Making the work
Growing an audience
Running the business
YouCanBookMe connects one calendar for free, and its paid tiers, from $7.20 a member a month on yearly billing, buy styling control over the booking page, form and confirmation email that goes further than the category norm. zcal keeps almost everything free forever, event types and bookings are not what the paid tiers gate, and its own paid tiers, from $7 a user a month, are about branding and team features rather than core functionality. zcal's free plan is the more generous one. YouCanBookMe's paid tiers buy deeper design control and more calendar connections.
A booking page that reads your calendar
Scheduling with most of it on the free plan
YouCanBookMe | zcal | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $7.20 | From $7 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Not stated |
| Free trial | 14 days | 14 days |
| API |
A booking page that reads your calendar
YouCanBookMe puts a bookable page in front of a calendar you already keep, and the customisation goes further than the category norm: the booking form, the confirmation email and the page itself are all editable. Free accounts connect one calendar, which is the constraint that decides most upgrades. Teams are priced per member rather than per booking.
Our note
Charged per member where Acuity charges per tier, which is what decides it for a team. One calendar is free, so a solo freelancer never has to pay. A group of five should do the arithmetic both ways before committing.
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
Choose YouCanBookMe if the booking page needs to look like part of your own site rather than a generic tool: the page, form and confirmation email are all editable beyond what most competitors allow, and upper tiers connect up to ten calendars per user for a split work and personal diary. One calendar stays free indefinitely, so a solo freelancer with simple needs never has to pay.
Choose zcal if the free plan should carry nearly the whole job: 99 percent of the features are free forever by its own framing, with paid tiers at $7 and $12 a user a month reserved for branding, team functionality and payments rather than event types or bookings. A team needing round-robin routing and deeper admin controls will find Cal.com or Calendly better built for that, and will pay more for it.
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.
| Not stated |
| 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 | None right now | 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.
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.