Free alternatives to Zcal
Zcal's free plan is one of the most generous in scheduling, but two things push people to look elsewhere. If you charge for bookings, Zcal takes a 3% platform fee on top of Stripe's own cut (as of July 2026), and that fee climbs with your revenue while a flat subscription does not. Zcal is also cloud-only, so there is no self-hosting and no open source core if you want to own your data. And team features like round-robin sit on the paid Business plan, so the free tier is single-player.
Facts checked as of July 2026Read our Zcal review
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Cal.com
Best Free Alternative ToZcalFree Stripe payments with no platform fee, plus self-hosting
Cal.com fixes the two things Zcal's free plan holds against you: the payment fee and the lack of ownership. Its free plan takes Stripe and PayPal payments with no platform cut of its own (as of July 2026), only Stripe's fee, and it covers unlimited event types and unlimited calendars for one person. The AGPLv3 core means you can self-host and leave the cloud entirely, which Zcal cannot offer. It has 100+ integrations against Zcal's smaller catalogue.
- 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 users who take paid bookings and object to a 3% platform cut
- The catch:
- The free plan is single-user, so team features need $12 per user, and the booking page is plainer than Zcal's designed pages.
Compared to Zcal
- Advantage: No 3% platform fee on paid bookings; only Stripe's own cut applies
- Advantage: Unlimited event types and calendars free, like Zcal
- Advantage: Open source AGPLv3 core you can self-host, which Zcal cannot
- Advantage: 100+ integrations against Zcal's smaller catalogue
- Tradeoff: Single-user free, and team features need $12 per user like Zcal's paid Business plan
- Tradeoff: Denser interface, and the booking page is plainer than Zcal's designed pages
A simpler booking flow with unlimited free bookings
Koalendar is the lighter option if Zcal's feature set was more than you needed. Its free plan allows unlimited bookings and unlimited scheduling links (as of July 2026) with almost nothing to configure. There is no 3% fee to worry about because the free plan simply has no payments, and Pro is a low $6.99 per seat if you outgrow it. The trade is a shorter feature list and no meeting polls.
- Free plan, paid from $6.99/month (as of July 2026)
- France
France- Best for:
- People who wanted a simple free booking link and never used Zcal's polls or payments
- The catch:
- Two calendar syncs and Google Meet only on free, no meeting polls, and a seat counts a bookable room.
Compared to Zcal
- Advantage: Unlimited free bookings with almost nothing to configure
- Advantage: No platform-fee model, since the free plan has no payments
- Advantage: Pro is a low $6.99 per seat if you outgrow free
- Tradeoff: Two calendar syncs on free, where Zcal allows unlimited
- Tradeoff: No meeting polls, which Zcal includes free
- Tradeoff: Google Meet only and a short integration list
The deepest integrations and no cut on paid bookings
Calendly takes no platform fee on bookings, which is the main thing a Zcal user paying the 3% cut wants to hear. Its integration catalogue is larger and more mature than Zcal's, and the booking flow is about as smooth as scheduling gets. The catch is its free plan: one event type and one connected calendar (as of July 2026), far tighter than Zcal's unlimited links.
- Free plan, paid from $10/month (as of July 2026)
- United States
- Best for:
- People who take enough paid bookings that Zcal's 3% fee outruns a flat subscription
- The catch:
- The free plan is one event type and one calendar, paid seats are $10 to $16, and branding removal is paid like Zcal's.
Compared to Zcal
- Advantage: Takes no platform fee on bookings, unlike Zcal's 3%
- Advantage: Larger and more mature integration catalogue
- Advantage: Smoothest booking experience for the person booking
- Tradeoff: Free plan is one event type and one calendar, tighter than Zcal's unlimited links
- Tradeoff: Paid seats $10 to $16, and branding removal is paid like Zcal's
- Tradeoff: No self-hosting or open source core, same as Zcal
No commission on bookings, ever, because you host it
Easy!Appointments answers both of Zcal's frustrations at once: it takes no commission on bookings and it is yours to host. It is GPL-3.0, free for commercial use, and models services, providers, and working plans for a real service business. Version 1.6.0 shipped in May 2026. The price is running it: Apache or Nginx, PHP 8.2 or newer, and MySQL, plus your own updates and backups.
- Completely free (as of July 2026)
- Greece
- Open source (GPL-3.0)
Greece- Best for:
- Service businesses that resent a booking commission and can host PHP themselves
- The catch:
- You run the server yourself, there are no meeting polls, and the interface looks older than Zcal's.
Compared to Zcal
- Advantage: Takes no commission at all, where Zcal takes 3% on paid bookings
- Advantage: Self-hosted and open source, which Zcal is not
- Advantage: Models services and providers for multi-staff businesses
- Tradeoff: You run PHP 8.2 and MySQL, where Zcal is hosted for you
- Tradeoff: No meeting polls and a dated interface
- Tradeoff: No signup-and-go path
A $29 one-time deal instead of a fee on every paid booking
TidyCal replaces both a subscription and a per-booking cut with a single $29 lifetime purchase on AppSumo (listed against a $144 reference price, as of July 2026). Its free tier allows unlimited bookings and booking types, and there is no 3% fee on top. The trade against Zcal is design: TidyCal's booking pages look functional where Zcal's look designed, and its free tier holds back custom domains, SMS and most integrations.
- Free plan, paid from $29 one-time (as of July 2026)
- United States
- Best for:
- People who take paid bookings and would rather buy once than pay a per-booking fee
- The catch:
- The $29 is an AppSumo promotion rather than a permanent price, and the free tier is thinner than Zcal's.
Compared to Zcal
- Advantage: One-time $29 lifetime option replaces recurring costs and the 3% cut
- Advantage: Free tier allows unlimited bookings and booking types
- Tradeoff: Free tier holds back custom domains, SMS and most integrations Zcal includes free
- Tradeoff: Booking pages look plainer than Zcal's designed pages
- Worth knowing: Lifetime pricing lives on AppSumo, so availability can change
Self-hosted group polls, on your own server
Zcal already has meeting polls, so Rallly earns its place only on one point: you can run it yourself. It is a free, AGPLv3 group polling tool that self-hosts from a Docker image, so poll data lives on your infrastructure rather than in Zcal's cloud. It does not do 1:1 booking, so treat it as the group-polling half of a stack, not a Zcal replacement.
- Free plan, paid from $56/year (as of July 2026)
- Germany
- Open source (AGPL-3.0)
Germany- Best for:
- Privacy-minded groups that want poll data on their own server, alongside a booking tool
- The catch:
- Not a 1:1 booking tool, with no payments or availability schedules, and hosted free polls are deleted 30 days after their dates pass.
Compared to Zcal
- Advantage: Group polling you can self-host under AGPLv3, which Zcal's cloud polls cannot
- Advantage: Free forever Hobby plan with unlimited participants
- Advantage: Voters need no account
- Tradeoff: Not a 1:1 booking tool, so it cannot replace Zcal
- Tradeoff: No payments or availability schedules
- Tradeoff: Free hosted polls deleted 30 days after their dates pass
How to choose
If the 3% fee on paid bookings is what stings, Cal.com is the clear pick: unlimited event types and Stripe payments free for one person, with no platform cut, plus an open source core you can self-host. Koalendar is the lighter option if you want less to configure, and Calendly the choice if you need the biggest integration catalogue. To escape the cloud entirely, self-hosted Easy!Appointments takes no commission at all, TidyCal swaps subscriptions for a $29 one-time deal, and Rallly gives you group polls on your own server.