Acuity Scheduling vs Calendly Comparison 2026
Acuity Scheduling attaches an intake form and takes payment or a deposit the moment somebody books, from $16 a month with no free plan. Calendly reads your connected calendars and publishes only the times genuinely free, with one event type on its free plan and Standard at $10 a seat a month once you need a second. Both serve coaches and consultants selling their time. The difference is where the money question sits: Acuity asks for it at booking, Calendly leaves payment as one feature among several on a paid seat.
Booking pages with intake forms
A booking page that reads your own calendar
At a glance
- Calendly starts cheaper, at $10.
- Only Calendly has a free tier.
Side by side
Acuity Scheduling | Calendly | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $16 | From $10 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free trial, then paid | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier (they differ) | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Not stated |
| Free trial (they differ) | 7 days | 14 days |
Acuity Scheduling
Booking pages with intake forms
Acuity handles the part of booking that Calendly leaves out: intake forms, packages, deposits and paid appointments, with the money taken before anybody shows up. Squarespace owns it now and the two share an account. There is no free plan, so it is bought by people whose calendar already earns.
Our note
No free plan at all is the clearest difference from everything else here. Setmore and Cal.com take bookings for nothing, so the $16 is worth paying only when the intake form and the payment at booking are the point.
Calendly
A booking page that reads your own calendar
Calendly publishes the times you are genuinely free and lets somebody claim one, which settles in a click what usually takes three emails. Buffers, round robin and paid bookings are there when the calls start earning. The free plan allows one event type, so anybody running a coaching call and a sponsor call from the same calendar pays.
Our note
Why people weigh these two
- Calendly instead of Acuity Scheduling
- Calendly keeps a free plan and covers plain scheduling, for someone who does not need Acuity's intake forms or payment collection.
- Acuity Scheduling instead of Calendly
- Acuity Scheduling leads with intake forms from $16, a better fit for client onboarding than a bare booking link, though it has no free plan.
Which one should you pick
Choose Acuity Scheduling if paperwork and payment need to happen at the moment of booking, such as a coaching package sold in a block or a deposit that stops a no-show costing an hour. It starts at $16 a month after a 7-day trial, with no free plan under it at all.
Choose Calendly if the problem is a calendar that costs you calls, not paperwork: it reads every calendar you connect and offers only the slots none of them have taken. The free plan allows exactly one event type, so a coaching call and a sponsor call at different lengths already needs Standard at $10 a seat a month. Start there rather than on free, since the second event type is what most people need by the second week.
Common questions
- Which one has a free plan?
- Calendly does, limited to one calendar and one event type. Acuity Scheduling has no free plan at all; its cheapest tier is $16 a month after a 7-day trial that needs no card.
- Can Calendly take a deposit like Acuity does?
- Calendly supports paid bookings, charging when a slot is claimed, but Acuity is built more specifically around packages, deposits and intake forms collected before the appointment. A business selling session blocks or requiring paperwork upfront fits Acuity's feature set more directly.
- Why would a $10 Calendly plan not be enough?
- Because Standard is priced per seat and billed yearly with no monthly figure listed, and a team needing round-robin routing has to move to Teams at $16 a seat instead. Acuity's plans scale by calendars and staff members rather than by seat, which can land differently depending on team size.
- Which is simpler for someone who has never used a scheduling tool?
- Calendly. It reads your calendar and publishes free slots with little setup, and the free plan is enough to test with one event type. Acuity has more to configure upfront, mainly the intake forms and payment setup, because it is built for a business that already needs those.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.