If you’ve ever searched on Google for a good scheduling tool for small businesses, the results are both endless and overwhelming. From over-the-top options with confusing features, to unnecessarily complicated software at enterprise prices, you might be thinking that it’s easier to stick with a pen, paper, and calendar than choose an online meeting scheduler.
Let us help!
In this article, we will go through the features offered by the top scheduling tools available for small businesses and explain why they might be important to you.
From there, we’ll tell you about 4 top products in online meeting scheduling, Acuity, Calendly, ClickEasy and HoneyBook, and compare the differences, so that you can make a choice that works best for you.
Below are 7 feature sets to look out for and questions to ask yourself about how you run your business. What is most important to you?
Offering Classes or One-on-One Sessions: What types of meetings does your business rely on? Do you need to schedule ongoing meetings with clients, are you offering one-off meetings, or regularly recurring classes and sessions? Is it important to you that you have a branded page for scheduling, or something that embeds into your existing website?
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Collecting Payments: Before, After, One-Off, and Deals: What is your payment flow? Do you need to accept payment in advance of a meeting, at the time of or after meetings? Do you require invoicing, do you offer deals and coupons to customers, as well as packaged pricing?
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Tools for Individuals or Teams: Are you an individual business, a team, a multi-location based company? How important is it to take into account multiple calendars and time zones?
Number of Events Offered: What amount of events do you do? Do you schedule recurring meetings, one-off calls, multi-day events and conferences?
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Integration Capabilities: How important is it to fit your online meeting tool into other workflows and softwares that you use? Do you use Zoom and Google Calendar? Do you want to connect a payment processor or use the in-house option?
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Setting a Cancellation Policy: If you’re collecting payment charges up front or collecting after an event, do you require a cancellation policy for no-shows and late cancellations? What about issuing refunds?
Automatic Reminders and Notifications: Perhaps the most ideal feature to a successful scheduling and payments tool is the automatic communication to customers and clients so that you don’t have to remind them of the obvious: who, what, where, when, why and how!?
If these feature sets speak to you, and you find yourself wondering what amazing tool out there can fit your needs and make your life so much easier - see below how these 4 leading online meeting schedulers, Acuity, Calendly, ClickEasy and HoneyBook, compare in feature set and price, all of these options are great and will work best depending on the business you run.
Part of the Squarespace website builder family, Acuity is definitely a heavy-technical product. The clientele it serves best leans more towards a multi-location based business with teams or employees, making it powerful to the point of overwhelming for the average individual business owner.
What features does Acuity have?
Pricing plans go from $14 to $45 paid monthly, not including applicable taxes. Try a free 7-day trial today!
The ideal customers for Calendly revolve around sales professionals who need a quick, no fuss scheduling link that connects smartly with individual calendars like Google and Outlook. If you run a business that utilizes things like round robin scheduling, co-hosting meetings, and offering training sessions, Calendly has got you.
What features does Calendly have?
Pricing plans start at a basic free plan for individuals (this plan does not accept payments), $8, $12, or $16 per person per month. Try a 14 day free trial today!
Built for the hustling individual business owner, ClickEasy allows a custom scheduling page for service professionals hosting sessions or classes. With a fully functioning payment processor including cancellation policy and refunds, and automated reminder set up - ClickEasy boasts a simple yet well baked feature set to alleviate the daily administrative aspects of running a business.
What features does ClickEasy have?
Pricing starts at $9.99 a month, to $29.99 or $99.99 a month. Try a 30 day free trial today!
With a project focus, HoneyBook helps individuals and teams manage new and ongoing projects and progress, send invoices, schedule meetings, and keep a list of to-do tasks.
What features does HoneyBook have?
Pricing starts at $9/month to $390/month. Try a free 7 day trial today!
The truth is that all of these tools are useful, it just matters which features offered are most important to you and your business. Give them a try and see what fits!
