Calendly vs. YouCanBookMe: Which scheduling software is right for you?

Appointment scheduling software makes booking and managing appointments easier for you and your customers. But how do you know which one to choose?

Calendly and YouCanBookMe (YCBM) are popular appointment scheduling tools for entrepreneurs, service providers, and small businesses. While both tools offer solutions for meeting scheduling and management, there are some notable differences when it comes to integrations, support, and scalability.

In this guide, we’ll walk through the main differences between Calendly and YCBM, so you can choose the best tool for your business.

What features do Calendly and YouCanBookMe have in common?

Calendly and YouCanBookMe save time by taking the hassle out of booking meetings. Instead of playing phone tag or going back and forth over email, clients and customers can see your availability and book time with you in just a few clicks. 

Both Calendly and YouCanBookMe let you:

• Share booking pages and scheduling links that make it easy for invitees to see your availability and schedule an appointment

• Book one-on-one, co-hosted, and group meetings

• Sync Google Calendar, Office 365, and Outlook calendars to avoid double bookings

• Set meeting limits, minimum booking notice, and buffers between meetings

• Add suggested meeting times to the body of an email

• Automate text and email reminders, confirmations, and follow-ups

• Embed a booking page on your website

• Ask custom questions on your booking form

• Customize your booking page and communications to match your branding

Top differences between Calendly and YouCanBookMe 

While Calendly and YCBM share a lot of essential scheduling features, they’re designed for different users. YCBM is primarily for individuals and solopreneurs, while Calendly offers solutions for individuals and teams of all sizes, from SMBs to enterprise organizations.

With that in mind, here are a few of the main differences between the scheduling platforms.

Calendly offers more flexibility for complex scheduling scenarios

Routing forms: With Calendly Routing, you can show clients the right booking page based on how they answer your initial questions. For example, a wellness business could ask about a client’s health goals, then send them to the right team member or appointment type booking page based on their response. 

You can build the website forms in Calendly, or connect existing forms built with HubSpot, Marketo, or Pardot. Once visitors fill out the form, they’re automatically routed to the right booking page so they can schedule immediately. If you use Salesforce or HubSpot CRM, you can also add account matching to your forms, so known customers are automatically sent to the booking page for the team member assigned to their account.

YCBM doesn’t offer routing functionality.

Group scheduling options: Both Calendly and YCBM offer multi-person scheduling for meetings with multiple hosts and/or attendees. You can also use round-robin scheduling to automatically assign appointments to the next available team member.

That said, Calendly offers more flexible options for co-hosted meetings. You can add hosts who will always attend the meeting alongside round-robin assignees. For example, easily schedule a follow-up with your prospect by adding two hosts: the prospect’s assigned sales rep and the next available member of your solutions team. Calendly makes it easy to get the right combination of teammates together for implementation calls, renewal conversations, panel interviews, and more.

Meeting polls: Use Calendly Meeting Polls to find the best time for a big group meeting (up to 40 people). Invitees vote on preferred times and, once everyone votes, you choose a meeting time. Calendly sends calendar invites and meeting details to everyone who voted.

YCBM doesn’t include a meeting poll feature.

Calendly works where you work (Integrations and apps)

YCBM offers native integrations with video conferencing tools, calendar apps, Stripe payment processing, HubSpot, and Slack. You’ll need to use Zapier to connect any other tools.

With 100+ integrations, Calendly connects with the tools you use every day, including:

• Calendar integrations (Google Calendar, Outlook, Exchange, Office 365)

• Video conferencing (Zoom, GoToMeeting, Webex, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams)

• CRMs and sales tools (Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Gong)

• Email and marketing automation platforms (Marketo, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, Typeform)

• Recruiting software and applicant tracking systems (Greenhouse and JazzHR)

• PayPal and Stripe, so you can collect payments at booking (YCBM only offers Stripe)

• Collaboration and productivity tools (Slack, Microsoft Teams chat, Loom)

Mobile apps and extensions: With mobile apps for iOS and Android, and browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, Calendly works where you work.

Calendly for Gmail (part of the Chrome extension) and the Outlook add-in make it easy to add available times to emails, so recipients can instantly book meetings right from their inbox. With Calendly’s LinkedIn extension, you can share your booking link right from the LinkedIn messaging window.

YouCanBookMe also offers a Chrome extension (but no Firefox, Edge, Outlook, or LinkedIn add-ons). They don’t have a mobile app, so users can’t schedule meetings or manage appointments on the go.

Calendly sets growing teams up for success

SMS reminders: Automated text message reminders are a great way to reduce no-shows. Both Calendly and YCBM let you automate meeting notifications and reminders via text message. With Calendly, automated texts are included in all paid plans and easy to set up through Workflows.

“Dealing with no-shows is no longer a challenge thanks to email and text reminders set up using the Workflows feature. Our sought-after advisors aren’t left waiting for students who missed appointments.”

Corey Trader

Academic Advisor at Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC)

If you want to send text notifications via YouCanBookMe, it’s a little more complicated (and expensive). First, you need to purchase SMS Credits, which cost extra — text messaging isn’t included in any YCBM plans. It costs 7 cents per text message, but those costs can add up quickly, especially as your business grows.

Analytics: Calendly’s built-in reporting and analytics helps you make better, faster scheduling decisions. With custom dashboards, see popular meeting times, in-demand appointment types, and stats on meetings created, completed, rescheduled, and canceled. You can also filter by custom date ranges.

YouCanBookMe offers more limited analytics; their native dashboard only shows the last day, week, month or quarter of booking data. You can also export your booking data into a spreadsheet. You’ll need some spreadsheet skills — or a third-party tool — to dig deeper into the data, which can be manual, time-consuming work.

Customer support: If appointments or meetings are a major part of your business, you need a reliable scheduling tool — including customer support that’s there when you need it.

Calendly offers 24/7 email support for all users, and 24/7 live chat support on all paid plans. Enterprise plans include phone support, dedicated account partners, and personalized onboarding and implementation.

“Calendly works. It’s got a great UI, great support, and no complaints from our compliance team. If your organization is spending a lot of time going back and forth just to get on a call, it’s a no-brainer.”

Alek Relyea

Senior Manager, Technical Engagements at HackerOne

YouCanBookMe only offers email support Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. - 8 p.m. EST. There’s additional support available for larger teams.

Calendly vs. YouCanBookMe pricing

Both tools offer a forever-free plan and a 14-day trial. 

YCBM offers three pricing plans for individuals:

• Free

• Individual: $8.10 per month (billed annually), up to two connected calendars

• Professional: $11.70 per month (billed annually), up to six connected calendars

And just one plan for teams:

• Teams: $16.20 per user per month (billed annually)

Depending on the features you need, you may run into extra costs. YCBM charges 7 cents per SMS credit and takes 1% commission on each Stripe transaction. If a meeting is cancelled and you need to refund a client, YCBM still keeps that commission.

Calendly’s pricing is more straightforward. All paid pricing plans offer up to six calendar connections per user, and there’s no extra charge for SMS reminders.

Calendly has four pricing tiers:

• Free

• Standard: $10 per user per month (billed annually)

• Teams: $16 per user per month (billed annually)

• Enterprise: Custom pricing for larger organizations, starting at $15k/year

YouCanBookMe vs. Calendly: Which one should you choose?

Calendly and YouCanBookMe are both user-friendly online scheduling tools. For individuals and solopreneurs, YCBM is a simple way to offer online appointment booking. However, as your business and scheduling needs grow, YCBM may feel inflexible and limiting.

With 100+ integrations, a mobile app, analytics, and best-in-class customer support, Calendly is designed to tackle your most complex scheduling scenarios. The platform is intuitive enough for individual users, scalable enough for small business owners, and powerful enough to meet the needs of enterprise organizations — including four out of five Fortune 500 companies.

See why over 20 million people use Calendly to simplify their scheduling. Request a demo.