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Appointment Scheduling Software

How to find the right Appointment Scheduling Software

Learn more from our team about Appointment Scheduling pricing, features and benefits in our Appointment Scheduling Buyers Guide

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Essential appointment scheduling software buying information 

Appointment scheduling software streamlines the process of scheduling appointments for clients, patients, and colleagues, promoting efficiency by eliminating double bookings and automating the scheduling of recurring appointments. It also provides employees and service providers real-time access to their colleagues' schedules (as well as their own), allowing them to make changes to the system straight from the scheduling interface and provide clients with the most suitable appointment options.

Office administrators, business managers, and entrepreneurs use appointment scheduling software to seamlessly book appointments with clients, job seekers, and colleagues. Users often work in the health, wellness and fitness, consumer services, and medical industries. 

Most appointment scheduling software products are priced on a per-month basis. Entry-level pricing plans range from $8 to $29 per month, depending on the number of users. Premium and advanced tools that are priced higher include additional features and functionality. Premium and advanced pricing plans range from $27 to $69+ per month.1

First-time buyers should begin evaluating vendors with their budget, end users, and necessary integrations in mind. Before making your investment, ask vendors the following questions:

  • Does your software integrate well with our existing calendar, video conferencing, website builder, and CRM software?

  • Does your software provide a user-friendly experience for external end users, including clients or job candidates? 

  • Does your tool include features that meet our business’s needs, such as mobile access, calendar sync, and online payment? 

  • How customizable are the templates for SMS and email notifications offered by your tool? 

What are the best appointment scheduling software systems? 

Capterra Shortlist identifies the top appointment scheduling software systems based on a proprietary blend of user ratings and popularity, helping small businesses efficiently find the most effective appointment scheduling solution for their needs.2 Here are the five most-reviewed products in our Capterra Shortlist for this category:

Product

Overall score

Popularity score

Ratings score

Calendly

99/100

50/50

49/50

Acuity Scheduling

89/100

40/50

49/50

Vagaro

95/100

46/50

49/50

Doodle

96/100

48/50

48/50

SimplyBook.me

78/100

31/50

47/50

These rankings are determined by combining verified user ratings and publicly available web search popularity data: 

  • Ratings score: Relative score of the software based on ratings given by users on Capterra, normalized for number and recency of reviews.

  • Popularity score: Relative popularity of software based on web search trends and products’ web presence.

What is appointment scheduling software? 

Appointment scheduling software allows businesses to schedule, manage, and track client appointments. The tool automates the booking process to alert the service providers and clients of upcoming appointments and payments. It acts as a centralized platform for all appointment-related information, including clients’ and service providers' names, concerns, documents, due dates, and payments (if required). Additionally, the tool’s reporting dashboard tracks multiple appointments for metrics, including success rate, no-show rate, and the overall scheduling trend, to identify gaps and optimize the appointment booking process.

Appointment scheduling software allows clients to schedule, reschedule, or cancel appointments on their end using a dedicated online portal. All the scheduled appointments are visible to both parties in the built-in shared calendar.

Capterra covers 883 appointment scheduling solutions, and we published 11,436 reviews from appointment scheduling software users in the past year.3

Appointment scheduling software pricing

Most appointment scheduling software products are priced on a per-month basis. Entry-level pricing plans range from $8 to $29 per month. Premium and advanced pricing plans range from $27 to $69 per month.1

  • Entry-level appointment scheduling tools include the core functionality of confirmation/reminder notifications and online booking.

  • A premium or advanced product that’s priced higher typically includes additional features such as mobile access, calendar sync, and a client database.

First-time buyers should be aware that: 

  • Implementation, integration, and customization are common upfront costs.

  • Maintenance and support are common recurring costs.

Appointment scheduling software features rated by users

All appointment scheduling software includes features for confirmation and reminder communications and online booking. Most software in this category also includes a client database, mobile access, and online payment features, as well as features for automatically scheduling recurring appointments. 

Core appointment scheduling features

  • Confirmation/reminders: Confirm client appointments, and set an email or SMS reminder to automatically notify clients about their successful booking, upcoming appointments, and any payments that are due. 87% of reviewers say this is a highly-important feature. 

  • Online booking: Offer client portals to enable online scheduling, rescheduling, or canceling of appointments based on the preferred time slots. The feature allows accessing client accounts for needed details and closing them in case of service discontinuation or dispute. 84% say this is a highly-important feature.

Highly rated common appointment scheduling software features

  • Appointment management: Schedule, change, or cancel appointments. 91% of reviewers say this is a highly-important feature.

  • Calendar sync: Synchronize with other calendars to view mutual availability and schedules. 85% say this is a highly-important feature.

  • Mobile access: Access the software remotely via mobile devices. 78% say this is a highly-important feature.

  • Client database: Electronic storage of stakeholder contact information. 74% say this is a highly-important feature.

  • Automated scheduling: Automatically create schedules based on business needs or employee availability and qualifications. 68% say this is a highly-important feature.

  • Online payments: Payment web page where clients can pay bills via various methods such as debit/credit cards, net banking, and more. 63% say this is a highly-important feature.

  • Billing and invoicing: Create, manage, and send invoices or bills to customers.

Top appointment scheduling software benefits identified by users

Seamless appointment scheduling makes booking easy: Users say appointment scheduling software improves client relationships by allowing clients to book appointments flexibly and easily on their mobile devices. 

“One of the standout features is its seamless appointment booking system, which enables clients to effortlessly schedule consultations, career coaching sessions, and resume reviews with ease.”

–Rahul G., HR consultant, human resources

Appointment reminders eliminate no-shows: Users say this software automatically sends meeting confirmations and reminder notifications to clients, saving time and preventing most absences.  

“Its email and text reminders enabled me to reduce the No Show Rate by 60% and its CRM helped me to manage all of the appointments in one place.”

–Rishi G., founder and CEO, marketing and advertising

Calendar syncing prevents conflicts: Users say appointment scheduling software’s ability to synchronize multiple user calendars helps prevent double-booking and missed deadlines. 

“[This tool] effortlessly integrates with our existing calendars, enabling us to avoid scheduling conflicts and stay organized. This synchronization ensures that we never miss important meetings or appointments, even when dealing with tight deadlines and multiple projects simultaneously.”

–Collins O., project manager, hospital and healthcare

Common challenges of appointment scheduling software identified by users

According to Capterra’s 2024 Tech Trends Survey of hundreds of businesses, 27% of business decision-makers in the consumer services, business services, health and medical, and IT services industries find it challenging to deliver quality customer service. Appointment scheduling software solutions help improve the outlook on customer service by providing user-friendly interfaces and automated reminders to customers.4

The most frequently-cited limitation of appointment scheduling software by reviewers is appointment cancellations, including difficulty canceling appointments, inconsistent notifications about cancellations, and limited reporting on cancellations. 

Another limitation users report is being charged high credit card processing fees on client transactions, as well as the incorrect categorization of client payments.  

Finally, some users cite limited customizability and usability with notification email templates—plain templates, unremovable vendor logos, and distorted images don’t always match the quality of service businesses strive to provide for clients.

Before investing in appointment scheduling software, check with the vendor about how their software handles cancellations, payment processing, and email customization. Robust onboarding support can help users navigate these issue-prone areas.

What is appointment scheduling software used for?

Analysis of our extensive scheduling software reviews highlight the most common use cases:

  • Streamline the client appointment booking process: This software provides a user-friendly interface for clients to book appointments on their own time, whether on a desktop or their mobile device.

  • Automate appointment reminders: This software automatically schedules appointment reminders to be sent to clients and service providers, keeping everyone up to date on calendar events.

  • Synchronize calendars to ensure availability: This software synchronizes multiple calendars to show user availability, mitigating the risk of double-booking appointments. 

Many appointment scheduling software tools are designed to support specific industries:

Who uses appointment scheduling software?

Scheduling software is used by businesses of all sizes and industries for booking appointments both internally and externally to the organization, including client appointments and reservations, meetings, and job candidate interviews. This software market includes vendors that cater to specific sectors and industries, including medical, HR, construction, as well as health and wellness. 

Capterra reviews data reveals that primary users of appointment scheduling software tend to work in administrative, managerial, or entrepreneurial roles. Common industries include health, wellness, and fitness (20%), information technology and services (5%), and consumer services (5%).

Common appointment scheduling software integrations

Users often integrate appointment scheduling software with calendar, website builder, CRM, video conferencing, and email marketing software. Reviewers note that adding an appointment scheduling widget to their website helps customers book more easily and helps the business track site performance.  

Recent trends in appointment scheduling software

AI improves interview experiences for job candidates: AI has significantly improved the interview scheduling solution space within the last five years and continues to make a good impression on interviewees. Allowing your job candidate the flexibility to select their available dates through interview scheduling software makes your company easy to work with during the recruiting process, while automatically sending calendar invitations to interview attendees cuts down on your recruiters’ administrative workload.5

Learn more about appointment scheduling software can help your business

Sources

  1. 6 Top-Rated Free Appointment Scheduling Software, Capterra

  2. Capterra Shortlist: Capterra Shortlist identifies the top products in our software categories based on a proprietary blend of user ratings and popularity. To rank the products in this report, we considered the reviews count as of March 31, 2024. Read the complete methodology.

  3. Capterra reviews data: Capterra reviews are collected from verified users for individual software products. For this report, we analyzed reviews from February 28, 2023 to February 29, 2024. Read the complete methodology.

  4. Capterra’s 2024 Tech Trends Survey: The 2024 Tech Trends Survey was conducted online in July 2023 to understand the timeline, organizational challenges, adoption & budget, vendor research behaviors, ROI expectations, and satisfaction levels for software buyers. Read the complete methodology.

  5. Innovation Insight: AI-Enabled Interview Technology to Improve Candidate Experience, Gartner