6 Best Scheduling Software for Sales in 2020

Scheduling software lets you share your calendar with potential clients to make scheduling meetings easier. It helps sales reps become more efficient by automating the meeting scheduling process. Scheduling meetings with prospects and customers manually can be a cumbersome and time-consuming process. Fortunately, we have identified the six best scheduling apps that streamline appointment scheduling.

Top 6 Scheduling Software 2020

How We Evaluated Scheduling Apps

Scheduling apps are a key tool for account management and growth as they make it simple for sales representatives, prospects, and customers to easily plan meetings with one another. They also reduce the back and forth of email exchanges around finding a mutually convenient time. We evaluated each scheduling app based on a broad range of features, such as pricing, user experience, customer support, and integrations.

Based on the needs/wants of the reader, the criteria we used to evaluate the best include:

• Ease of use: Good scheduling software should be easy to set up and use, even for people who aren’t tech-savvy, creating an intuitive process for scheduling appointments.
• Pricing: The best scheduling apps for affordable for small businesses, even if they have a limited budget.
• Customer support: We evaluated the level of customer support each scheduling software company offers.
• Mobile app: A great scheduling app should offer a robust mobile app that makes it easy to schedule meetings on the go.
• Integrations: We looked at what types of integrations each scheduling software tool offered with other programs that many small businesses use daily.
• Types of meetings: A good scheduling app should offer a range of different types of meetings you can schedule based on the nature of the meeting and how many people are attending.
• Meeting notifications: Knowing that a potential client is essential, scheduling software should send automatic reminders and notifications to meeting attendees to increase attendance and reduce no-shows.
• Brand customization: Many scheduling programs will allow teams to put their branding and logo onto their scheduling app.
• Reporting and metrics: We looked to see if each scheduling app offer engagement metrics and track scheduling activity.

Based on the criteria above, we believe that Calendy is the best option. It offers sales teams the ability to schedule multiple types of meetings, makes it simple to connect to their calendar, and is easy for prospects to choose meeting times. It’s also includes reporting, time zone detection, and is affordable, with plans ranging from free to $15 per user, per month.

Calendly: Best Overall Scheduling Software for Scheduling Demos and Follow-up Calls

Calendly is scheduling software that makes it easy for sales reps and customers to schedule meetings. It offers an array of meeting types, gives you the ability to manage more than one calendar, and even allows you to set buffer time in between meetings to manage your time. It’s affordable, with plans ranging from free to $15 per user, per month. Its ease of use makes it best for those who need a solution that doesn’t require a lot of set up or technical knowledge.

Calendly Pricing

Calendly offers a free version for one calendar, which makes it great for small teams and solopreneurs. Its most expensive plan is $15 per user, per month, which may be more expensive than a no-frills product, but it offers a plethora of helpful integrations that make it even more powerful.

Calendly Tiered Features

Basic Plan

With the free basic plan, you can manage one calendar, add your Calendly link to your website, and access the knowledge base. You also have a custom Calendly link you can use anywhere to allow people to schedule a time to meet with you with a click rather than waste time with back-to-back email messages.

The Basic plan is great for small teams or solopreneurs looking to make account management and overall outreach more efficient. If you don’t need to manage multiple calendars or have more than one meeting type, it’s a terrific option for those with a limited budget. However, if you need more advanced features or reporting, you should choose a paid plan.

Premium Plan

The Premium plan adds on some valuable features for a moderate price point of $10 per user, per month, which is comparable to x.ai and NeedtoMeet. You can manage two calendars per user and remove the Calendly branding on your Calendly page to add your own logo. It also allows you to use Zoom, GoToMeeting, and more than 700 Zapier integrations as well as send custom email and text reminders to meeting participants.

This is an excellent plan for sales teams that want to manage more than one calendar and have access to several meeting types, such as duration of meetings and group meetings. The Premium plan also offers live chat, reporting, and engagement metrics. However, if you need a payment integration, you should consider the Pro plan or Square appointments.

Pro Plan

At an affordable $15 per user, per month, the Pro plan offers advanced features for those looking for a comprehensive scheduling app. For example, each user can manage up to six calendars, and it includes payment options for clients via Stripe and PayPal while Square Appointments has a built-in payment feature.

The Pro plan offers everything the Premium plan does. For an extra $5 per user, per month, it adds on the ability to manage up to six calendars per user and an integrated payment solution, making it best for larger teams who need to manage multiple calendars and need a built-in payment option.

What Calendly Is Missing

Calendly doesn’t offer live chat for the free version or more than one type of meeting on the free version. Only the Pro plan offers a payment integration, unlike Square Appointments, which allows you to pay for that feature a la carte on the free version.

What Users Think About Calendly

Users like that Calendly is easy to use for sales reps and clients and the meeting types you can set up. They also like that it’s easy to embed on your website and the automated email reminders. Some users said they don’t like that the free plan only offers one meeting type, especially since you can’t change the duration of the meeting. It was also noted that users wished there was telephone support.

Square Appointments: Best Scheduling Software With Built-In Payments

Square Appointments is scheduling software that is part of the Square family of services. It’s free for one person and offers paid plans from $50 to $90 per month plans for teams based on the number of employees you have. There is also a small cost of 2.5-2.6% + 10 cents every time a customer pays for your services using the payment feature. It’s best for teams who want a built-in payment feature.

Square Appointments Pricing

There’s a free plan for one user, but if a customer uses the built-in Square payment platform, there’s a 2.6% + 10 cent charge per transaction. For two to five employees, you’ll pay $50 per month. For six to 10 employees, the cost is $90 per month, plus a 2.65% + 10 cent charge per transaction.

Square Appointment Features

Square offers an array of features that make it a great appointment scheduling app with a built-in payment option. Employees can set their schedules on any synced device, send automated email and text reminders, and market every type of service they offer easily, whether it’s a consultation, product demo, or follow-up meeting. However, it doesn’t offer a free version for more than one user, so if you don’t need built-in payments, you consider Calendly.

Online Booking

Customers can book different types of appointments with you easily on your online booking website or booking links on Google and Instagram, even on the free plan, which isn’t offered with Calendly. You can also set your working hours and choose to accept appointments on any device automatically or manually.

Automatic Email & Text Reminders

You can set up automatic notices that will send reminders to prospects and allow them to make changes without having to send out manual reminder emails or texts. Every sales rep knows what a waste of time it is to deal with no shows after they book a demo with you. You’ve spent time researching their needs, and you might never get to meet with them. With Square Appointments, the process is automated so that nothing falls through the cracks.

Built-in Payments

You can accept payments right within the app after they decide to make a purchasing decision. There’s no back and forth of emailing invoices, sending checks, or keeping track of payments. It’s all done right within the Square Appointment app. Customers can even allow you to store their payment information for future use.

Customer Management

Once you’ve worked with a new customer, Square Appointments automatically creates a customer profile and saves their information. You can view their last appointment and add custom notes to develop a robust relationship with each client.

What Square Appointments Is Missing

Square Appointments doesn’t offer a free plan for more than one user, so if your budget is limited and you want a team plan, consider Calendly. It also doesn’t have a live chat support feature or a telephone number for support listed on its support page.

What Users Think About Square Appointments

Users like that the interface is intuitive and offers built-in payment processing. They also like that it can integrate with Square’s other services like email marketing, employee benefits, and payroll. Some people said the pricing was too high for teams with more than one person, and the booking features could be more flexible.

x.ai: Best Scheduling Software With AI Scheduling

x.ai is scheduling software that uses Amy and Andrew, virtual assistants powered by artificial intelligence (AI), to schedule an array of different meetings for you. Amy or Andrew simply connects your calendar and simply schedules meetings for you and your customers and clients. It offers plans ranging from free to $12 per user, per month, making it a great choice for those who want an affordable option with AI features.

x.ai Pricing

x.ai has three pricing tiers. It offers a free plan, an individual plan for $8 per month for one user with advanced features, and a team plan for $12 per user, per month. The team plan is best suited for teams who want features like conference room booking and team dashboards.

x.ai Tiered Features

Free Plan

With the free plan, you can connect one calendar and have Amy or Andrew schedule meetings for you. If your client or customer also has x.ai, it can even schedule instant meetings, which is a feature we didn’t see in any other app. You can send meeting invites via URL, have Amy or Andrew send available times and schedule the meeting automatically, or even set up a meeting via Slack.

Unlike Calendly’s free plan, x.ai offers unlimited meeting types in its basic plan. It’s a great choice for solopreneurs who want a scheduling app with AI features and the ability to choose from different meeting types and lengths.

Individual Plan

The individual plan is made for a person that wants advanced features. You can connect unlimited calendars, create customized email signatures, and connect to hundreds of other services with a Zapier connection.

This plan also offers an advanced Zoom integration, so you can instantly create a Zoom link for each meeting scheduled. There’s even a “designated VIP” setting that prevents meetings getting scheduled with people who aren’t on your VIP list for periods of time. It’s an excellent choice for solopreneurs who use Zoom and want AI scheduling software with advanced features for an affordable price.

Team Plan

The team plan is for small businesses who need to add more than one user. At $12 per user, per month, it’s priced very competitively. It adds on features such as conference room booking, admin controls, and a team dashboard so that you can monitor activity, time saved, and your return on investment (ROI).

This plan also allows you to add the virtual assistants to your company domain, so it looks like Amy and Andrew (amy@fitsmallbusiness.com, andrew@fitsmallbusiness.com) are real assistants at your organization, which we didn’t see in any other scheduling app. This plan is best for growing businesses who want a scheduling app with AI features with multiple team members and customizable admin controls.

What x.ai Is Missing

While this is the only scheduling app we reviewed that offers AI, it doesn’t have a payment option like Square Appointments or Zoom. There are a knowledge base and live chat on the app, but we didn’t find a support phone number users could call.

What Users Think About x.ai

Users say they like that x.ai is easy to use, and its customer support team is responsive. People also commented that it’s very affordable. Some users said they experienced some problems with the AI assistant and that it can be difficult to coordinate meetings with large groups.

Assistant.to: Best Scheduling Software for G Suite Users

Assistant.to is a free, simple scheduling software with no paid tiers that integrates right into your Gmail inbox via a Chrome extension. With the Gmail tool, you just choose times that you can meet, and it will insert it right into your email. It’s best for small teams and solopreneurs who use Google Suite and want a free, easy-to-use scheduling app.

Assistant.to Pricing

Assistant.to is free for everyone. Unlike the other options we reviewed, it doesn’t offer advanced features or plans that users have to subscribe to. However, it’s a free-forever, simple choice for teams and individuals who don’t need advanced options.

Assistant.to Features

Assistant.to is a basic scheduling Chrome extension that makes it easy for Gmail users to schedule meetings. It doesn’t offer branding, group scheduling, or payment options. It does offer time zone management, email notifications and reminders, and rebooking option.

Meeting Scheduler

You can choose up to five days of availability and pick time slots to insert right into your email within the app. When the recipient of your email chooses a time, it is put into both of your calendars automatically, regardless of whether your client uses Gmail or another email client.

Email Notifications

Send an email with Assistant.to, and you’ll be notified when your recipient chooses a time, denies your request, or changes the details. The recipient will get an email notification about your meeting and a reminder beforehand. There’s a convenient rescheduling link in the email that allows both you or the client to reschedule your meeting time. However, you can’t send text reminders like you can with Square Appointments or custom reminders like Calendly can.

Time Zone Detection

Like most of the other scheduling software we reviewed, Assistant.to detects the time zone of your email recipient automatically. It will account for time zone discrepancies and make sure you both you and your customer have the correct meeting time on your calendar.

Key Integrations

Assistant.to offers integrations with several types of meeting software. It supports popular software such as GoToMeeting, UberConference, WebEx, Join.me, and ReadyTalk. However, it doesn’t support popular meeting software such as Zoom like Calendly and x.ai do.

What Assistant.to Is Missing

While Assistant.to is free for all users, it lacks advanced features many of the paid plans offer. You can’t schedule meetings with more than one person, and you have to use Gmail to use the app. There also doesn’t appear to be a knowledge base or customer support other than a “Contact Us” form on the website and a frequently asked questions (FAQs) page.

What Users Think About Assistant.to

Users say the extension is easy to use, saves time, and love that it’s free. Some users say they wish you could schedule group meetings, which is a feature that Assistant.to is currently developing.

NeedtoMeet: Best Scheduling Software With Polling for Larger Groups

NeedtoMeet is scheduling software that makes it easy to schedule meeting times with multiple people. Like Assistant.to, it offers a free version, but it gives you the ability to poll several people to find a mutually convenient meeting time, which Assistant.to does not. It also offers paid plans ranging from $12 to $19 per user, per month. It’s great for teams with a limited budget that want an easy, simple way to schedule group meetings.

NeedtoMeet Pricing

NeedtoMeet offers a free plan and paid plans that are comparable to other scheduling apps we reviewed. The free plan includes polling, a custom URL, and a visual calendar interface. The Advanced plan costs $12 per user, per month, and the Premium plan costs $19 per user, per month.

NeedtoMeet Tiered Features

Standard Plan

With the standard plan, you can schedule meetings by polling up to four people to find the best time for everyone. You can also create a custom URL to invite meeting attendees and use its visual calendar interface.

Meeting attendees and the organizer will receive email notifications when a meeting time is chosen. NeedtoMeet also allows users to plan meetings on the go, whether they are on a computer or by using the mobile app. It’s best for teams that want a free plan that allows them to find the best meeting time for a group of people.

Advanced Plan

The Advanced plan costs $12 per user, per month and adds on features such as unlimited time slots, so you can offer meeting participants more meeting times to choose from, where the Standard plan only offers three time slots. This plan also allows unlimited attendees, compared to the Standard plan limit of four.

The Advanced plan also lets meeting attendees leave comments on the invitation poll and offers a personal meeting dashboard so you can view past and upcoming group meetings. It also offers privacy features that prevent other users from viewing your schedule. It’s best for teams that want to find a meeting time on everyone’s calendar easily with unlimited time slot choices.

Premium Plan

The Premium plan costs $19 per user, per month, and expands on the Advanced version by adding a Microsoft Outlook integration that makes it easy for Outlook users to plan meetings without leaving their inbox. It also offers the ability to share your entire NeedtoMeet schedule with certain people.

This plan also gives organizers the ability to create a personal calendar URL, so they can publish their calendar on the web to share with anyone. Users can put that URL in their email signature, so customers and clients have instant access to your availability. It’s best for sales teams who use Outlook and want the ability to publish their calendar in real-time publicly.

What NeedtoMeet Is Missing

Need to Meet does not offer any integrations with web conferencing providers, which is a feature of Calendly and Assistant.to. It also does not appear to offer customer support outside of their published email address and doesn’t have a knowledge base besides an FAQs page.

What Users Think About NeedtoMeet

Users say they like that it’s easy to poll multiple people and simple to set up. They also like the ability to add the Outlook integration. Some people said they would appreciate more customer support, and the Outlook integration was somewhat difficult to set up.

10to8: Best Scheduling Software for Reducing No Shows

10to8 is scheduling software that offers a free plan and paid plans from $12 to $50 per month that makes it easy for sales reps to confirm meetings and reduce no shows, especially when working with cold prospects. It does this by sending short message service (SMS) and email notifications after a meeting is scheduled, and the app will let know if the prospect has read your message. That way, you know if you need to follow up, making it great for startups and teams scheduling demos.

10to8 Pricing

10to8 pricing is competitive with the other scheduling apps we reviewed. It offers a free basic plan for up to two users, which offers SMS notifications, which we did not see in any other free plans. Plan plans range from $12 for two users, $25 for three users, and $50 for six users per month.

10to8 Tiered Features

Small Business Plan

The standard plan is 10to8’s free version that offers meeting scheduling well-suited for sales teams who are scheduling demos. It offers a unique two-way text messaging feature that makes it easy to confirm or change appointments times. It also has an online live chat support widget.

We didn’t see a messaging feature like this on any other free plan. It’s ideal for sales teams who are pitching new prospects to build rapport with a potential client before their first meeting. However, the free plan only offers 100 meetings per month for two users, whereas Calendly offers unlimited meetings for an unlimited number of users.

Basic Plan

The Basic plan costs $12 for two users per month. It offers the same features as the free small business plan, such as SMS notifications and 100 appointments per month, except for offering custom branding for the software to match the website.

The Basic plan is competitively priced at $12 for two users, making it a good choice for the same teams who would opt for the small business plan but want custom branding at an affordable price point.

Grow Plan

The Grow plan costs $25 for three users per month and includes up to 300 meetings per month. It also adds phone support to customer support options.

This is a good choice for medium-sized teams that want to schedule more than 100 meetings per month and need more than two logins. At $25 per month, it’s a great value compared to other scheduling options we reviewed since it includes up to three users rather than being priced per user.

Bigger Business Plan

The Bigger Business plan costs $50 for up to six users per month and includes up to 600 meetings per month. For companies who need to be Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant, it offers secure HIPAA tools that allow you to securely collect customer Social Security numbers, remove personal client information in SMS and email messages, and set a HIPAA privacy policy.

This plan is a great option for growing teams that need to accommodate more users and need to schedule up to 600 meetings per month. It’s also suitable for any type of business in fields that need to protect client data under HIPAA laws, which we didn’t find in any other scheduling software we reviewed.

What 10to8 Is Missing

10to8 has a robust feature set, and its website mentions several integrations such as payment options and web conferencing software integrations, but it doesn’t tell you what is offered on which plans, making it confusing for potential customers. It also doesn’t offer more than six logins, which makes it a tough choice for larger teams that want individual logins.

What Users Think About 10to8

Users say they like the price and that the company offers great customer service, and that the software is simple to set up and use. Some users said customers had a hard time rescheduling their appointment, and the interface could be more intuitive. To read in-depth user reviews, visit our 10to8 reviews page.

Bottom Line

Scheduling software helps sales professionals manage their sales appointments, save time, and develop robust relationships with clients and prospects. Furthermore, it automates the process of reminding meeting attendees of when they are meeting with you so you can focus on building your business and providing excellent customer service.

Overall, we recommend Calendly as the best scheduling software for small businesses. It offers an intuitive user experience, unlimited meetings, a range of plans to suit the needs of any business, excellent customer support, and more. Visit their website to sign up for a free account or a free 14-day trial of any paid plan today.

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