Customization Options	✅	✅	Calendly
Calendar Management Features	✅	✅	Calendly
Automated Reminders and Notifications	✅	✅	Tie
Client Management & Communication	❌	✅	Setmore
Automatic Rules	✅	✅	Calendly
Meeting Analytics	✅	✅	Tie
UX and UI	High user-friendliness	Simple, Easy to Use	Tie
Integrations & API Capabilities	✅	✅	Tie
Supported Platforms	✅	✅	Setmore
Customer Support	Live chat, automated chat box, email support tickets	24/7, multiple options	Setmore
Pricing	Free – $20/mo (per seat)	Free – $12/user/mo	Setmore
Scalability	✅	✅	Setmore

Calendly: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Calendly is a highly regarded scheduling platform known for its array of features that streamline the appointment process.

Key features include CRM and Salesforce integration, website embedding, and workflow creation.

Users can customize their branding, and the software ensures complete data privacy.

Unique features like time zone detection and meeting polls make it even easier to use.

Calendly also boasts interoperability, automated reminders, email templates, booking and rescheduling capabilities, and confirmations.

It even offers customizable event types, time buffers, group events, round-robin scheduling, and recurring event options.

However, the availability of these features depends on the plan you pay for. Calendly also integrates with popular calendar apps like Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCal for up-to-date scheduling.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

Calendly offers four plans to choose from, with one of those being a Free Forever option.

Paid plans start at $12/user/month, with up to a 20% discount for annual billing. If you require more than 30 users, you’ll need the Enterprise plan, which requires a custom quote.

Setmore: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Setmore is a versatile appointment scheduling solution known for its comprehensive features that simplify the booking process.

The platform facilitates real-time booking, simple appointment scheduling, and customer administration.

It offers customizable SMS reminders, staff booking pages, and callback URLs. Depending on the plan, you can have unlimited staff profiles. Customers can self-book through the Booking Page.

Setmore also includes automated reminders and alerts, integration with popular platforms, and online payment capabilities.

It’s also recognized for its user-friendly mobile app, customizable features, and responsive customer service.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

Setmore offers three plans, ranging from $0 to $12/user/month. With annual billing discounts, the price goes to $0 to $5/month/user.

While there’s a generous free plan, it will display the Setmore branding.

Appointment Workflow Automation

Both tools make it easy to create a self-booking appointment workflow. You’ll spend a few minutes on setting up for your schedule, appointment types, buffers between appointments, etc.

From there, you’ll get an appointment booking URL you can send to clients to allow them to schedule their own meetings or appointments.

Both tools will automatically send confirmation emails and allow people to change their appointments (if you have it set up that way in Setmore).

It’s really easy to accomplish with on-screen prompts, so that’s why I call this one a tie.

✅ Winner: Tie

Customization Options

Calendly wins here because of the ability to customize the URL of your scheduling page and URLs for individual event types.

On paid plans, you can add your company logo and remove Calendly branding.

Setmore allows you to remove Setmore branding on paid plans and customize your booking page URL, but Calendly doesn’t allow for to change the overall look and feel of your scheduling page to match your branding.

Calendly makes it easier to add custom event types, but barely. It’s almost a tie here, too.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Calendar Management Features

Both platforms can integrate with Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCal. Calendly wins here because you can sync to up to 6 external calendars on a paid plan.

A key difference between the free plans both tools offer is that two-way sync works on the Calendy free plan, but not on the Setmore free plan.

Automated Reminders and Notifications

With Calendly, clients will automatically get a calendar invitation when they book a meeting with you.

You must upgrade to a paid subscription if you need additional reminders to go out. On paid plans, you can set text and email reminders as needed.

Setmore advertises that you can send out up to 500 email reminders, but during my testing, there was no option that I could see to customize them.

It also advertises that paid plans add SMS reminders and notifications, but I couldn’t test that with the free plan I used for my demo.

✅ Winner: Tie

Client Management and Communication

Calendly does not store any kind of client database to allow for further communication because it is a meeting-scheduling tool, rather than an appointment-scheduling tool for service-based businesses.

Setmore, on the other hand, allows you to manually add customers if necessary. You can keep notes about each of them, see a history of appointments, see a list of upcoming appointments, and more.

✅ Winner: Setmore

Automatic Rules

Both tools offer a lot of flexibility with automatic rules, with setting working hours and buffers between meetings.

I deemed Calendly the winner here because of the time zone intelligence.

Add the fact that even though I had working hours of 9 am to 5 pm in Setmore, but was still able to schedule an appointment outside of those hours, I feel like the Calendly automatic rules do a better job of reducing no shows and putting people in control of rescheduling their appointments.

✅ Winner: Calendly

Meeting Analytics

Calendly offers an Analytics Leaderboard to help you see which team members book the most meetings.

This feature is only available on the Professional, Teams, and Enterprise plans.

With Setmore, you can integrate Google Analytics to track visitor activity on your Booking Page. You can also view Appointment Stats, Revenue Made, and Projected Revenue.

From within the account, you can see all the staff listed and their appointments and schedules at the bottom of the online calendar.

From there, you can see a graph icon, and when you hover the mouse over it, it will give you the number of appointments, the projected revenue, and the confirmed revenue.

You can also drill down into the statistics for a particular staff member.

✅ Winner: Tie

User Experience and User Interface

Both Calendly and Setmore have simple, easy to use interfaces that are highly intuitive.

No matter your level of experience with technology, you should be able to set up the platform in about 10 minutes.

✅ Winner: Tie

Integrations & API Capabilities

I call this one a tie because both tools offer a lot of integration options. You’ll get more options with Setmore if you upgrade to a paid plan.

Calendly offers over 100 integrations to choose from.

✅ Winner: Tie

Supported Platforms

Both platforms are web-based so you can access them from any device with an internet connection. Both platforms also offer mobile apps for iOS and Android devices.

One thing that sets Setmore apart is that in addition to the mobile apps, there’s also a Windows desktop app.

That’s why I call it the winner here.

✅ Winner: Setmore

Customer Support

Both Calendly and Setmore offer various options for customer support – from a knowledge base and FAQ to live chat and email support.

The reason Setmore is the winner? Calendly limits support options on the free plan, and Setmore offers 24/7 customer support plus a toll-free number to call.

✅ Winner: Setmore

Pricing

Calendly and Setmore both offer a free forever plan. Calendly offers more plans to choose from, but pricing is a bit higher per user, so that’s why Setmore is the winner.

Paid plans go down to as low as $5/month/user with annual billing. With Calendly, pricing goes down to $16/month/user with yearly billing.

✅ Winner: Setmore

Scalability

Both platforms offer a plan that allows for unlimited users, so that’s why I’m calling this one a tie.

It is a bit more difficult to scale with Calendly, since you have to request the enterprise plan with custom pricing for more than 30 users.

That’s why I decided to call Setmore the winner here.

✅ Winner: Setmore

Standout Features of Calendly

One of the standout features of Calendly is time zone intelligence, which makes it easier for people to coordinate meetings across different time zones.

Standout Features of Setmore

A standout feature of Setmore is the drag-and-drop appointment rescheduling feature. It helps you save time and effort.

Calendly vs. Setmore: SMB Guide’s Verdict

Both tools are fantastic for scheduling. Where Calendly is best suited for online meetings, often used by marketing and sales teams, Setmore is better suited for service-based businesses that need to schedule appointments.

Both are easy to use, customizable, and scalable. The scores are really close, but Calendly slightly edges out Setmore with a 9.1/10 compared to a 9/10 for Setmore.