Making the work
Growing an audience
Running the business
Koalendar and zcal both give away nearly everything for free, unlimited bookings on Koalendar and what zcal calls 99 percent of its features on its own page. Paid tiers land close too, $6.99 a seat a month for Koalendar's Pro against $7 for zcal's entry paid tier, both adding branding removal, team features and payment collection. The difference that remains is look and feel: zcal's booking pages carry a designed cover image, where Koalendar's stays plainer and puts its paid effort into reminders and round robin routing instead.
Koalendar | zcal | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $6.99 | From $7 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Not stated | Not stated |
| Free trial (they differ) | 7 days | 14 days |
| API |
Unlimited bookings on the free plan
Koalendar gives away the thing most booking tools meter, which is the number of appointments, and puts its paid features around payments, reminders and team routing instead. Two calendar syncs and an embeddable booking page come at no cost with no time limit. Paying adds Stripe checkout at the point of booking, custom reminders and the removal of Koalendar's branding. It is a booking link rather than a practice management system, and anybody wanting intake forms and client records will outgrow it.
Our note
Upgrade for the payments rather than for the branding, because collecting at the moment of booking is what stops no-shows and the logo bothers you more than it bothers your clients. Two calendar syncs is enough for one person and immediately not enough for anybody juggling a work and a personal calendar plus a shared one.
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.
Choose Koalendar if round robin and collective scheduling for a team, plus custom email and SMS reminders, are the reason to pay, since Pro is $6.99 a seat a month billed annually for exactly that. Two calendar syncs come free, which is enough for one person juggling a couple of diaries.
Choose zcal if a booking page with a designed cover image matters more than a plain form, since its free plan already covers nearly everything and the $7 a month paid tier is really aimed at teams needing branding and admin controls. One person sending a booking link rarely needs to pay at all here.
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.
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| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
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| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
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| Runs on | Web | Web |
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| Covers | Scheduling & Booking | Scheduling & Booking |
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| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
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| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
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| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
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| Live deals | 1 | None right now |
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Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
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.