The Best Appointment Scheduling Software for 2024

No matter the size of your business, nobody has time to manually schedule appointments all day. It should be easy for your customers to meet with you, but scheduling appointments can be a job of its own—on top of running every other aspect of your business. (Cue the overwhelm.) 

Luckily, appointment scheduling software can rid you of scheduling-related headaches by digitizing and automating appointment booking. No more stressing about your schedule, so you can focus on serving your customers and employees instead. 

The best appointment booking software will make the lives of you, your team, and your customers easier. To find the right solution, you need to consider factors like unique features, scalability, and the cost of scheduling software. 

Of course, no one wants to waste their time and money by investing in the wrong tools. And with so many options available, knowing what software best fits your needs demands time and effort you may not have.  So, how do you decide which one is right for your business?

Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be so scary.

This guide will look at the different types of appointment scheduling software, critical features, some of the best software options to consider in 2024, and how to make the best choice for your business.

Ready? Let’s begin!

What is Appointment Scheduling Software?

Appointment scheduling software aims to streamline businesses’ booking process. It acts as a central digital hub that automates and manages scheduling tasks, so that all team members can access it from their devices and stay updated as schedules change. 

Some features that help businesses do this include:

• Accepting online bookings
• Managing calendars 
• Sending automated appointment reminders
• Tracking cancellations
• Processing payments
• Managing client information

So, if your business makes money through appointments and scheduled services, you can benefit from appointment booking software, regardless of industry. Healthcare practices, salons, fitness classes, professional consulting firms, repair shops, tour providers, and more—so many businesses use appointment scheduling software to operate smoothly and provide high-quality services to their customers.

How Can Appointment Scheduling Software Benefit Your Business?

Booking appointments is necessary for nearly every business, but that doesn’t mean it should take up the majority of your time. Adopting the right appointment scheduling software makes managing appointments simple and easy, so focus on what’s important.

Here are just a few benefits of appointment software:

Increased Productivity 

No one on your team should have to waste their skills solely on managing appointments.  Booking software helps everyone save time on scheduling. With automated capabilities, your business can spend less time correcting scheduling errors and playing telephone-tag with clients. With that time back, your team can focus on completing their most important tasks.

Improved User Experience

Your customers lead busy lives and want appointment booking to be easy. The best appointment scheduling software will offer online booking, giving clients 24/7 access to making appointments—no more standing in lines or waiting on hold over the phone. They can choose the frequency of appointment reminders and their preferred payment method in advance. By giving them the power to control the booking process to their preferences, appointment scheduling software helps generate more satisfied customers. 

Streamlined Billing and Payments 

Once the appointment wraps up, the payments shouldn’t be complicated. A great appointment scheduling system also lets you accept electronic and online payments from your customers, for easier-to-track finances. You can also automatically generate and send receipts and invoices to your customers, freeing up both your time and theirs.  

Types of Appointment Scheduling Software 

Depending on your business’ services and needs, some types of appointment booking software will work better for you than others. Luckily, there are several types to choose from that all specialize in specific functions.

Here are a few of the most common types:  

Online Booking Platforms

Online platforms typically consist of standalone, web-based scheduling systems that cover most of your bases for online booking and essential schedule management. They help create forms customers can access online to schedule appointments directly. Depending on the complexity of the software, you can customize your forms to let customers state their preferences, provide additional information, or pay in advance. 

Appointment Scheduling Apps 

If your meetings keep you on the move, some appointment scheduling solutions come with a mobile app option to manage bookings wherever your travels take you. Manage your team’s schedule, receive new bookings, and communicate directly with clients from anywhere. With an appointment scheduling app, being away from your office never slows you down!

Client Management Systems 

If you work with a large or medium-sized team, keeping track of projects and information for specific customers can be challenging. Luckily, some appointment scheduling solutions have built-in client management and reporting capabilities to help organize your clients’ data. You can track customer preferences, purchasing trends, scheduling patterns, and more, all in one place, that all your employees can access. These tools enable you to communicate meaningfully with clients, easily recalling their preferences to address their unique needs.

Cloud-Based Calendar Synchronization 

When scheduling your team’s workload, it helps to have easy access to everybody’s calendars. With cloud-based synchronization, everyone on your team can see their coworkers’ schedules across multiple platforms and devices. As folks change their schedules, you can see real-time updates and adjust quickly to avoid scheduling conflicts. And if you have systems you already like to use, this appointment software can sync them with them so you don’t have to recreate your calendars from scratch.   

Top Features to Look for in Appointment Scheduling Software 

Many of the best appointment schedulers on the market share some standard features designed to help your business run smoothly.

​Let’s unpack a few essential tools:

Schedule Unlimited Appointments 

If you’re managing a large number of bookings, the last thing you need is to be slapped in the face with a message saying, “Sorry! You have reached the maximum amount of appointments.” So, when researching appointment scheduling software, look for options that let you schedule unlimited appointments. It might cost extra, but if you’re still growing, unlimited appointments will make sure your software can still support your business as it scales up.

Credit Card Processing & POS Systems  

Nobody expects you to work for free, and appointment schedulers with built-in payment processors make sure you won’t. With integrated POS tools for credit cards, you can seamlessly manage your transactions for your bookings. Online payments let you track the status of your customers’ payments—whether they paid in advance or you need to send them a bill. Streamlining the payment process for customers improves their experience while ensuring you get paid. 

Automated Appointment Reminders

We all live busy lives and could use a little reminder to stay on top of things. But let’s face it: manually sending out reminders uses time better spent elsewhere. The best appointment software can take that off your plate entirely with automated reminders. Your business can provide consistent, high-quality communication with customizable automated reminders via email, SMS, or even voice calls. By staying connected with customers, reminders can reduce no-shows, let clients reschedule or cancel, and give them any information they need to be prepared for their appointments.

What is the Best Appointment Scheduling Software for 2024? 

Now that we’ve covered the essentials, we can get to the fun part. For our guide to the best appointment scheduling software, we’ve chosen a well-groomed grab bag of options—some offering specific functions, while others are more general for a range of business needs. Learning about the variety available should help determine what will and what won’t work for your business.

DaySmart

DaySmart is the queen of modern scheduling software, offering businesses a buffet of possibilities—from simple and intuitive appointment scheduling tools, to industry-specific software offerings for a considerable diversity of talent, from tattoo artists to fitness and recreation pros. So whether you’re running an enterprise or a small business, DaySmart has scalable options that help take charge of your schedule. 

To provide a seamless customer experience, all of DaySmart Appointments’ features center around client needs. Whether you want to enable clients to book at any time with online self-scheduling, set up automatic appointment reminders to prevent no-shows, or send out marketing promotions, DaySmart gives you access to customer metrics and purchasing trends that will delight your clients with customized experiences. 

Pricing starts at $99/month, with plenty of options to scale as your business grows.

Jobber 

If you run any kind of home services business, Jobber might be for you. Its tools are built to manage contracting, cleaning, lawn care, and landscaping bookings. 

Its features help you organize all your schedules, client information, and communications to share with your whole team, including GPS routing to dispatch team members to new bookings as scheduled. To manage payments, Jobber has tools for processing invoices, quotes, and credit card payments. It also integrates with Quickbooks, Mailchimp, DocuSign, Gusto, and more.

Pricing starts at $42/month month-to-month or $40/month annually.

Acuity Scheduling from Squarespace (Formerly Squarespace Scheduling)

Acuity is a simple, cross-industry solution that works well and hits the budget needs of a lot of business owners.

In addition to online self-scheduling, Acuity will customize availability, add multiple calendars, set a maximum number of appointments, and schedule recurring appointments. Its client tools let you send automated reminders and follow-up emails, and customer payment options include offering discounts, subscriptions, invoices, and automatic receipts. Plus, it integrates with Square, Stripe, and Paypal. 

Pricing starts at $20/month month-to-month or $16/month annually.

SimplePractice

SimplePractice is an electronic health record (EHR) tool for medical and health professionals, counselors, therapists, and social workers. It’s more geared toward smaller private practices but also has options for larger group practices.

Its scheduling tools include online appointment requests, automated reminders, calendar sync, paperless billing, client record organization, and a 24/7 client portal. It also offers healthcare-specific features like telehealth, customizable document templates, and insurance claim filing,.  

Pricing starts at $29/month for a solo practice.

Luma Health 

Luma Health offers EHR tools for health systems, clinics, federally qualified health centers, specialty health networks, and other healthcare organizations.

To help healthcare professionals provide the best care to their patients. Luma Health has tools for referrals, waitlists, reminders, cancellation management, one-to-many broadcast outreach, feedback management, mobile check-in, mobile patient intake, health risk assessments, and more. It also allows doctors to communicate with patients through multilingual messaging, patient-initiated texting, and secure two-way chat with patients.

If you want to learn more, you can contact Luma Health on their website for pricing information and a demo request.

Peek PRO Tour Operator Software

Peek PRO focuses on making appointment software for tours, activities, attractions, and other experiences.

Its app provides mobile bookings, QR codes for check-in, and POS with options for add-ons and upsells. For communicating with customers, it has automated text and email for reminders, rescheduling, review requests, and a customer portal for them to manage their bookings. Also, Peek PRO integrates with Square if you already use that to take payments. 

Peek PRO pricing is available by inquiry only. 

Goldie

A scheduling app that specializes in appointment software for independent beauty and fitness professionals who are always on the move, Goldie allows you to schedule appointments, create a customized booking site, send automated reminders and promotions, process payments, and view client information, all from your phone. And if you already use Google or Apple Calendar, you’re in luck. Goldie syncs seamlessly with both, so you can manage availability without rebuilding your schedule.

While Goldie has a fairly comprehensive free version, if you want to get more out of it, pricing plans start at $19.99/month or $199.99/year.

Calendly

If you have a role in sales, marketing, recruiting, IT, revenue operations, C-suite, or any other professional service team, Calendly is a great simple option to schedule meetings and appointments. 

Set availability preferences, schedule meetings for teams with polls that track when people can meet, create routine forms, and sync your Calendy schedule with existing calendars. Calendly also offers integration with platforms like Zoom, Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, Slack and more.

While Calendly offers a free version, pricing plans start at $12/month month-to-month and $10/month annually. 

Appointy

Appointy provides appointment software for everything from lifestyle, wellness, fitness, and recreation to education, professional services, government organizations, and private companies. 

To manage appointments, Appointy has tools to send automated text and email reminders, accept bookings through social media platforms, and let customers pay online in advance. And if you use Google Calendar, it has integration for that.

While it does have a free version, you can upgrade to a paid version to get a few more features. Pricing plans start at $29.99/month monthly or $19.99/month annually. 

A Summary of the Best Appointment Scheduling Software for 2024

How to Choose the Best Appointment Scheduling Software for You 

To pick the best appointment booking software for your business, you have to look at your business, your goals, what features you want, and what features you don’t want. And, of course, the cost of scheduling software needs to fit in your current budget.

Finding that perfect software, however, can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack of options. Worry not, because this guide will be your compass, helping you navigate the features, functions, and budgets to land on the software that sings for your business.

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Evaluate Appointment Scheduling Software

1. Define Your Needs 

Before you start browsing software like it’s a shoe sale, take a moment to understand your business needs. Think of it like online dating – you wouldn’t jump into a relationship without knowing what you’re looking for, right? Here are some key questions to ask yourself:

• Business size: Are you a solopreneur or do you have a team of scheduling superheroes?
• Appointment volume: Do you have a steady stream of appointments, or are they more sporadic?
• Features: What features are absolutely essential for your workflow (online booking, reminders, payment processing)? What are nice-to-haves, but not dealbreakers?
• Budget: What cost of scheduling software works best for you? How much can you comfortably invest in software each month?
• Integrations: Do you need the software to play nice with your existing tools (CRM, accounting system)?
• Future goals: Where do you see your business in a year or two? Will this software be able to grow alongside your business?

2. Explore Features and Functionality

Not all features are created equal. Make a list of the features that are non-negotiables for your business operations. For example, online booking might be a must-have for a salon, while appointment reminders might be crucial for a doctor’s office. Once you have your essential features, prioritize the rest based on your needs and budget. Remember, the most feature-packed software isn’t always the best – sometimes, simplicity is key!

3. Discover Integration Capabilities

Imagine building a beautiful kitchen, only to realize the sink doesn’t connect to the plumbing. That’s the frustration of incompatible software. Look for solutions that integrate seamlessly with your existing tools, like your CRM, email platform, or even accounting software. This saves you time, reduces data silos, and keeps everything singing in harmony.

4. Think of the End User 

Your software should be an assistant, not an enigma. Choose an interface that’s intuitive for you, your team, and your clients. Think clean layouts, clear navigation, and minimal learning curves. Remember, happy staff and happy clients make for a happy business.

5. Imagine the Scalability 

Your business is a living, breathing entity, and it’s bound to evolve. Choose software that can adapt and grow alongside you. Look for solutions that offer flexible plans and cater to your needs, whether you’re a one-person show or a team of scheduling ninjas.

And sure, you might dream of having millions of appointments in the future, but don’t get overwhelmed by choosing software for a company ten times your size. Start with a plan that fits your current needs and budget, and consider upgrading as your business grows. Scalability is important, but don’t pay for features you won’t use right now.

6. Get Practical

Now for the not-so-fun part: what’s the bottom line? Budget restrictions are reality. So look at your numbers and set a realistic budget for the cost of scheduling software, then compare plans that you can reasonably afford. Remember, the cheapest option isn’t always the best. That’s why the budget is the final puzzle piece. Weigh the value you’re getting for your money, including features, support, and scalability.

Start Your Search for Appointment Booking Software

Your business doesn’t need a one-size-fits-all solution. It needs booking software that aligns with current needs and allows for future growth. With so many great options, the biggest factor in picking the best appointment scheduling software for you is understanding your own business.

With a clear understanding of your needs and these handy tips in your arsenal, you’re well on your way to finding the appointment scheduling software that’s the missing piece to your business puzzle. Research different options, read reviews, and remember—the best scheduling software makes your life easier, not more complicated.

If DaySmart sounds like the right match for your business, let’s get started! Request a free demo and see how our software can streamline your scheduling, boost your productivity, and make your life a whole lot easier. 

So, what are you waiting for? Go forth and conquer the scheduling beast with the right software by your side!