All four tools put a booking link on the internet. They charge for it in four different ways — per seat, per user, or flat per account — and their free plans stop working at four different points. This guide compares the pricing structures, the free-plan limits, and the question most comparisons skip: which plan you need before you can take payment at booking.
Standard, billed annually ($12 monthly). Free plan exists but covers one event type only.
Free includes unlimited event types and payments. Teams is $12/user/mo billed annually.
Starter, billed annually ($20 monthly). Priced per account by calendar count — not per seat. No free plan; 7-day trial.
Basic, billed annually ($12 monthly). No free booking plan — a free account covers polls and setup only.
| Calendly | Cal.com | Acuity Scheduling | SavvyCal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Sales, recruiting and consulting teams that live on intro calls | Solo professionals and technical teams that want a real free tier | Salons, clinics, coaches and studios that sell appointments | Consultants and small teams who care how booking feels for the other side |
| How it charges | Per seat (each person who hosts) | Per user (hosted) — or self-host and pay only for infrastructure | Flat per account, tiered by number of calendars (1 / 6 / 36) | Per user (each host needs a seat) |
| Free option | Yes — but 1 active event type and 1 connected calendar only | Yes — 1 user, unlimited event types and calendars, payments included | No free plan — 7-day free trial | No free booking plan — free account covers meeting polls, calendar overlay and setup; links go live only on a paid plan |
| Paid plans from | Standard $10/seat/mo billed annually ($12 monthly) | Teams $12/user/mo billed annually | Starter $16/mo billed annually ($20 monthly), flat | Basic $10/user/mo billed annually ($12 monthly) |
| Multiple calendars checked | 1 on Free; up to 6 from Standard | Unlimited, including on Free | Priced by bookable calendars: 1 / up to 6 / up to 36 by plan | Unlimited connections on paid plans |
| Multiple booking / event types | 1 active on Free; unlimited from Standard | Unlimited, including on Free | Unlimited services and appointments on all plans | Unlimited links on paid plans |
| Round robin (team rotation) | Teams plan and up ($16/seat/mo annual) | Teams plan and up ($12/user/mo annual) | Not the model — each staff member has their own calendar instead | Included on Basic — the cheapest plan that has it here |
| Take payment at booking | Paid plans only (Stripe / PayPal) | Yes, even on Free (Stripe / PayPal) — processor fees still apply | Yes, on every plan (Stripe / Square / PayPal / Venmo) | Premium only ($17/user/mo annual), via Stripe |
| Trade-off to know | The free plan is a single-meeting tool; team features sit a tier above Standard | Free covers one user only; the self-host route shifts maintenance onto you | No free plan at all, and SMS reminders / packages start at Standard, not Starter | You pay from day one, and charging clients pushes you to Premium per user |
Prices are USD, before tax, as published by the vendors in November 2026. Calendly also sells "Plus" bundles (Standard Plus $18/seat/mo, Teams Plus $24/seat/mo, billed annually) that add an AI meeting notetaker and assistant; they don't change the scheduling limits above, so they are left out of the main table. Plans change — always confirm the current price and what's included on the vendor's site before you buy.
Per-seat pricing looks small until you multiply it. The table below is simple arithmetic on the published annual-billing prices above, for a team where five people each host bookings. It is the single most useful table on this page, because the ranking flips depending on headcount.
| Setup (5 hosts, annual billing) | Math | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Calendly Standard | $10/seat/mo × 5 seats × 12 months | $600 |
| Calendly Teams (if you need round robin) | $16/seat/mo × 5 seats × 12 months | $960 |
| Cal.com Teams | $12/user/mo × 5 users × 12 months | $720 |
| Acuity Standard (up to 6 calendars, flat) | $27/mo × 12 months | $324 |
| Acuity Premium (up to 36 calendars, flat) | $55/mo × 12 months | $660 |
| SavvyCal Basic | $120/user/year × 5 users | $600 |
| SavvyCal Premium (if you need payments at booking) | $200/user/year × 5 users | $1,000 |
Two patterns matter more than any single number. First, the cheapest tool changes with team size: solo, Cal.com's free plan and Calendly's free plan cost $0 while Acuity starts at $192/year — but at five hosts, flat-priced Acuity Standard ($324/year) undercuts every per-seat option. Second, one feature can move the whole team up a tier: needing round robin takes Calendly from $600 to $960 a year, and needing payments at booking takes SavvyCal from $600 to $1,000. Decide which features are non-negotiable before you compare prices, not after.
And if you charge at booking, the plan price is not the whole cost. Payment processors take their own cut on every booking — at Stripe's standard published rate of 2.9% + $0.30, a $100 consultation costs $3.20 in processing (an effective 3.2%), and a $50 session costs $1.75 (3.5%, because the fixed $0.30 weighs more on smaller tickets). A business taking twenty $100 bookings a month pays about $64/month — $768/year — in processing alone, on top of any plan. That fee applies whichever of these tools you pick; what differs is which plan tier unlocks payments in the first place.
Calendly is the tool most invitees already know, which is a real advantage for sales and consulting: nobody has to learn your booking page. The free plan is genuinely free forever, but narrow — one active event type, one connected calendar, one-on-one meetings only, and no payments or automated reminders. Standard ($10/seat/mo billed annually, $12 monthly) is where it becomes a working tool: unlimited event types, up to six connected calendars, group events, reminders, and payments via Stripe or PayPal. Teams ($16/seat/mo billed annually, $20 monthly) adds the features sales teams actually ask about — round robin distribution, routing forms that qualify and direct leads, and Salesforce integration. Every person who hosts needs a paid seat; invitees never do.
Cal.com's free plan is the outlier in this comparison: one user, but unlimited event types, unlimited calendar connections, 100+ app integrations — and Stripe / PayPal payments included at $0, which none of the other free options here match. Teams ($12/user/mo billed annually) adds what teams need: round robin, collective and managed links, routing forms, booking analytics and branding removal. Organizations ($28/user/mo billed annually) adds unlimited sub-teams, SAML SSO / SCIM and published SOC 2, HIPAA and ISO 27001 compliance. Cal.com is also built on an open-source codebase with a self-hosting option: the license itself costs nothing, but you pay for the server and for keeping it patched, updated and online — check the current license terms on the official project pages before building plans around it.
Acuity (part of Squarespace) prices differently from everything else here: one flat fee per account, tiered by how many bookable calendars you run — not by seats. Starter ($16/mo billed annually, $20 monthly) covers one calendar with payments and deposits via Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo, custom intake forms and email reminders included from the start. Standard ($27/mo billed annually, $34 monthly) covers up to six calendars and adds text-message reminders, a waitlist, and the ability to sell packages, memberships and gift certificates. Premium ($55/mo billed annually, $69 monthly) covers up to 36 calendars and adds an AI booking assistant, a HIPAA BAA, multiple staff time zones, API / CSS customization and removal of Acuity branding. There is no free plan — only a 7-day trial.
SavvyCal's signature idea is the calendar overlay: invitees can lay their own calendar over your availability and pick a time that works for both sides, instead of playing email tag. Basic ($10/user/mo billed annually, $12 monthly) includes unlimited links and calendar connections, meeting polls, workflows, the API — and, unusually, round robin and collective scheduling on the entry plan, where Calendly charges a tier more for it. Premium ($17/user/mo billed annually, $20 monthly) adds a custom domain, branding removal, sending from your own email domain, delegated access for an assistant, and taking payment via Stripe at booking. One catch to plan around: there is no free booking plan. A free account lets you connect calendars, build links and run polls, but your links only accept bookings once you pay; instead of a trial, SavvyCal offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
On per-seat tools you pay for everyone who hosts or sits in a round robin pool — invitees are free everywhere. Multiply the seat price by that host count and by 12 before comparing anything. If your "team" is really one host plus an assistant who books on their behalf, check delegated-access options instead of buying a second seat.
Name the one capability that would force an upgrade: a second event type (Calendly Free's ceiling), round robin (Calendly Teams, Cal.com Teams, SavvyCal Basic), payments at booking (Calendly paid, Cal.com Free, Acuity all plans, SavvyCal Premium), or packages and memberships (Acuity Standard). Price the tier that includes it — that is your real starting price.
Solo professionals booking calls: start with Cal.com Free or Calendly Free and pay only when a limit actually bites. Businesses that sell time — salons, clinics, coaches, studios — should start the comparison at Acuity, because flat per-account pricing and built-in packages usually beat per-seat math once several staff take bookings.
If clients pay when they book, add roughly 3% plus $0.30 per booking (Stripe's standard published rate) to every option — more on small tickets, where the fixed fee dominates. Then test with a real booking flow: Cal.com and Calendly have free tiers to run one through, Acuity has a 7-day trial, and SavvyCal's 30-day money-back guarantee is its trial.
On published specs, Cal.com's free plan is the only one here with unlimited event types, unlimited calendar connections and payments included — for one user. Calendly's free plan is fine if you truly have one meeting format and one calendar. SavvyCal's free account does not publish bookable links at all, and Acuity has no free plan, only a 7-day trial.
Because three of the four charge per host. Calendly Teams is $16 per seat per month on annual billing, so five hosts are $960 a year; SavvyCal Premium is $200 per user per year, so five hosts are $1,000. Acuity is the exception — its price follows calendar count (1 / 6 / 36), not headcount, which is why its five-person total above is $324.
Yes, but the plan gate differs. Cal.com includes Stripe / PayPal payments on its free plan. Calendly requires a paid plan. Acuity includes payments via Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo on every plan, including deposits and packages. SavvyCal restricts Stripe payments to Premium. In all cases the processor's own fee (for example Stripe's standard 2.9% + $0.30 in the US) comes out of each booking on top of your plan price.
The software license costs nothing, but running it is not $0: you pay for the server, backups and the time to patch, update and monitor it. For most small teams the hosted free plan (one user) or Teams at $12/user/mo billed annually is the cheaper option once you price your own maintenance honestly. Verify the current license terms on Cal.com's official pages before relying on self-hosting.
Maybe not. Google Workspace includes a basic appointment-scheduling feature, and if you only need one or two booking pages inside an organization that already pays for Workspace, that can be enough. These four earn their price when you need round robin across a sales team, routing forms, payments and packages at booking, or a booking page that works for clients outside your organization.
Because this guide is compiled from publicly available vendor information, not hands-on testing, and we don't present scores we didn't earn. Where a judgment appears — for example, that flat pricing beats per-seat pricing at five hosts — it is arithmetic on the published prices, and the math is printed next to it so you can check it yourself.