As small businesses continue to adapt to the ever-evolving digital landscape, efficient online appointment scheduling has become paramount to success.
The best scheduling apps for small business use help you streamline and automate your booking process, saving you valuable time and enhancing your customers’ experience.
In this article, we will explore the five best scheduling apps specifically tailored to the needs of different types of small businesses.
Whether you’re a consultant, fitness trainer, therapist, handyman, or any other type of small business owner or service provider, implementing one of the scheduling apps from this list can significantly boost your productivity, improve your organization, and help you do more business in 2023.
What To Look for in a Scheduling App for Small Business Use
When deciding on the best scheduling app for small business use, it’s important to consider several key factors to ensure it meets your specific needs. Here are some essential features to look for and considerations to keep in mind when making your decision:
Ease of Use
The app should have an intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it easy for both you and your customers to navigate.
Appointment Management
Look for features that allow you to manage appointments effectively, such as creating, rescheduling, and canceling appointments with ease.
Calendar Integration
The app should integrate seamlessly with whatever calendar platform you use to sync appointments across calendars and avoid double bookings.
Notification and Reminder System
A notification system that sends automated reminders to both you and your customers can help reduce no-shows and improve overall scheduling efficiency.
Customization Options
Look for apps that allow you to customize your scheduling page and forms to match your brand and specific requirements.
Mobile Accessibility
Ensure the app has a responsive design and/or a dedicated mobile app, as this allows you and your customers to access and manage appointments on the go.
Integrations
Consider whether the app integrates with other tools and platforms you use, such as payment gateways and video conferencing platforms you may use for virtual appointments.
Pricing and Scalability
Evaluate the pricing structure and check if it offers the flexibility to scale as your business grows.
Top 5 Booking Apps for Small Businesses:
- Webba Booking: Best for WordPress-based service provider business sites.
- Calendly: Best for scheduling internal and external professional meetings.
- Setmore: Best Calendly alternative for small businesses on a tighter budget.
- Square Appointments: Best for businesses that use Square for payments.
- Acuity Scheduling: Best for Squarespace business sites.
Webba Booking
Webba Booking is a feature-rich WordPress booking plugin designed to streamline online appointment booking for service-based businesses, such as salons, spas, medical clinics, dental offices, yoga studios, gyms, personal trainers, and more.
The plugin offers two-way Google Calendar integration and flexible scheduling options, with fully customizable business hours/availability and appointment types.
Webba Booking also has payment integrations with all the top major payment gateways, allowing you to accept deposits or full payments at the time of booking.
Webba Booking helps small businesses with websites built on WordPress schedule and manage appointments efficiently with features like automated email/SMS notifications and reminders.
This powerful small business scheduling app’s intuitive interface and responsive design provide a user-friendly experience for both clients and businesses alike.
With customizable styling options and multi-language support, Webba Booking is the most flexible, best scheduling app for small businesses looking to simplify their appointment scheduling process and improve their customers’ booking experience on WordPress.
Webba Booking offers a free lite version with all the basic features, and pricing for Webba Booking Premium starts at $89/year for use with one WordPress website.
Pros:
- Built with service providers and small businesses in mind
- Payment integrations with PayPal, Stripe, and WooCommerce
- Many appearance customization options
- Can offer coupons to attract more customers
- Fully flexible availability and scheduling options
Cons:
- Only works for WordPress sites
Calendly
As one of the oldest scheduling apps out there, Calendly is an innovative scheduling tool that simplifies the process of setting up appointments and managing availability.
Calendly’s primary purpose is to eliminate the back-and-forth communication often associated with scheduling by allowing users to share their availability through personalized links.
As such, Calendly is generally best for scheduling professional meetings, such as interviews, consulting appointments, and sales presentations or demos, rather than service appointments.
Calendly is especially useful for professionals who want a scheduling app that can work for booking meetings both internally (with colleagues) and externally (with clients).
Calendly integrates seamlessly with popular calendar platforms, including Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCloud, ensuring all appointments are accurately scheduled and avoiding double bookings. The platform also offers more than 100 integrations with other professional apps.
There is an always-free version of Calendly available with core features and pricing for paid versions of Calendly starts at $8/user/month.
Pros:
- Very user friendly
- Tons of integrations
- Good for both internal and external meeting scheduling
Cons:
- Not really designed for all types of service providers
- Can get expensive if you want to use it with many colleagues
Setmore
Setmore is a versatile online appointment scheduling software designed for businesses of all sizes.
Setmore is very similar to Calendly, but even more geared towards small businesses, allowing you to easily manage and book different types of appointments, classes, and events.
The software offers features like automated reminders, calendar synchronization, and payment processing integrations, making it a comprehensive solution for small business scheduling.
Setmore also provides additional tools for team management, reporting, and customer database management.
If you want a scheduling app for your small business that you can use with multiple team members, and you’re considering Calendly or Setmore, Setmore is the more affordable of the two. It provides many of the same features, but costs only $5/user/month. There’s also a free version with basic features.
Pros:
- Cheaper than Calendly
- Many integrations
- Very user friendly
- Can be used to manage multiple team members
Cons:
- Not built for WordPress sites (or any specific type of small business website)
Square Appointments
Square Appointments is an all-in-one scheduling and point-of-sale solution designed for small businesses. This platform streamlines the appointment booking process while offering robust features for managing payments and customer data.
Square Appointments integrates seamlessly with Square’s payment processing system, allowing for secure and convenient online transactions and making the software ideal for any business owners who already use the Square POS system to receive payments.
Keeping your small business scheduling software and your payment processing platform in the same tech ecosystem makes it easier to use everything together and reduces the number of different tools and apps you need to do business.
Pricing for Square Appointments starts at $29/month/location.
Pros:
- Fully integrated with the Square payment system
- Provides a free online booking website
- Includes customer transaction history, profiles, and notes
- Can sell products in addition to services
Cons:
- Not really for integrating into existing business sites
- Only really makes sense to use if you already use Square
- No free scheduling app for small business use available
Acuity Scheduling
Many small business owners use Squarespace to build simple, sleek, and modern websites for their small businesses.
If this is you, you’ll be happy to know that Squarespace offers its very own scheduling software for small businesses, called Acuity Scheduling.
Naturally, Acuity Scheduling integrates fully with any Squarespace business site, and the minimalistic design of its booking pages will match your Squarespace site perfectly.
Acuity Scheduling is a no-frills solution that’s all about booking — you won’t find any extra features or integrations here.
Pricing for Acuity Scheduling starts at $16/month.
Pros:
- Built by Squarespace, for Squarespace sites
- Modern, minimalistic design
- Super straightforward
Cons:
- May be too basic for some types of small businesses
- Only works for Squarespace sites
- No free version available
The Bottom Line
Every small business has different needs, but many different types of small businesses share the common goal of streamlining their appointment booking processes.
By choosing one of the best scheduling apps for small businesses from the list we curated above based on your specific business needs and goals, you’re sure to drastically improve your business operations and your customers’ booking experience.
