Acuity Scheduling vs Calendly

Updated October 2026 · AppBreakup editorial

Acuity Scheduling

Squarespace's appointment scheduler for service businesses that take bookings and payments online.

Paid

Visit Acuity Scheduling Acuity Scheduling profile

Calendly

The best-known booking-link tool: share your availability and let people pick a meeting time.

Free plan + paid

Visit Calendly Calendly profile

The short answer

Both handle online booking, but for different businesses. Acuity Scheduling is built for people who sell their time, such as coaches, therapists and salons, with intake forms, deposits, packages and gift certificates. Calendly is built for meetings, especially sales and recruiting, with round-robin, routing forms and CRM sync. Pick Acuity to take paid client appointments; pick Calendly to book calls with prospects and candidates.

Acuity Scheduling or Calendly: our take

Acuity's booking flow centres on services: a client chooses a service, a time and a staff member, fills in a custom intake form and can pay or leave a deposit. Packages, memberships, gift certificates and class bookings are built in, along with email and text reminders and client self-rescheduling. It is owned by Squarespace and integrates natively with Squarespace sites, but embeds on any website. Calendly's model is the event type, such as a 30-minute intro call, shared through a link. Its strengths are team scheduling, routing forms that qualify leads, Salesforce and HubSpot connections and a large integration catalogue, plus newer AI notetaker and email assistant features. It can collect payments too, but it is not designed around service menus and intake.

Acuity has no free plan, only a seven-day trial with no credit card. Plans start at $16/month billed annually ($20 monthly), and Premium is $55/month billed annually ($69 monthly); tiers differ mainly by staff calendars and features like HIPAA support. Calendly has a free plan limited to one event type and one calendar, with Standard at $10 per seat/month and Teams at $16 per seat/month, billed yearly. Because Calendly charges per seat and Acuity by tier, the cost comparison depends on how many people need calendars.

Both run in the browser with iOS and Android apps. Acuity's admin interface feels dated next to Calendly's, while Calendly lacks Acuity's depth for client-service businesses. Choose Acuity if you are a solo practitioner or small service business taking paid appointments; choose Calendly if your bookings are meetings and your team needs routing and CRM sync.

Choose Acuity Scheduling if…

Solo practitioners and small service businesses that need intake forms, payments and packages
Intake forms, deposits, packages and gift certificates built in
Works with any website, and natively with Squarespace

Choose Calendly if…

Sales, recruiting and client-facing teams that want the most familiar booking experience
You want a free option (Acuity Scheduling is paid only)
You need Browser extension, which Acuity Scheduling doesn't list
Invitees already know how it works, so bookings convert well
Round-robin, routing forms and CRM sync for teams

What is Acuity Scheduling?

Acuity Scheduling is aimed at businesses that sell their time: coaches, therapists, trainers, salons and consultants. Clients pick a service, a time and a staff member, fill in a custom intake form and can pay or leave a deposit at booking. Acuity handles reminders by email and text, time-zone conversion, packages, gift certificates, memberships and class bookings, and it can sync with Google, Outlook and iCloud calendars. It is owned by Squarespace and integrates with Squarespace sites, but works on any website through embeds. Plans are monthly subscriptions in three tiers that differ mainly in the number of staff calendars and in features like client self-service and HIPAA support; there is no free plan, only a seven-day trial. It runs in the browser with iOS and Android apps for the business owner. The interface is functional rather than modern, and teams looking for sales-style round-robin routing are better served elsewhere.

What is Calendly?

Calendly made the booking link mainstream. You connect a calendar, define event types such as a 30-minute intro call, and share a link; invitees see only your free slots and book without any email back-and-forth. Teams get round-robin and collective meetings, routing forms that qualify leads before they book, and CRM connections to Salesforce and HubSpot. Recent additions push it beyond scheduling: an AI notetaker that writes meeting recaps, an email assistant called Callie that proposes times in threads, and payment collection for paid sessions. The free plan is real but narrow, with one event type and one calendar connection, so most regular users end up on a per-seat paid plan; enterprise contracts are sold annually. It runs in the browser with iOS and Android apps and a browser extension. It is the safe default for sales, recruiting and customer-facing teams, though cheaper and open-source tools now match most of its core booking features.

Side by side

Attribute	Acuity Scheduling	Calendly
Pricing	Paid	Free plan + paid
Open source	No	No
Self-hostable	No	No
Platforms	Web, iOS, Android	Web, iOS, Android, Browser extension
Best for	Solo practitioners and small service businesses that need intake forms, payments and packages	Sales, recruiting and client-facing teams that want the most familiar booking experience
Status	Active	Active

Verified facts, compared

Facts both apps publish, checked on each vendor's own site.

Fact	Acuity Scheduling	Calendly
Free plan	No	Yes, one event type and one calendar
Starting price	$16/month billed annually ($20 monthly)	$10 per seat/month, billed yearly (Standard)