When it comes to WordPress booking plugins, Bookly and Amelia are two toe-to-toe competitors.
The Bookly and Amelia WordPress plugins both provide basic scheduling automation features that can help you streamline the appointment booking process on your WordPress site, and both platforms offer free and premium versions.
As they’re two quite similar tools, choosing Amelia or Bookly will be easier if you know how they compare, and we’re here to help you better understand their subtle differences.
Bookly vs Amelia: Overview
Amelia
The Amelia booking plugin for WordPress is an intuitive, easy-to-use booking wizard that can work for a wide variety of business types.
Amelia offers a customizable appearance, the ability to include any number of services for booking, and the option to book appointments across multiple business locations.
The Amelia scheduling app also integrates with WooCommerce, PayPal, and Stripe, allowing you to receive payments at the time of booking.
Bookly
Bookly is another appointment scheduling app for WordPress that is flexible enough for a variety of different business uses.
The Bookly plugin is very easy to set up and use, and even the most novice WordPress users should have no trouble integrating it into their sites.
Like Amelia, Bookly lets you add multiple service providers and services and accept payments at the time of booking. There are also many add-ons available to boost the plugin’s functionality.
Amelia Pros and Cons:
| ✅ Pros | ❌ Cons |
|---|---|
| Modern interface and responsive design | Calendar syncing is not truly two-way (updates have to be made in Amelia) |
| Integrations with payment platforms and other tools | Limited customization options (can only change colors and fonts) |
| Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar integration and syncing | |
| Recurring appointments and group bookings | |
| SMS and email notifications | |
| Free and premium versions |
Bookly Pros and Cons:
| ✅ Pros | ❌ Cons |
|---|---|
| Sleek and simple front/backend design | Some users have reported troubles with support (have to create a ticket, slow response times) |
| Many extensions available | Pro version could be considered low value for the price (have to pay more for add-ons as well) |
| Responsive across mobile devices | |
| Google Calendar integration and payment platform integrations | |
| SMS and email notifications | |
| Free and premium versions |
Now that you know some of the pros and cons of Amelia vs Bookly, let’s take a closer look at how these two WordPress booking plugins stack up in terms of features, ease of use, integrations, customer service, and pricing.
Features
Bookly and Amelia offer very similar basic scheduling features. Both platforms let you set custom service schedules, which is great for businesses that offer services at multiple locations or from multiple employees with different availability.
Amelia and Bookly also both provide a notification system (to remind you and your clients of upcoming appointments), built-in analytics, calendar syncing, and payment options.
Users can obtain more features in the premium versions of Amelia or Bookly through integrations with third-party platforms. However, a big difference here is that Bookly charges extra for specific add-ons, whereas Amelia’s pro version includes all the features.
Winner: Amelia — even though you can achieve very similar functionality with either Bookly or Amelia, we’re going to declare Amelia the winner in the features category, simply because you don’t have to pay extra for each additional feature you want.
Ease of use
Bookly and Amelia are both very easy to set up and start using, even if you’re no WordPress expert. Customizing your booking page in either app can be done without any code, and the user interface for both admins and clients is intuitive and simple.
Amelia does have a slightly more modern interface, which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easier to use, but some users might prefer the look and feel of it.
Winner: Tie — this category was too close to call for us, since neither Amelia nor Bookly is hard to use. Setting up and customizing booking forms is equally as simple in either app, and neither tool has a harder learning curve for learning to use the additional features.
Integrations
Amelia’s premium version has native integrations with Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar, WooCommerce, Zoom, and Google Meet, and also supports the Stripe and PayPal payment gateways.
Bookly’s premium version comes with only Google Calendar integration and WooCommerce integration. You have to purchase add-ons for all other integrations.
For example, you can pay for Outlook Calendar integration, PayPal integration, Stripe integration, and other payment gateway integrations.
Winner: Amelia — Amelia wins in the integrations category because the paid version comes with all the integrations available, whereas you have to buy integration add-ons for some of the most popular third-party tools in Bookly.
Customer Service
Bookly Pro comes with six months of support, which can be extended to 12 months, for an additional fee. In order to access this support, you have to submit a request using your Bookly Pro purchase code.
Bookly’s website also offers a self-serve support center/knowledge database, which provides helpful resources like answers to FAQs and tutorials.
Amelia’s customer support options are very similar to Bookly’s — you can access support documentation or submit a support ticket via the website.
Winner: Amelia — Despite their similarities, Amelia beats Bookly in the customer service category because you don’t have to pay to extend access to customer support. Some users have also reported frustration with Bookly’s customer service in the past.
Pricing
The Bookly and Amelia booking plugins for WordPress both offer free versions, but their features are quite limited, so they aren’t really ideal for anything beyond light personal use. Businesses will need the premium version of either app to get the functionality they need.
Amelia offers three paid tiers, starting at $79 per year or $199 for a lifetime subscription to the one-domain premium plan.
Bookly Pro costs a flat rate of $89, with six months of support and the basic integrations we mentioned above. Extending the support to 12 months costs an additional $31.50, and each feature or integration add-on costs anywhere from $29 to $49.
Winner: Amelia — It’s easy to declare Amelia the winner in this category because you simply get way more value for your money. Paying for all the features and integrations you want to use with Bookly can add up quickly and make it much more expensive than Amelia in the long run.
Bookly vs Amelia: Which One Should You Choose?
When Should I Choose Bookly?
Bookly and Amelia are very similar in terms of functionality and ease of use, but Bookly’s premium version provides less overall value than Amelia.
We can really only see choosing Bookly Pro over Amelia to be an advantage if you really prefer the user interface and if you only want WooCommerce and Google Calendar integrations (or if you don’t mind paying for a bunch of add-ons).
When Should I Choose Amelia?
For the majority of businesses, Amelia’s premium plans will provide more value in terms of features and functionality than Bookly Pro does.
If you want multiple calendar and payment integrations, as well as native integrations with other third-party tools you use or may use in the future, Amelia is definitely the superior choice out of Bookly vs Amelia.
Wrapping Up on Amelia vs Bookly
Despite being such similar tools, Amelia was able to eke out a win over Bookly in all but one tied category (ease of use) in our review of the two.
That being said, Amelia still might not provide the level of customizability or functionality that many businesses need.
If neither of these tools looks like the right choice for you, we highly recommend you give the most flexible booking plugin for WordPress, Webba Booking Premium, a try today!
