Calendly vs Doodle

If your New Year’s resolution this year included improving your job performance or reducing stress at work, you’re in good company.

According to a recent survey, these two goals were among the eight most popular resolutions for 2021. What do they have in common? Well, you can achieve both of them by getting organized on the job, and that often starts with cleaning up your calendar.

Our calendars are the lifeblood of our day-to-day work. When it comes to using a tool for scheduling, we want to feel confident we won’t have double bookings, meetings scheduled in the wrong time zone, or any confusion about the details. That’s why it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of any scheduling tool and make sure the one you choose offers the best features for you.

Calendly and Doodle are two popular solutions that can get you on track with a no-hassle scheduling system, but which one will work best for your needs? We’ll break down their key features and pricing and consider who would benefit most from Calendly vs Doodle.

Overview and key features

Calendly

Though Calendly has only been around since 2013, the Atlanta-based company has built a name for itself in the scheduling sphere. Its main objective is helping people eliminate the back and forth that’s often inevitable when trying to find a time to meet.

Here are some of the key features Calendly offers:

• Four meeting types, including one-on-one, round robin, collective, and group
• Daily meeting limits, buffer time between meetings, and minimum scheduling notices
• Reporting capabilities that provide insights on your meeting attendees
• Custom integrations through the Calendly API
• Payment collection through PayPal, Stripe, and more

Doodle

Started in 2007 and headquartered in Zurich, Doodle boasts over 30 million monthly users. The way it works is simple: You share your calendar with someone, and they pick an available time to meet. 

Whether you’re hoping to schedule large events or small gatherings, Doodle offers the following key features:

• Collaborative scheduling capabilities
• Automated reminders and the ability to update guests from the Doodle dashboard
• Multiple calendars with adjustable settings based on business needs
• Auto-detected time zones to prevent scheduling mishaps
• Calendar sync with Google Calendar, Microsoft 365, and iCal
• Premium support and ongoing training sessions with an Enterprise account

Pricing

Both Calendly and Doodle offer a free 14-day trial of their premium plans. Neither requires a credit card to sign up for the trial, so you can feel secure that you won’t be charged until you’re ready to commit.

Calendly

Calendly’s pricing is broken down into three plans.

Basic

Even though the basic plan is free, it still offers a decent amount of features, including

• Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GoToMeeting, and Intercom integrations
• Personalized scheduling links
• Website embedding capabilities
• Automated new meeting and cancellation notifications

Cost: Free

Premium

A Calendly Premium plan provides the following features:

• Unlimited event types
• Custom-branded invites (with Calendly branding hidden)
• Integration capabilities to connect with hundreds of apps through Zapier and build your own integrations by accessing the API

Cost: $8 per user, per month when billed annually or $10 per user, per month for monthly billing

Pro

Pro accounts come with all the features of the Premium plan plus

• Calendly Workflows to automate meeting prep with agendas, goals, and follow-ups
• Integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Google Analytics, Mailchimp, Stripe, PayPal, and more
• Lead tracking through Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel
• SMS notifications and invitee redirection

Cost: $12 per user, per month with annual billing or $15 per user, per month with monthly billing.

Doodle

The first major difference between Calendly and Doodle is Doodle’s lack of a free plan. However, in lieu of a free plan, the platform offers a free basic tool that allows users to create a calendar of potential meeting times and share it with participants via a link. Through this link, your attendees can “vote” for a time slot that works best for them.

But if you want to connect to your existing calendar, you’ll need to set up a paid account. Here are the plan options.

Pro

The Doodle Pro plan includes the following features:

• Calendar integration with Google Calendar and iCal
• Direct scheduling within your Microsoft Outlook inbox
• Ability to manage bookings via Slack with Doodle Bot
• Zoom integration

• A booking page to manage appointments
• Custom logo and branding capabilities
• A personalized URL
• One-on-one meeting functionality

Cost: $6.95 per month for one user, paid annually

Team 

The Doodle Team plan includes all of the features of the Pro plan and increases the number of users to five.

Cost: $8.95 per user, per month, paid annually (maximum of five users)

Enterprise

Users of the Doodle Enterprise plan get the following additional features:

• Priority customer support with response times of six hours or less
• Ongoing training for your team with a Doodle success manager
• Single sign-on (SSO) to easily access Doodle with company credentials

Cost: Contact Doodle for pricing

Who benefits from each tool?

Calendly

For starters, anyone who wants to reap the benefits of a scheduling tool without having to pay a fee will find Calendly is a great choice. If you’d like a free account with ample features, you won’t get that from Doodle.

Calendly is also the better option for anyone who hosts large webinars and needs to collect payments through their invitations. Plus, the reporting features will definitely come in handy when you’re planning your next event and want to track metrics.

Though Calendly is a younger company, it seems to have an edge on Doodle when it comes to the features added over the years. Calendly will provide you with more options and integrations than Doodle, and you have the freedom to create your own integrations with Calendly’s API. If you want a scheduler that goes far beyond setting up meetings, Calendly is probably the tool for you.

Doodle

Doodle seems to be geared more toward larger meetings, especially if you’re using its free polling tool to choose a meeting time. One-on-one meeting setup is only available with the Pro account, so someone looking for the cheapest option for simple meet-ups probably won’t choose Doodle.

Large companies that may need additional customer support will benefit from Doodle’s top-notch onboarding and training sessions offered with Enterprise accounts.

Though Doodle offers its product globally, the company’s Swiss headquarters might make Doodle a more attractive option for European businesses based on name recognition.

Finally, Doodle is a great option if you’re an Outlook user and would benefit from scheduling meetings directly from your inbox or if you’d find a Doodle Bot on Slack particularly useful to keep your team up to date.

Using Jotform as an alternative

If you’ve made it this far and aren’t quite sure Calendly or Doodle will fit the bill, we have a solution. Jotform is the perfect tool for scheduling an appointment and organizing your calendar.

Start with any of Jotform’s customizable appointment forms that allow you to create meetings easily. Just have your guests choose their own time from a schedule you curate via the appointment field in the Form Builder. This ensures a convenient meeting time for both attendees.

When they submit the form, all the details of your upcoming meeting will be stored in your Jotform account, and you’ll get them via email. You won’t have to worry about double-booking; Jotform takes care of that by blocking off that meeting time for other appointments.

Another function that comes in handy when scheduling multiple appointments is the Calendar view in Jotform Tables. Let’s say you’re setting up tutoring sessions, and business is booming. You can view all of the sessions scheduled through your booking form in one easy-to-use calendar. Every appointment shown in the calendar includes the appointment time and the name of the form respondent.

With your forms and calendar all in one place, Jotform lets you save your time and energy for the actual meetings — not setting them up!