The short version. Cal.com is free for one user with unlimited event types, open source, and self-hostable. TidyCal costs $29 once and never again. Calendly is the one everybody recognises, and its free plan gives you exactly one event type. SavvyCal at $10 a user has the one feature here that genuinely changes how booking feels. Acuity at $20 a month is built for appointment businesses rather than consultants, and it shows in both directions.
Every price here came off the vendor’s own pricing page on 16 August 2026.
Selling your own expertise with nobody behind you? Our directory keeps shortlists for independent consultants, reviewed on a schedule.
Per-seat pricing means nothing when the seat is you
Almost everything written about scheduling software is about round-robin routing, team pooling and distributing leads across a sales floor. If you are one person, none of that exists, and the comparison collapses to two questions that nobody leads with.
What does the free plan actually let you do? This is where the products differ most, and the differences are stark rather than marginal:
- Calendly’s free plan is 1 event type and 1 calendar.
- Cal.com’s free plan is 1 user with unlimited event types and calendars.
- TidyCal’s free plan is unlimited bookings and unlimited booking types.
One event type means one meeting length. A discovery call and a paid session and a check-in are three event types, and needing all three is the ordinary state of a consulting practice rather than an advanced requirement.
And what does it cost over a few years? Calendly Standard is $10 a seat a month, which is $120 a year and $360 over three. TidyCal’s individual lifetime licence is $29, once. That is not a small gap dressed up, that is the same job at a twelfth of the price, and the reason to pay the difference has to be something other than the booking link.
So we ranked on what the free tier permits, on total cost over three years rather than one month, and on whether anything in the product is genuinely better rather than just more familiar.
1. Cal.com gives away what the leader charges for
Free forever with 1 user, unlimited event types and calendars, email and SMS notifications, over 100 app integrations, and Stripe and PayPal payments. Teams is $12 a user a month with 25% off annually. Organizations is $28 a user a month. Enterprise is custom. A self-hosted option is available through its GitHub repository; the pricing page does not state a cost for it. Verified 16 August 2026.
Put the free tiers side by side and the ranking writes itself. Cal.com gives a single user unlimited event types, unlimited calendars, integrations and paid bookings for nothing. Calendly gives that user one event type.
Paid bookings on the free plan is the detail worth pausing on. Taking money for a session is the feature most consultants eventually want, and here it is not behind a tier at all.
It is also open source, which for a scheduling link matters less than it does for a data-heavy tool, but it is not nothing. Your booking page is a public front door, and knowing the software cannot be discontinued or repriced out from under you has a value that grows the longer the link is in your email signature.
Who it is wrong for: anyone who wants the most polished, most familiar option and is not price sensitive. Cal.com is very good and Calendly is smoother in places, and if $120 a year is irrelevant to you, that is a reasonable thing to buy.
2. TidyCal costs $29 once
Free forever with unlimited bookings, unlimited booking types, paid bookings, recurring and package bookings, your own booking page, and translation. Individual Lifetime is a one-time $29, listed down from $144, for solopreneurs. Agency Lifetime is a one-time $79, listed down from $240. Pro is $12 a month, or $8.25 a month billed annually at $99. Verified 16 August 2026.
A one-time payment for software you will use for a decade is rare enough to deserve attention. Against Calendly Standard at $120 a year, the individual lifetime licence pays for itself in under three months and then stops asking.
The free tier is genuinely generous too, with unlimited bookings and booking types, which is more than Calendly’s paid entry plan needed to be beaten on.
What you are trading is polish and depth. It is a smaller product with a smaller team, the integrations list is shorter, and the interface is functional rather than delightful. For a booking link, most independents will find that a fair trade, and the ones who do not will know within a week.
Who it is wrong for: anyone whose scheduling is complicated, with multi-person availability, complex buffers or deep CRM automation. Also anyone uncomfortable relying on a lifetime deal, which is a legitimate concern rather than a paranoid one.
3. Calendly is the default, and the default has a catch
Free forever with 1 event type and 1 calendar. Standard is $10 a seat a month billed yearly, saving 16%, with unlimited event types. Teams is $16 a seat a month billed yearly, saving 20%, with 6 calendars. Enterprise starts at $15,000 a year. Verified 16 August 2026.
There is real value in being the one everybody has already used. Clients know what a Calendly link is, it does not need explaining, and the product is reliable in the way that only something with that much usage becomes. Nobody has ever been confused by receiving one.
The free plan is the thing to understand before you build a habit on it. One event type is enough for a single meeting length and nothing else, and the upgrade is not optional so much as delayed. At $10 a seat that is a fine outcome, and it is worth going in knowing it rather than discovering it when you need a second link.
Note also that Enterprise starting at $15,000 a year tells you where this company’s attention is. That is not a criticism of the product a consultant uses, but it does explain why the individual tier has not moved much.
Who it is wrong for: anyone counting costs over years rather than months, and anyone who needs more than one meeting type without paying. Both of the options above solve that for less.
4. SavvyCal, for the one feature that is actually different
Basic is $10 a user a month, or the equivalent of about $8.33 a month on annual billing which saves two months, including unlimited calendars, unlimited links and team scheduling. Premium is $17 a user a month, or about $14.17 annually, adding custom domains, delegation to an assistant and paid bookings. Verified 16 August 2026.
SavvyCal lets the person you are booking with overlay their own calendar on top of your availability. It sounds minor and it changes the interaction. Instead of a grid of your free slots, which quietly asks a senior person to work around you, they see where the two of you actually overlap.
For consultants booking executives, that is not a nicety. Sending someone important a wall of your availability is a small status claim, and this removes it. If your calls are with people whose time is genuinely scarcer than yours, this is the reason to pay $10 over paying nothing.
It ranks fourth because that is the whole argument. Everything else here is comparable to the free options above, and paid bookings sit on the $17 tier where two competitors include them for nothing.
Who it is wrong for: anyone booking peers, or booking a high volume of short calls where the overlay ceremony adds nothing. Also anyone who wants paid bookings without reaching Premium.
5. Acuity is built for a business with appointments, not a consultant with calls
Starter is $20 a month, or $16 billed annually saving 20%, with 1 calendar. Standard is $34 a month, or $27 annually, with up to 6 calendars. Premium is $61 a month, or $49 annually, with up to 36 calendars. All plans include client self-scheduling, unlimited services and appointments, and payments via Stripe, Square or PayPal. Premium adds a signed BAA for HIPAA compliance, logo hiding, multiple time zones for staff and locations, and custom API and CSS. Verified 16 August 2026.
Acuity is the most capable product here for anyone running appointments as the business: intake forms, packages, memberships, staff and locations, deposits, and a HIPAA BAA on the Premium tier. Clinics, studios and salons should probably be reading a different comparison and choosing this.
For a consultant it is the wrong shape at the wrong price. Twenty dollars a month is $240 a year for one calendar, against $29 once from TidyCal or nothing from Cal.com, and the depth you are funding is depth in scheduling problems you do not have.
The HIPAA note is the exception worth knowing about. If you handle protected health information, that BAA is on the Premium tier at $61 a month and it is not something the cheaper options here offer at all.
Who it is wrong for: independent consultants booking discovery calls, which is most of the people reading this. Right product, wrong reader.
Practices this ranking does not fit
Sales teams routing inbound leads. Round-robin, territory rules and CRM writeback are the whole decision, and they are irrelevant to one person.
Clinics and regulated appointments. Intake forms, HIPAA and staff calendars change the shortlist, and Acuity moves to the top of it.
Anyone booking classes or events. Capacity, waitlists and ticketing are a different category.
Anyone whose diary is empty. A booking link does not produce demand. If nobody is asking to meet you, this is a comfortable purchase that fixes nothing.
Considered, not ranked
Google Appointment Schedules. Included with a Workspace subscription you may already pay for, and adequate for a single meeting type. Check it before buying anything.
Zoho Bookings. A forever-free plan for one user exists, but the pricing page did not display figures for its Basic and Premium tiers to us on 16 August 2026 and directs you to sales, so we have not ranked it.
Microsoft Bookings. Same logic as Google. If you are on Microsoft 365, it is already there.
Just sending times in an email. Still the highest-converting option for a single important meeting, and it costs nothing. Booking links are for volume, not for the deal you care about.
Questions consultants ask us
What is wrong with Calendly’s free plan?
Nothing, if one meeting length is all you need. It permits 1 event type and 1 calendar, so a discovery call, a paid session and a check-in require the $10 a seat plan. Cal.com and TidyCal both give unlimited event types for free.
What is the cheapest option over three years?
Cal.com’s free tier at $0, then TidyCal’s individual lifetime licence at $29 once. Calendly Standard over the same period is $360. The gap is large enough that it should be a deliberate decision rather than a default.
Is a lifetime deal risky?
Somewhat, and the honest answer is that it depends how much you would mind moving. Your booking link is portable and your calendar lives elsewhere, so the migration cost is updating a URL in a few places. That is a modest risk against saving $91 in year one.
Which one should I pay for and why?
SavvyCal, if you book people more senior than you, because letting them overlay their own calendar removes a small imposition you are otherwise making every time. That is the only feature on this page worth paying for that the free options do not have.
Do I need paid bookings?
If you sell a paid consultation, yes, and note where it sits. Cal.com and TidyCal include it free. SavvyCal puts it on the $17 Premium tier. That single feature can reverse the whole comparison.
Does self-hosting make sense for a booking page?
Rarely. It is a public page with no sensitive data, so the usual argument does not apply. Cal.com’s open source licence is better understood as insurance against repricing than as something most independents should actually run.
See our maintained directory picks for solo consultants, covering the offer, the enquiry and the admin that follows.
Last reviewed: 16 August 2026. Every price was read off the vendor’s own pricing page on that date. Zoho Bookings is unranked because its pricing page did not display figures for its paid tiers. Cal.com does not state a cost for self-hosting on its pricing page. We review this page quarterly.
Leave a Reply