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Calendly's free plan keeps one meeting type switched on. The day you want a 15-minute intro call as well as an hour-long consultation, you're on Standard at £10 a seat a month, or £8 billed yearly (October 2026). And leaving isn't simple: every Calendly link in your email signature, on your website and in old emails points at the account you'd stop paying for.
What is a Calendly alternative?
It's any scheduling app that connects to your Google or Outlook calendar and turns your free time into a web page of slots. Someone picks one, and the app adds the meeting to both calendars, with a video link and reminders. Paid plans add team features: round-robin (sharing bookings out across staff), routing forms (questions that send a booker to the right person) and payment at booking, as Calendly's pricing and 
Cal.comCal.comCal.com is a scheduling app that turns your availability into a booking link, checks your calendars for clashes and sends reminders. It suits freelancers, coaches, sales and suppor1 current offer · View store →'s Adplan list show. Google Calendar and Microsoft 365 have one built in.
Why are people looking for one now?
Calendly made the booking link normal, and now also sells "Plus" tiers that bundle an AI notetaker and Callie, an email assistant in beta, at £15 a seat a month for Standard Plus and £20 for Teams Plus, billed yearly. Meanwhile Cal.comCal.comCal.com is a scheduling app that turns your availability into a booking link, checks your calendars for clashes and sends reminders. It suits freelancers, coaches, sales and suppor1 current offer · View store → Admoved its main code to a private repository in April 2026, and Microsoft raised Microsoft 365 Business Basic from $6 to $7 a user a month on 1 July 2026, with its Bookings app still included.
In the UK, "calendly alternatives" is searched about 210 times a month, "best scheduling app" about 140 and "free calendly alternative" about 90 (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026).
What does it cost, and what's the catch?
For one person, Calendly Standard is £96 a year billed yearly or £120 paid monthly. A five-person team that needs round-robin is on Teams at £780 a year billed yearly (£1,020 monthly), our arithmetic from Calendly's October 2026 prices. The alternatives run from nothing extra to about $720 a year for the same team.
The catch most people miss is the move itself. Bookings already made stay in Calendly, and once you drop to its free plan only one event type stays switched on; the others, and every link to them, stop taking bookings. UK text costs and where client data is kept are the other hidden differences.
The short answer: If you already pay for Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, their built-in booking pages cost nothing extra and cover most one-person needs. For a straight Calendly swap, Cal.comCal.comCal.com is a scheduling app that turns your availability into a booking link, checks your calendars for clashes and sends reminders. It suits freelancers, coaches, sales and suppor1 current offer · View store →'s free plan gives one person unlimited meeting types and paid bookings, and its Teams plan is Ad$12 a user a month billed yearly (October 2026). Zoho Bookings is the cheapest round-robin for a team at $6 a user a month and keeps data in EU data centres, Zcal has the fullest free plan and Acuity suits salons, therapists and tutors. If you'd rather not send a link at all, 
HowieHowieHowie is an AI scheduling assistant you copy into email threads, or message by SMS and iMessage, to find times, send calendar invites, follow up and keep your Google Calendar in orBuying guide · View store → handles the back-and-forth by email. More booking and form tools are on our scheduling and forms page, and our guide to Typeform alternatives compares the form builders.
Calendly alternatives compared
What people book with you shapes which of these fits: a sales demo and a haircut need different things.
The table sets the main options side by side, from each app's own pricing page in October 2026 (linked in its section below). "Paid from" is the cheapest paid plan on yearly billing.
| App | Free plan | Paid from | UK text reminders | Data stored |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calendly | One meeting type | £8 a seat a month | 250 a seat a month | US |
| Cal.comCal.comCal.com is a scheduling app that turns your availability into a booking link, checks your calendars for clashes and sends reminders. It suits freelancers, coaches, sales and suppor1 current offer · View store → | One user, unlimited types | $12 a user a month | About 75 a member a month on Teams | US |
| Google Calendar | One booking page | A paid Google plan | Not listed | Your Google account |
| Microsoft Bookings | With Microsoft 365 | Microsoft 365 Business Basic | Needs Teams Premium | Exchange Online, UK region listed |
| Zcal | Unlimited links | $7 a user a month | On Pro | Not stated |
| Zoho Bookings | One user, one type | $6 a user a month | On Premium ($9) | EU (Amsterdam, Dublin) |
| Acuity | None | $16 a month | From Standard ($27) | Not stated |
| SavvyCal | None | $10 a user a month | Not listed | Not stated |
| TidyCal | One calendar | $29 once | US and Canada only | Not stated |
| HowieHowieHowie is an AI scheduling assistant you copy into email threads, or message by SMS and iMessage, to find times, send calendar invites, follow up and keep your Google Calendar in orBuying guide · View store → | $25 of credits | $25 a month | Email assistant | US |
Do you need to pay at all?
Possibly not. Google and Microsoft build booking pages into products many UK businesses already pay for, and for one person they often do the job.
Google Calendar appointment schedules
A personal Google account gets a single booking page free. More schedules, automatic email reminders and clash-checking across calendars need a paid plan such as Google One Premium or Workspace Business Standard, and Stripe payments need Workspace. Schedules can only be set up on a computer, and Google lists no round-robin, routing forms or text reminders. Zapier adds that there's no logo or custom address, and Google Meet is the only video option.
Stewart Gauld's walkthrough, watched more than 130,000 times, builds a booking page and explains the free and paid tiers.
On Reddit, a two-person UK firm found Calendly at £16 a month among £847 of monthly subscriptions; the most upvoted breakdown in reply said Google Workspace has its own version, "which is great".
Who it suits: sole traders on Gmail or Google Workspace who need one or a few booking pages.
Less suited to: teams that share bookings out, anyone who needs text reminders, and people whose diary lives in Outlook.
Microsoft Bookings
If your business pays for Microsoft 365, it very likely has Bookings already: it's included in Business Basic, Standard and Premium and most enterprise plans, with personal and shared team pages. Its data lives in Exchange Online, and Microsoft lists the UK among its local regions with data residency commitments for Exchange Online. Text reminders need a Teams Premium licence.
Zapier calls it "a much more basic tool than Calendly", with no paid bookings, round-robin or routing forms, and says its phone apps were retired. Bright Ideas Agency, a Microsoft 365 consultancy, disagrees on round-robin, arguing that with more clicking Bookings can copy Calendly's meeting types and wins unless you take payment at booking; its prices are out of date.
Included isn't the same as liked. In a June 2026 thread started by a small estate agency, one reply calls Bookings clunky: guests had to enter an emailed code before booking, which put clients off. They moved to Cal.comCal.comCal.com is a scheduling app that turns your availability into a booking link, checks your calendars for clashes and sends reminders. It suits freelancers, coaches, sales and suppor1 current offer · View store → and found it cheap, compatible with Outlook and Teams, and easy for clients.
Who it suits: UK businesses on Microsoft 365 that want free booking pages and data in Microsoft's UK region.
Less suited to: anyone who takes payment at booking or wants polished routing forms.
Cal.com: the closest like-for-like swap
Cal.comCal.comCal.com is a scheduling app that turns your availability into a booking link, checks your calendars for clashes and sends reminders. It suits freelancers, coaches, sales and suppor1 current offer · View store →'s free plan fixes the limit that sends most people looking: one user gets Adunlimited event types and calendars and Stripe and PayPal payments, neither of which Calendly's free plan allows, plus a one-click import of Calendly event types. Teams adds round-robin, collective events, routing forms and branding removal.
Vouchernaut has a partner link with Cal.com: new customers who sign up through it get Ad20% off for their first 12 months (October 2026), and we earn a commission. Cal.com also offers to Adcredit 100% of your current Calendly contract towards your first year, with no conditions stated.
Efficient App's comparison shows Cal.com's weighted round-robin and multi-select routing forms, which the presenters say Calendly lacks; Cal.com is their top pick, and the description carries affiliate links.
The "open source" label needs an update: since April 2026 the free code lives on as AdCal.diy, without teams, routing forms or reminder workflows. In an August 2026 r/selfhosted thread, one reply says it runs on a $5 server in under an hour; another gave up on self-hosting it after a month. Zapier finds its booking pages hard to customise.
Who it suits: freelancers, tutors and coaches who want several meeting types and paid bookings for free, and small teams wanting round-robin for less than Calendly Teams.
Less suited to: firms that need invoices in pounds, EU-only hosting for a small team, or lots of UK text reminders.
Price: free for one user; Teams $12 a user a month billed yearly or $16 monthly (AdOctober 2026).
Zcal: the most generous free plan
Zcal earns its place on the free plan alone: unlimited links and calendar accounts, meeting polls, automatic email reminders, group events and Stripe payments, which is why Zapier names it the best free option. Free Stripe bookings carry a commission of unstated size. Pro adds round-robin, text reminders and branding removal, and drops the commission.
Who it suits: one person who wants the most from a free plan, and small teams wanting cheap round-robin.
Less suited to: anyone who might want their money back: Zcal doesn't offer refunds, so its 14-day trial is the time to decide.
Price: free; Pro $7 a user a month billed yearly or $10.50 monthly (October 2026).
Zoho Bookings: the cheapest round-robin, with EU data
Zoho Bookings is the cheapest round-robin found: Basic includes it with unlimited event types, while text and WhatsApp reminders and payments need Premium (plan comparison). Its free plan is one user and one event type.
Zoho runs European data centres in Amsterdam and Dublin and assigns one by signup country, but doesn't say where a UK signup lands, which is worth asking before you commit. TechRadar found support slow and setup hard.
Who it suits: budget-minded teams that want round-robin, and anyone already on Zoho One or Zoho CRM.
Less suited to: one person who wants several meeting types free.
Price: Basic $6 a user a month billed yearly or $8 monthly; Premium $9 or $12 (October 2026).
Acuity Scheduling: for salons, therapists and tutors
Acuity, owned by Squarespace, charges by calendars rather than seats: Standard covers up to six staff calendars with text reminders, and every plan takes payment through Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo. There's no free plan, only a seven-day trial with no card. Zapier prefers it to Calendly for in-person service businesses for that reason.
Who it suits: client-facing businesses taking paid appointments with a small staff.
Less suited to: sales teams that need round-robin routing and CRM sync.
Price: Starter $16 a month billed yearly ($20 monthly); Standard $27 ($34) (October 2026).
SavvyCal: when how the booking feels matters
SavvyCal is built around the person booking, who can lay their own calendar over yours to spot a time that suits both. Paid bookings and branding removal are only on Premium, and there's no free plan, but there is a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Who it suits: consultants and founders who send links to senior people.
Less suited to: anyone who wants a free plan, or paid bookings on the cheaper tier.
Price: Basic $10 a user a month and Premium $17, billed yearly (October 2026).
TidyCal: one payment, and a catch
TidyCal, from AppSumo's Sumo Group, sells a lifetime licence: $29 once for one person, or $79 once for the Agency plan with round-robin (October 2026), though the page doesn't say how many people Agency covers. Its text reminders only reach US and Canadian numbers.
Reliability is the worry: TidyCal scores 3.1 out of 5 from 182 reviews on Trustpilot (October 2026). In a January 2026 r/appsumo thread, users report double bookings and dropped calendar connections.
Who it suits: solo practitioners who dislike subscriptions.
Less suited to: UK businesses relying on text reminders, and teams.
Howie: skip the link altogether
HowieHowieHowie is an AI scheduling assistant you copy into email threads, or message by SMS and iMessage, to find times, send calendar invites, follow up and keep your Google Calendar in orBuying guide · View store → isn't a booking-link app. It's an AI assistant you copy into an email thread that proposes times from your calendar, handles replies, sends the invite and can even click other people's scheduling links. It works with Gmail and Google Calendar only. GeekWire reported in September 2025 that uncertain cases go to human reviewers, and Howie's privacy policy says data is hosted on US servers. Calendly's Callie, in beta, does a similar job inside Standard Plus.
Who it suits: founders and investors on Google Workspace who arrange lots of meetings with outsiders.
Less suited to: Outlook users, and anyone who needs a public booking page for clients.
Price: shared credits from $25 a month, with $25 of free credits to start (October 2026); Howie doesn't publish how many credits a meeting uses.
When is staying on Calendly the right call?
Calendly is the only app here that prices in pounds, and its UK text reminders go much further than Cal.comCal.comCal.com is a scheduling app that turns your availability into a booking link, checks your calendars for clashes and sends reminders. It suits freelancers, coaches, sales and suppor1 current offer · View store →'s. Teams that rely on its Salesforce sync and routing forms (Teams plan, £13 a seat billed yearly) have less to gain from moving.
What does a five-person team pay in a year?
The table works out a year for five people from October 2026 list prices before tax (our arithmetic).
| App and plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calendly Teams | £780 | £1,020 | Needed for round-robin |
| Calendly Standard | £480 | £600 | No round-robin |
| Cal.comCal.comCal.com is a scheduling app that turns your availability into a booking link, checks your calendars for clashes and sends reminders. It suits freelancers, coaches, sales and suppor1 current offer · View store → Teams | $720 | $960 | 20% off the first 12 months through our link |
| Zcal Pro | $420 | $630 | |
| SavvyCal Basic | $600 | Not published | |
| Zoho Bookings Basic | $360 | $480 | Premium, with texts and payments, $540 |
| Acuity Standard | $324 | $408 | One account, up to six calendars |
| HowieHowieHowie is an AI scheduling assistant you copy into email threads, or message by SMS and iMessage, to find times, send calendar invites, follow up and keep your Google Calendar in orBuying guide · View store → | From $300 | From $25 a month | Shared by the whole workspace |
| TidyCal Agency | $79 once | Seats not stated | |
| Google or Microsoft | £0 extra | £0 extra | On Workspace Business Standard or Microsoft 365 |
Only Calendly charges in pounds. The rest bill in dollars, so card exchange rates and fees apply, and a VAT-registered business buying from a supplier outside the UK normally accounts for the VAT itself under the reverse charge.
What changes for a UK business?
Three things the price tables don't show.
Text reminders cost very different amounts
Calendly counts a UK text as 1 credit, with 250 credits per seat a month on paid plans, though texts come from random US numbers and can't be sent during the trial. Cal.comCal.comCal.com is a scheduling app that turns your availability into a booking link, checks your calendars for clashes and sends reminders. It suits freelancers, coaches, sales and suppor1 current offer · View store → charges Twilio's $0.056 UK rate plus an Ad80% fee, about 10 credits a text, so Teams' 750 monthly credits cover roughly 75 UK texts per member; the free plan includes none, and when credits run out messages fall back to email.
Where your clients' data is stored
Cal.comCal.comCal.com is a scheduling app that turns your availability into a booking link, checks your calendars for clashes and sends reminders. It suits freelancers, coaches, sales and suppor1 current offer · View store → and HowieHowieHowie is an AI scheduling assistant you copy into email threads, or message by SMS and iMessage, to find times, send calendar invites, follow up and keep your Google Calendar in orBuying guide · View store → say in their privacy policies (AdCal.com, Howie) that they store data in the US, as does Calendly; Cal.com's EU-only Cal.eu is for 50-plus-user enterprises, on a waitlist. The UK-US data bridge, in force since 12 October 2023, covers only US companies active on the Data Privacy Framework list and signed up to its UK Extension; Cal.com's policy says it will appear on the list "once" it's listed. Otherwise the ICO says you need a safeguard such as the UK Addendum and a transfer risk assessment. Microsoft Bookings and Zoho were the exceptions found.
Moving breaks the links you've already shared
Cal.comCal.comCal.com is a scheduling app that turns your availability into a booking link, checks your calendars for clashes and sends reminders. It suits freelancers, coaches, sales and suppor1 current offer · View store →'s Adswitching guide covers recreating event types but says nothing about existing bookings or old links in signatures, website embeds and sent emails. Calendly cancellations take effect at the end of the billing cycle and payments are generally non-refundable. So in my view the sensible order is to set up the new app, replace the links you control, and leave Calendly running until the last meeting booked through it has happened, then give the one event type Calendly Free keeps to the link most people have.
Questions people ask
Is there a free alternative to Calendly?
Yes. Google Calendar gives a personal account one booking page free, Cal.comCal.comCal.com is a scheduling app that turns your availability into a booking link, checks your calendars for clashes and sends reminders. It suits freelancers, coaches, sales and suppor1 current offer · View store → gives one person unlimited meeting types and paid bookings, and Zcal's free plan adds email reminders.
Is Cal.com a good Calendly alternative?
It's the closest match, with unlimited event types free and Teams at $12 a user a month billed yearly (October 2026). The weak spots for UK users are dollar billing, US data storage and UK text costs.
Does Google Calendar have something like Calendly?
Yes, appointment schedules: one booking page free, with more pages, email reminders and payments on paid Google plans.
What is the cheapest Calendly alternative for a team?
Beyond what Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 include, Zoho Bookings Basic at $6 a user a month billed yearly is the cheapest with round-robin.
Can I move my Calendly event types to another tool?
Cal.com imports them in one click, and TidyCal says it imports event types, bookings and contacts. Your Calendly links don't move with them.
Which should you switch to?
For many UK sole traders the answer is already in their office suite. When Google's or Microsoft's booking pages fall short, Cal.comCal.comCal.com is a scheduling app that turns your availability into a booking link, checks your calendars for clashes and sends reminders. It suits freelancers, coaches, sales and suppor1 current offer · View store → is the closest swap, Zoho Bookings the cheapest round-robin with EU data, Acuity the one built for appointments, and HowieHowieHowie is an AI scheduling assistant you copy into email threads, or message by SMS and iMessage, to find times, send calendar invites, follow up and keep your Google Calendar in orBuying guide · View store → the option for people who'd rather never send a link.
More tools for bookings, forms and sign-ups are on our scheduling and forms page, with the rest in the Software section. If Calendly's notetaker tier was the draw, our guide to AI note takers compares standalone options; for scheduling social posts rather than meetings, there's our social media scheduling guide.
