Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover scheduling & booking. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Calendly | zcal | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $10 | From $7 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Not stated | Not stated |
| Free trial | 14 days | 14 days |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Not stated | Web |
| Covers | Scheduling & Booking, Courses & Coaching | Scheduling & Booking |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | 1 | None right now |
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
The one to buy when a bad calendar is costing you calls. Start on Standard rather than free: the second event type is what everybody needs by the second week.
Only on this side
Scheduling with most of it on the free plan
zcal is a booking page in the Calendly shape, and its argument is how much sits on the free tier: the paid plans are mostly about branding, teams and payments rather than about how many event types you may have. Booking pages carry a designed cover rather than a plain form. For one person sending a link, the free plan is usually the whole product.
Our note
Start on free and expect to stay there if you are one person, because the paid tiers are aimed at teams rather than at power users. Cal.com is the alternative worth weighing, and it is open source if self-hosting matters to you.
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.