Free alternatives to Acuity Scheduling
Acuity has no free plan at all (as of July 2026), only a trial, so the day the trial ends you are paying $16 a month billed annually, or $20 if you pay month to month, before you take a single booking. Most people who go looking for alternatives are not unhappy with the software: packages, memberships, intake forms and staff calendars are genuinely good, and the per-business pricing beats per-seat tools once you have a few practitioners. They are unhappy that a one-chair salon or a solo coach pays the same entry price as a busy clinic, and that the product now sits inside Squarespace, sold as Squarespace Scheduling, which is a whole ecosystem to inherit if you only wanted a booking page.
Facts checked as of July 2026Read our Acuity Scheduling review
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Cal.com
Best Free Alternative ToAcuity SchedulingFree paid bookings for one practitioner, with no monthly floor
Cal.com is the most practical swap for a solo coach, therapist or consultant who was paying Acuity's $16 mostly to take money for appointments. The free plan covers one person with unlimited event types, unlimited connected calendars, 100+ integrations, and Stripe or PayPal payments, which is the feature that usually forces the upgrade elsewhere (as of July 2026). It is not a practice management system the way Acuity is, so treat it as the booking and payment half of the job rather than a like-for-like replacement.
- Free plan, paid from $12/month (as of July 2026)
- United States
- Open source (AGPL-3.0 (core), commercial license for the /ee enterprise directory)
United States- Best for:
- Solo practitioners who charge per session and do not sell packages
- The catch:
- The free plan is single-player, so the moment a second practitioner needs their own calendar you are on Teams at $12 per user per month.
Compared to Acuity Scheduling
- Advantage: A real free plan where Acuity offers only a trial
- Advantage: Stripe and PayPal payments included free, which Acuity charges from $16 for
- Advantage: Unlimited event types free, so intro calls and full sessions both fit
- Advantage: AGPLv3 core you can self-host; Acuity has no self-hosted option
- Tradeoff: No packages, memberships or gift certificates, which Acuity Growing covers at $27
- Tradeoff: Multiple staff cost $12 per user, while Acuity Growing covers up to 6 staff for $27 flat
Models services, providers and working plans, with no subscription at any size
This is the closest thing on the list to Acuity's actual shape. Easy!Appointments models a business rather than a calendar link: services with durations, providers who deliver them, a working plan per provider, and a customer database. It is GPL-3.0, free for commercial use, and takes no commission on bookings, so a six-room clinic costs the same as a one-person practice. Version 1.6.0 shipped in May 2026, so it is maintained rather than abandoned.
- Completely free (as of July 2026)
- Greece
- Open source (GPL-3.0)
Greece- Best for:
- Salons, clinics and studios with several staff who already have web hosting
- The catch:
- Free here means free if you can run Apache or Nginx, PHP 8.2 or newer, and MySQL, and keep backups, updates and TLS working yourself.
Compared to Acuity Scheduling
- Advantage: No monthly fee and no commission on appointments, ever
- Advantage: Handles multiple providers and service types natively, like Acuity does
- Advantage: Appointment records stay on your own server rather than with a vendor
- Tradeoff: No hosted edition, so there is no signup-and-go path Acuity gives you in minutes
- Tradeoff: Payment collection is rougher than Acuity's built-in flow, and there is no packages or memberships module
- Tradeoff: Dated interface and a short integration list next to Acuity's
Unlimited free bookings with a five-minute setup
Acuity's setup asks you to configure services, forms, calendars and payment settings before your first booking. Koalendar asks for a calendar and your working hours. The free plan allows unlimited bookings and unlimited scheduling links with two calendar syncs, Google Meet and website embeds (as of July 2026), which is enough for a small practice that just wants people booking slots without a monthly bill.
- Free plan, paid from $6.99/month (as of July 2026)
- France
France- Best for:
- Small service businesses who took payment in person anyway and want the booking page free
- The catch:
- Payments, SMS reminders and group sessions are all Pro at $6.99 per seat, and Koalendar counts a bookable room as a seat, so four rooms is $28 a month against Acuity Growing's $27 for up to six staff.
Compared to Acuity Scheduling
- Advantage: Free forever with unlimited bookings, where Acuity has no free tier
- Advantage: Live in about five minutes rather than an afternoon of configuration
- Advantage: Pro at $6.99 per seat undercuts Acuity's $16 entry for a single practitioner
- Tradeoff: No payments and no group or class sessions on the free plan
- Tradeoff: Two calendar syncs and Google Meet only, so Zoom users pay
- Tradeoff: Per-seat pricing counts rooms as seats, which flips the cost advantage against Acuity's flat business price
A booking page that looks designed, free, including paid bookings
Zcal is the option if the booking page is a client's first impression of your practice. The free plan gives you unlimited scheduling links, unlimited connected calendars, meeting polls, embeds and video integrations, and you can still charge for bookings without upgrading. The cost of that is a 3% platform fee on paid bookings on top of Stripe's own fees, so it is free in the sense that a commission is free.
- Free plan (as of July 2026)
- United States
- Best for:
- Coaches and consultants who care how the booking page looks and take a modest volume of paid sessions
- The catch:
- The 3% cut climbs with your revenue while a subscription stays flat, so a busy month can cost more than the Acuity plan you left.
Compared to Acuity Scheduling
- Advantage: Free plan takes paid bookings; Acuity requires a paid plan to do anything
- Advantage: Unlimited scheduling links and calendar connections at no cost
- Advantage: Meeting polls are built in, so group availability does not need a second tool
- Tradeoff: 3% platform fee on paid bookings, which Acuity does not charge
- Tradeoff: Team pages, round-robin and collective scheduling only on the paid Business plan
- Tradeoff: No packages, memberships or intake records tied to a client file
- Worth knowing: Zcal publishes plan prices only on its live pricing page, so check zcal.co/pricing before budgeting
One $29 payment instead of a monthly appointment-software bill
If your complaint about Acuity is the recurring charge rather than the features, TidyCal is the shortest exit. The free tier allows unlimited bookings and unlimited booking types with calendar sync, and the paid feature set unlocks with a single $29 lifetime purchase through AppSumo, listed against a $144 reference price. Be clear that this is cheap rather than free, and that it is a booking tool rather than practice software.
- Free plan, paid from $29 one-time (as of July 2026)
- United States
- Best for:
- Solo practitioners who want the booking link paid for once and then forgotten
- The catch:
- The $29 is an AppSumo promotion rather than a permanent price, and the free tier holds back custom domains, SMS reminders and most integrations.
Compared to Acuity Scheduling
- Advantage: A $29 one-time payment against Acuity's $16 every month
- Advantage: Free tier allows unlimited bookings and booking types, where Acuity has none
- Advantage: Agency lifetime at $79 covers multiple booking accounts
- Tradeoff: No SMS reminders on free, while Acuity puts text reminders on Growing at $27
- Tradeoff: Nothing resembling packages, memberships or staff calendars
- Tradeoff: Interface is functional rather than polished next to Acuity's
The polished meeting-link option, not a business booking system
Calendly belongs here only if you discovered you were paying Acuity for far more than you use. It is the best-integrated scheduler in this category and the booking experience is about as smooth as it gets, and its free plan exists, which Acuity's does not. It is also honestly the wrong tool for a salon or a clinic: there are no packages, no memberships, and no client intake records behind the link.
- Free plan, paid from $10/month (as of July 2026)
- United States
- Best for:
- Consultants who only ever needed people to book a call, not a practice to run
- The catch:
- The free plan is one event type and one connected calendar, and paid seats are $10 for Standard or $16 for Teams, so a multi-staff business quickly costs more than Acuity's flat business price.
Compared to Acuity Scheduling
- Advantage: There is a free plan at all, unlike Acuity's trial-only signup
- Advantage: Standard at $10 per seat is below Acuity's $16 entry for one person
- Advantage: Larger integration catalogue and a smoother booking flow
- Tradeoff: Free plan allows one event type and one calendar, which most service businesses exceed on day one
- Tradeoff: Per-seat pricing means 6 staff on Teams cost $96 against Acuity Growing's $27
- Tradeoff: No packages, memberships, gift certificates or HIPAA compliance options
How to choose
Start with whether you sell time in blocks. If you sell packages, memberships or gift certificates, nothing free on this list replaces Acuity Growing at $27, and you should be honest with yourself about that before you spend a weekend migrating. If you sell single appointments and take payment for them, Cal.com's free plan covers the whole job for nothing, including Stripe. If you run several practitioners or rooms and can host PHP, Easy!Appointments is the only option here that stays free as you add staff, since every hosted tool starts charging per seat at exactly the point Acuity's flat business price gets attractive. And if your booking flow is simpler than Acuity's setup implied, Koalendar or Zcal will have you live in an afternoon.