Calendly pricing plans review

Take a peek at any corporate calendar, and your head will probably spin from the number of meetings scheduled in a single day. A lot of us trudge through our days, bouncing between appointments, but not everyone is as efficient as an executive assistant when it comes to adding these appointments to their calendars.

Fortunately, tools like Calendly give us some much-needed administrative support. If you’re searching for the perfect scheduling tool and Calendly has caught your eye, you may hesitate to purchase a plan — especially since the monthly or yearly payments can take a bite out of your budget. So we’ve made it easy to check out all the pros and cons of each plan below — and we’ve included some tips on which Calendly pricing plan might work best for you.

Calendly Basic plan

The Calendly Basic plan is the cheapest of the three pricing tiers — it’s the only option that’s completely free (though you can try a Premium or Pro account free for 14 days). But the free plan, of course, is limited to the most basic features. You can connect just one calendar per user, and you can create only one type of event.

Event types are determined by the rules you put in place for certain types of meetings — for example, the duration, location, or time you’re available for that type of appointment. If you’re a recruiter, for example, you’d have a different event type for phone interviews than you would for department meetings.

The Basic plan doesn’t put restrictions on how many events you can schedule, though, and you can integrate popular videoconferencing tools like Zoom, GoToMeeting, and Microsoft Teams for free. However, if you’re planning on adding Calendly to your Salesforce workflow or using payment tools, this plan won’t work for you.

Overall, the Calendly Basic plan includes a decent amount of features for a free account. The plan would work best for users who aren’t planning to schedule large team meetings or don’t care to integrate with other tools or customize their Calendly experience. But the larger your team or client base, the more likely you’ll need to upgrade your Calendly plan.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the pros and cons of a Calendly Basic plan:

Pros

• Integrations with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GoToMeeting, and Intercom
• Ability to embed on your website or add via widget 
• Automated notifications for new meetings and cancellations
• Personalized scheduling link

Cons

• Doesn’t include Zapier, Salesforce, or payment app integrations
• No customization for website add-on option, invites, reminders/notifications
• Doesn’t include a “pooled availability” function for scheduling with multiple people or group events
• No reporting functions or Google Analytics integration

Calendly Premium plan

Calendly’s Premium plan is the mid-priced option and will set you back $8 per month, per user for the annual payment plan — or $10 if you choose monthly billing. If you were concerned with the lack of varying event types with the free plan, with Premium you’ll be able to create unlimited event types. For some, that alone is worth the price.

You’ll also get two calendars per user, so if you’re hoping to send invites from your personal and work calendars, you’ll need at least a Premium account. Metrics and reporting are also included with this plan, which can be useful for those who are scheduling large events and want to track leads.

The other main benefit with this level is the pooled availability option. When you’re meeting with teams of people — or planning to schedule a multi-person event — this will be essential.

With the Premium plan, integrations are available but only the ones you’ll find in the Zapier suite. Unfortunately, this doesn’t include common tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, and major payment apps.

Overall, this plan would work great for teams that plan to use Calendly just for scheduling group meetings. As an added bonus, you get a bit of customization when it comes to notifications and branding. However, you’ll probably need to upgrade if you’re hoping to integrate with more platforms or if you’re hosting large paid events.

Here are some benefits and drawbacks to the Calendly Premium plan:

Pros

• Pooled availability, group events, and unlimited event types
• Ability to remove Calendly branding from your invites
• Metrics to track leads and pull reports by event type, campaigns, and more
• Ability to connect with hundreds of apps through Zapier and build your own integrations by accessing the API

Cons

• No customization when adding Calendly to your site
• No access to HubSpot, Mailchimp, Salesforce, and payment applications
• Live chat customer support available only to accounts with over 10 users
• Doesn’t include automatic redirects after an invitee accepts your invitation

Calendly Pro plan

The Pro plan is the most comprehensive plan available. It will give you a ton of features for the price of $12 per user, per month (billed annually) or $15 for the monthly billing option. Here’s where Calendly supports all of the integrations, so if you need to add Salesforce or HubSpot into your workflow, the Pro plan is your only option.

Speaking of workflows, the Calendly workflow feature — which allows you to send automated messages to your attendees, including agendas, post-meeting notes, and follow-up messages — is included in the Pro plan. This can be a very attractive feature for teams that have trouble preparing for meetings or keeping their meetings organized.

If you’ve wanted full customization when adding Calendly to your website, this feature comes with the Pro plan. You can also enjoy SMS notifications as well as integration with Google Analytics, which will come in handy if the included metrics and reporting don’t quite fit the bill.

This plan is really the only option for big companies that want to use Calendly for large-scale events, as they’ll benefit from payment options and other essential platform integrations. However, if you’re fine just integrating with the apps on Zapier and you really only need unlimited event types, dual-calendar sync, and reporting, the Premium plan should suit you just fine.

Here are some of the pros and cons to consider before buying the Calendly Pro plan:

Pros

• All major integrations, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Google Analytics, Mailchimp, Stripe, PayPal, and more
• SMS notifications and invitee redirection
• Ability to add workflows (customizable automations for your meetings)
• Customization for your Calendly website add-on
• The only plan that allows for payments and certain essential integrations

Cons

• The highest price point
• Potentially more features than many users need
• Live chat only available with over 10 users on the account

Jotform as a Calendly alternative

If you’d rather consider some alternatives to Calendly, Jotform can be a great option. Scheduling appointments is easy with Jotform’s appointment field, which you can find in the Jotform Form Builder under Elements. You can let people choose what time works best for them from a preset schedule and even set parameters on how long or how often you’d like to meet.

Once you’ve scheduled your meetings, check them out in a convenient calendar view from Jotform Tables. Here you can see each appointment labeled with the name of the respondent and the appropriate date and time.

You can feel confident that you’re working with the most up-to-date schedule, as the table updates in real time. Plus, if you use G Suite, Jotform’s Google Calendar integration will sync your newly created appointments automatically.

Book photo created by rawpixel.com – www.freepik.com