Calm the Calendar Chaos: A Comparison of 8 Top Appointment Scheduling Apps [2024]
A Side-by-Side Comparison of 8 Appointment Scheduling Apps in 2024
Just a few years ago, businesses thought that offering online appointment scheduling to customers was more of a “nice-to-have” than a necessity. Fast forward to the present, and online appointment scheduling is indispensable to businesses and customers alike. Studies across industries have shown that around 70% of people now prefer to book appointments online. And, more than 50% of 25 to 55-year-olds would switch to a new provider that offered online scheduling.
There is no shortage of online appointment scheduling apps catering to a diverse array of industries. Therefore, the key to selecting the perfect solution is to find the app that best fits your business’s existing needs, processes, and tools! But, given the number of products, services, and integrations many online booking platforms now provide, finding the right solution can seem nearly impossible.
That’s why we’ve analyzed the best online appointment scheduling apps of 2024 to help you find the perfect solution for your appointment management needs. Check out the top features, services, and integrations offered by 8 top apps and see how Apptoto compares (hint: we’re proud of how we stack up).
What are Appointment Scheduling Apps?
Appointment scheduling apps allow individuals and businesses to set and manage their bookings and appointments online. Businesses use these apps to consolidate and automate appointment management into a single platform, while their clients utilize the business’s booking tool for scheduling, rescheduling, or canceling appointments.
Instead of relying on support staff to manually schedule appointments, businesses utilize appointment scheduling software to centralize their calendars, set team availability, view upcoming bookings, store client contact information, and more. Most appointment scheduling apps offer built-in booking page generators, which create a link clients can use to schedule appointments. Clients can then choose a suitable date and time for their appointment, which gets automatically updated on the business’s calendar(s). Of course, any appointments clients make by phone, email, or other methods can also be easily added to the calendar.
A business can reduce the time its staff spends booking appointments, sending appointment reminders, and dealing with scheduling errors by using an appointment scheduling app. Online appointment scheduling also helps increase customer satisfaction. That’s because clients can schedule appointments or review upcoming appointment details at their convenience without pressure.
What Should Businesses Consider when Evaluating Appointment Scheduling Apps?
For business owners looking for new appointment scheduling apps, here are five key things to consider:
- Feature Fit: Certainly, the app you choose should have the breadth of features your business needs. Being able to build online booking pages is priority number one, but, does your business need to schedule 1-on-1 appointments and group events/meetings? Promote multiple services on the same page? Support multiple locations? Collect deposits, copays, or full payments? Send booking confirmations, appointment reminders, and follow-ups? Take advantage of free trials to ensure the platform you choose not only has the features you need but a few new ones to help you optimize even more.
- Ease of Use: Scheduling should be straightforward for both your staff and your clients. Choose an app that is intuitive and enables your staff to easily manage appointments, messages, and more.
- Calendar Integrations: The appointment scheduling app should seamlessly integrate with your existing calendar solution whether that’s a popular calendar platform like Google Calendar and Outlook or a specialized solution like an EMR or EHR system. This lets you sync appointments to your calendars in real time to prevent double bookings and scheduling conflicts. Likewise, your solution of choice should include integrations above-and-beyond calendaring (for example payment processors, virtual appointment meeting solutions like Microsoft Teams and Zoom, and more).
- Customization & Flexibility: Your scheduling needs are unique to your business, and your appointment scheduling app should support that. Being able to tailor settings such as staff availability, services, pricing, new appointment assignments, time buffers or blocks, and booking page branding/content is likely vital for your business.
- Customer Service: A dedicated and responsive customer service team can quickly ensure that any questions or issues you encounter are addressed immediately and that the system operates as expected. They’re also invaluable in guiding you on how to best set up and use the appointment scheduling app to ensure the best possible experience for you and your clients.
Appointment Scheduling Apps (at a Glance)
To see how other services stack up to Apptoto, we checked to see if they also offer some of our most popular and convenient features. In the weeks ahead, we’ll dive more deeply into individual comparisons of Apptoto versus our primary competitors.
Here’s what we found:
| Customizable
Booking Pages |
Standard & Premium
Integrations (Listed)* |
Personalized SMS,
Voice, & Email Reminders |
Auto Replies
& Actions |
HIPAA
Compliant |
Payment
Collection |
|
| Apptoto | ✅ | 24* | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| TimeTap | ✅ | 6 | Email & Text | Not Listed | ✅ | ✅ |
| Appointy | ✅ | 12* | Email & Text | Not Listed | ✅ | ✅ |
| Calendly | ✅ | 90+* | Email & Text | Not Listed | Not Listed | ✅ |
| YouCanBookMe | ✅ | 9* | Email & Text | Not Listed | Not Listed | ✅ |
| Acuity Scheduling | ✅ | 40* | Email & Text | Not Listed | ✅ | ✅ |
| SignIn Scheduling | ✅ | 36* | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| SimplyBook.me | ✅ | 22* | Email & Text | Not Listed | Not Listed | ✅ |
Note: Standard and premium integrations must be directly listed on the website to be counted. Any marked with a * indicate more integrations are available via Zapier, Webhooks, or API. Similarly all comparison information reflects what is displayed per each competitor’s website to the best of our knowledge at time of update.
Company Profiles
Apptoto
About: Powering Today’s Appointment Based Businesses. Reduce costly no-show appointments and ensure your clients and patients show up on time and well-prepared by using Apptoto’s appointment management software. Apptoto is an automated appointment reminder, online scheduling, and client messaging platform for appointment-based businesses.
Highlighted Features: Online appointment scheduling, automated appointment reminders/messaging, payment collection, messaging campaigns, client contact management, business text messaging, custom intake forms, AI-powered translation, HIPAA compliant.
*A complete list of Apptoto features, integrations (including EMR/EHR systems), and publishing and sharing standards can be found below the Company Profiles section.
Best For: Businesses that want to enhance their online appointment scheduling and automate appointment messaging without switching to a complicated new system. Apptoto works with your existing workflows and tools and is loved by appointment-based businesses across various industries, such as law firms, financial services, healthcare, education, sales, nonprofits, beauty and wellness services, franchises, and home services.
Access From: Web platform, iOS App, Android App, Google Calender Extension, Chrome Extension
Free Trial: Yes, 14 days
Pricing Model: Usage-Based Subscription
TimeTap
About: Automate your appointment scheduling tasks. Streamline your business scheduling with a tool that tackles custom scheduling needs.
Highlighted Features: Custom booking pages, client management tools, custom reports, custom form fields, screening questions, collect payments, appointment text and email notifications
Best For: TimeTap is suitable for a variety of industries, including arts and recreation, automotive, travel, beauty and wellness, education, finance, fitness, healthcare, home services, and more.
Access From: Web platform
Free Trial: Yes, 14 days
Pricing: Tiered Subscription
Appointy
About: Discover the easiest way to automate scheduling and grow your business. Online scheduling software for better appointment management that cuts hours of admin work. Accept payments, reduce no-shows, manage staff, get more clients – and do more with Appointy!
Highlighted Features: Appointment, class, and activity scheduling, virtual event scheduling, appointment reminders, appointment pre-payment
Best For: Appointy is tailored to cater to a wide variety of small to enterprise businesses. They focus on health and wellness, education, healthcare, fitness, beauty services, government offices, and more on their website.
Access From: Web Platform, iOS App, Android App
Free Trial: Yes, 14 days
Pricing: Tiered Subscription
Calendly
About: Easy scheduling ahead. Calendly is your scheduling automation platform for eliminating the back-and-forth emails to find the perfect time — and so much more.
Highlighted Features: Team scheduling, availability preferences, calendar connections, website embeds, routing forms, workflows
Best For: Calendly is utilized by a wide range of users, from individuals to enterprise-level operations. They highlight those in the technology, financial services, professional services, and education industries, specifically those with roles in sales, marketing, customer success, recruiting, IT, and revenue operations.
Access From: Web Platform, iOS App, Android App, Chrome Extension, Firefox Extension
Free Trial: Yes, 14 days
Pricing: Tiered Subscription
YouCanBookMe
About: Give your customers a better booking experience. Stand out from your competitors with a completely customized scheduling experience that simply works.
Highlighted Features: Availability management, customizable notifications, integrations, booking management, style customization
Best For: YouCanBookMe highlights that their product offers powerful scheduling features for teams such as customer success, sales, UX, recruitment, and the education industry.
Access From: Web Platform, Chrome Extension
Free Trial: Yes, 14 days
Pricing: Usage-based Subscription
Acuity Scheduling
About: Flexible scheduling software to help you succeed. With seamless client scheduling, secure payments, and workflow automation, all you have to do is show up on time.
Highlighted Features: Availability management, automated appointment booking, custom intake forms, payment collection, customizable booking pages
Best For: Acuity services many industries with an emphasis on beauty services, coaching, wellness services, fitness services, education, financial services, public sector, and legal services. Acuity was acquired by Squarespace in 2019. Those using Squarespace will likely find it easy to integrate Acuity Scheduling into their current website.
Access From: Web Platform, iOS App, Android App, Chrome Extension
Free Trial: Yes, 7 days
Pricing: Tiered Subscription
SignIn Scheduling (fka 10to8)
About: Every appointment matters. SignIn Scheduling gives you the power to make appointments happen effectively, helping your organization manage bookings and optimize the outcomes, where appointments are critical and missed appointments have consequences.
Highlighted Features: Online booking pages, centralized calendar, reminders and communication, integrations, accessibility, reporting
Best For: SignIn Scheduling serves a range of businesses and industries, including individual, SME, and enterprise-level operations. Specifically, SignIn Scheduling targets 15+ industries on their website including education, financial services, healthcare, remote teams, sales, and retail.
Access From: Web Platform
Free Trial: Yes, 14 days
Pricing: Usage-Based Subscription
SimplyBook.me
About: Online Booking System for all service-based industries. Simply define your services and providers, display their availability, and you will have clients, both old and new, making bookings 24/7.
Highlighted Features: Dynamic online booking, business management solutions, social integrations, virtual meetings, multi-location meetings, group event and membership management, customize intake forms, payment collection
Best For: SimplyBook.me focuses on being a one-stop solution for service businesses and highlights those in the sports, fitness, beauty and wellness, education, health services, public services, professional services, events and entertainment, personal meetings, and driving lessons industries in particular.
Access From: Web Platform, iOS App, Android App
Free Trial: Yes, 14 days
Pricing: Tiered Subscription
Bonus: Google Appointment Scheduling
Google Calendar recently released it’s appointment scheduling feature to all Google users. Formerly, appointment scheduling was only available to those businesses with a paid Google Workplace subscription. The free version of the tool limits individuals and businesses to creating one online booking page and limits page customization. If your business needs to link multiple calendars, utilize unlimited appointment schedules, or collect payments, you’ll need to upgrade to a premium plan. For a full breakdown of Apptoto versus Google appointment scheduling, please check out our comparison article below.
Additional Apptoto Features & Integrations
At Apptoto, helping you manage your business is our business. Above all, we strive to provide the features and customizations you need to deliver optimal customer experiences and reduce costly no-shows and late arrivals. Here are some key features available from Apptoto:
You don’t have to change your current software to start taking advantage of Apptoto’s scheduling features. That’s because we’ve designed our service to sync with leading business-management systems, including:
*Integrated Services leveraging iCalendar (ICS), CalDAV, and CardDAV standards include (but aren’t limited to): Airbnb, BestNotes CRM, dbFLEX, Jobber, Kickserv, MerusCase, MyCase, ShootQ, and TeamUp
**Apptoto integrates directly with many Electronic Medical / Health Record systems. This includes (but is not limited to) the following: Amazing Charts, AppointmentsPro, CareLogic, OpenDental, and NextGen
Superior Features and Flexibility Define the Best Appointment Management Apps
There are plenty of online appointment scheduling apps to consider in 2024, which makes sense given how invaluable they are for modern businesses. Companies are not just looking for flexible, intuitive, and highly customizable online booking software. They’re choosing solutions with superior, complementary features such including automated appointment messaging, payment collection, and robust integrations. And soon, no doubt, consumers will be demanding enhanced AI tools to make them even more efficient at managing their company’s appointments.
Apptoto shines among its competitors thanks not only to a robust suite of features but also its stellar customer service and focus on providing a seamless experience for businesses and their clientele. Give your customers a personalized approach and reduce the time spent managing appointments and calendars. Apptoto is more than an appointment scheduling app. It creates better booking experiences for your customers and your staff.
See how we stack up against your current solution! Sign up for a 14-day free trial today!
*Updated January 4, 2024
