Massive pressure. Like a shaken-up soda bottle ready to burst.
Juggling a hundred different projects and tasks, all with due dates on top of each other.
Struggling to prioritize and complete everything on time to meet (or exceed) client expectations.
Sifting through emails and skipping across tools to nail down the next meeting, identify who’s doing what by when, and figure out what’s up next.
Not to mention those dreaded curveballs that disrupt the whole schedule, resulting in overtime for everyone.
Yet another raincheck on life outside of work.
Overcoming these challenges while avoiding teamwide burnout requires high efficiency.
Enter intelligent, automated scheduling software.
How do scheduling apps help keep everything running smoothly and on time, thus restoring valuable time and sanity? What’s the best schedule app for small business? Let’s find out.
What is a good scheduling tool?
Scheduling tools come in different forms:
- Calendar scheduling apps plan your projects, meetings, assignments, and errands.
- Appointment scheduling apps allow clients to book and manage their own appointments.
- Employee scheduling apps enable streamlined management of employee schedules and timesheets.
Some tools function as some or all of the above. The common denominator is that they facilitate effective time management by leveraging time-blocking and automating the scheduling process.
The best schedule app for you is the one that meets all your needs, increases your team’s productivity, and boosts efficiency while protecting work-life balance.
The best scheduling apps for 2023
This list details the top scheduling apps on the market — our pick for the best scheduling app for small businesses and its top contenders.
1. Motion
Best for: AI and automation-powered scheduling
Motion is a personal AI scheduling assistant. It creates and manages group and individual schedules, optimizing overall time spent on work and maximizing off hours.
It accounts for scheduling conflicts, missed tasks, and priority changes without adding time or work burden, thus preserving deadlines while respecting off-hours.
Key Features:
- Self-prioritizing and self-managing calendar
- AI Project Manager that weighs workloads, prioritizes tasks, adds tasks to each schedule, and issues deadline alerts
- Automated Daily Planner that builds customized, balanced daily schedules for each team member
- Individual and teamwide calendar views, with personal items hidden
- AI Meeting Scheduler with customizable availability settings and simplified self-service scheduling
- One-click Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams meeting launch
Pricing (billed annually):
- $19/month for individuals
- $12/month/user for teams
- Free 7-day trial; cancel anytime
Pros:
- Seamless integration of personal and work schedules
- Customizable, automated scheduling and prioritizing of daily tasks, meetings, and personal events
- Customizable meeting templates and daily meeting limits
- Real-time calendar sync with Office 365 and Google Calendar integrations
Cons:
- No employee scheduling or time clock features
- No point of sale (POS) features
- No resource management
2. Acuity Scheduling
Best for: simple, straightforward appointment scheduling
Acuity Scheduling is a no-frills, basic appointment scheduling app.
Key Features:
- Customizable online calendar that updates in real-time with booked appointments and availability changes
- Self-scheduling and appointment management
- Schedule management for multiple locations and different employees or colleagues
- Automated confirmations, reminders, and follow-ups via email and text
- New booking notifications
- Unlimited appointments and services
- Integrations that facilitate virtual appointments, email blasts, calendar syncing, and appointment analytics
Pricing (billed annually):
- $16/month Emerging plan
- $27/month Growing plan
- $49/month Powerhouse plan
- 7-day free trial of any plan, no credit card required
Pros:
- Schedule management for up to 36 locations/employees
- Advanced scheduling features included in all plans
- Real-time calendar sync with iCloud, Outlook, Exchange, Office 365, and Google Calendar integrations
- Appointment scheduling via website, social media, or email
Cons:
- No employee, resource, or project management features
- No free plan
3. Square Appointments
Best for: appointment scheduling enhanced by POS and e-commerce features
Square Appointments is an all-in-one appointment scheduling software. It offers online booking, POS, CRM, employee management, and retail management solutions.
Key Features:
- Customizable online booking site for clients to self-schedule
- Scheduling for multiple staff members from one booking page
- Customizable single or recurring class booking features
- Resource booking
- Automated email and SMS reminders
- Booking widget to embed your scheduling calendar into your website
- Google Calendar sync
- Square Assistant that automatically confirms, reschedules, and cancels appointments
- Team and client management tools
- Dozens of app integrations, including Reserve with Google
Pricing:
- Free plan, plus processing rate per transaction
- $29/month/location Plus plan, plus processing rate per transaction
- $69/month/location Premium plan, plus processing rate per transaction
- Contact for custom plan pricing if making over $250K/year
- 30-day free trial
Pros:
- Automation of many administrative tasks and business processes
- Cancellation and no-show fee policy enforcement through payment processing integrations
- Employees can view and manage their individual calendars
- Wide array of advanced features
Cons:
- Resource scheduling with the Premium plan only
- No task management features
- Only syncs with one calendar app
- One of the priciest options
4. Setmore
Best for: mobile devices and scheduling on a budget
Setmore is a highly affordable online appointment scheduling tool loaded with features.
Key Features:
- Shareable, customizable booking page that updates in real-time
- 24/7 self-booking of solo and group appointments
- Recurring appointments
- Website plugin to embed booking calendar
- Automated appointment confirmations
- Personalized text and email reminders
- Staff accounts for each team member to manage their own schedule
- One-click Zoom, Teleport, or Google Meet meeting launch attached to appointments
- Real-time calendar sync with Office 365 and Google Calendar integrations
- Free booking QR code to print on marketing materials and merchandise
Pricing (billed annually):
- Free plan for up to four users
- $5/user/month for the Pro and Team plans
- Contact for Enterprise pricing
- 30-day refundable risk-free trial of Pro or Team plans; cancel anytime
Pros:
- Booking via your website, social media, or QR code
- Feature-rich for the budget-friendly pricing
Cons:
- Two-user maximum for the Pro plan
- No resource or task management features
5. Appointy
Best for: scheduling people, events, and resources
Appointy is an online booking tool for appointments, events, and groups.
Key Features:
- “Booking” tab for scheduling appointments from your Facebook page
- Website widget for embedding booking schedule
- Free subdomain for creating a booking page
- Recurrent and back-to-back service booking
- Customizable business hours by staff and by service
- Staff access to their own appointment schedules and registrations
- Business analytics tools
- Automatic reminders via email and text
- Google Calendar sync
- Payment processing integrations for collecting deposits at time of booking
- Resource scheduling
Pricing (billed annually):
- Free plan for one employee and up to five services
- $19.99/month Growth plan, includes one employee (add more for $5/month/staff)
- $49.99/month Professional plan, includes five employees (add more for $7.50/month/staff)
- $79.99/month Enterprise plan, includes two locations and five employees per location (add staff for $7.50/month/staff and locations for $29.99/month/location)
- 14-day free trial of a full-featured unlimited plan — no credit card required
Pros:
- Reserve with Google integration
- Management of multiple location schedules and employee schedules
- Individual, group, and virtual appointment booking
- Activity and event scheduling
Cons:
- Pricier team options
- Only syncs with one calendar app
- No task management features
6. Doodle
Best for: coordinating meeting times for multiple teams and conflicting schedules
Doodle helps coordinate schedules for virtually every meeting type, including client calls, team meetings, board meetings, interviews, and faculty office hours.
Key Features:
- App integrations, including Google Calendar and Office 365
- Customizable self-booking pages by appointment type
- Booking limits, buffer times, and custom question fields
- Shareable scheduling link via email or Slack
- Sync personal and colleague calendars with booking pages
- Group polling with deadline reminders, response tracking, and automated email invites with meeting details
- Automated reminders
- Video conference links via Zoom, Google Meet, Webex, and Microsoft Teams integration
- Booking reports
Pricing (billed annually):
- Free plan for one user
- $6.95/user/month Pro plan (1–4 users)
- $8.95/user/month Team plan (5–20 users)
- Contact for Enterprise pricing for over 20 users
Pros:
- Unlimited group polling
- Robust plans at affordable prices
- Comprehensive schedule coordination features
Cons:
- No recurring appointments
- No task or employee management features
- No resource scheduling
7. 10to8
Best for: scheduling visibility for appointments and meetings
The 10to8 scheduling app includes attendance tracking and scheduling analytics features.
Key Features:
- Self-booking by available dates, times, locations, staff, and services
- Syncing of individual staff and team schedules to show joint availability
- One dashboard for managing different rooms, locations, staff members, services, and integrations
- Real-time calendar sync with Office 365 and Google Calendar integrations
- Personalized appointment reminders via automated email, text, voice, and WhatsApp
- Payment processing integrations with Stripe and PayPal for accepting online payments during scheduling
- Custom real-time reports
- Message-open tracking to ensure receipt of appointment confirmations
- Group and individual bookings
- Virtual meetings via Zoom and Microsoft Teams
Pricing (billed annually):
- Free plan for one seat and ten appointments/month
- $7.20/seat/month Pro plan for 40 appointments/month
- $19/sea/month Premium plan for 100 appointments/month
- Contact for Enterprise pricing
- 14-day free trial, no credit card required
Pros:
- Multi-site booking
- Unlimited service offerings
- Over 5,000 integrations
- Visibility of schedules, locations, staff, services, and appointment trends
Cons:
- No project, employee, or equipment management features
- Monthly appointment limits
How to choose the best scheduling app
Considerations when choosing a scheduling tool include:
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- Needs: adapts to the industry you serve, the services you offer, the way you work, the tools you currently use, the size of your team, and how you interact with them and clients
- Usability: easy for you, colleagues, staff, and clients to set up and use
- Budget: falls within your budget and offers a high ROI
- Flexibility and scalability: can handle any scheduling demands you throw at it both now and as your business grows
Ready to try the best schedule app for small business?
Manual scheduling is bogging you and your team down. Break free by using a quality schedule-building app like Motion to bring your workload under control with the power of automation and AI technology.
Hit every deadline.
Boost output.
Maintain clarity.
Reclaim your personal time and work-life balance.
Try Motion for yourself today with a 7-day free trial. Tackle this upcoming work week, then enjoy your well-earned days off!
