Acuity Scheduling Alternative: Top Choices for 2026

Acuity’s calendar caps: what each alternative costs at 1, 2 and 7 staff

Acuity Scheduling prices one account by how many calendars it holds, and its plan cards say to use a separate calendar per employee or location. The price changes at two points: the second calendar moves you from Starter to Standard, and the seventh from Standard to Premium. Table 2 prices each alternative at those points.

On Acuity’s pricing page, read September 25, 2026, Acuity Scheduling costs $20 a month for Starter (1 calendar), $34 for Standard (up to 6 calendars) and $61 for Premium (up to 36 calendars), billed monthly, or $16, $27 and $49 a month billed annually. Enterprise pricing is not published, there is no free plan, and the 7-day trial needs no credit card; prices exclude applicable taxes. Each plan card carries the note “Use separate calendars per employee or location, depending on business needs” (plan cards captured September 27, 2026).

Table 2. What each Acuity Scheduling alternative costs a month at Acuity’s plan limits: 1, 2 and 7 bookable staff at one location, one calendar per person, billed monthly with annual billing in parentheses where offered. Each vendor’s pricing page read September 25, 2026 (Vagaro: its US help center); Vagaro’s base is a limited-time rate. Setmore Free covers up to four users. Twizzlo Free is $0 a month for up to 150 bookings, with no SMS (Twizzlo’s pricing page, read September 28, 2026).

At seven staff, Calendly Standard and Setmore Pro each cost $84 a month and Vagaro $83.99 on its limited-time rate, against $61 on Acuity Premium; Square Appointments costs $0 on Free or $49 on Plus per location at any headcount.

Scheduling tools bill per seat or user, per calendar tier, per location or per business; our guide to flat rate booking software explains how each model grows with a team.

What each Acuity tier adds

Acuity’s plan cards, captured September 27, 2026, list these features by tier. Check each one you use against any alternative before you switch.

• Starter: payments through Stripe, Square, PayPal and Venmo, email reminders, custom client forms and automatic time zone conversion.
• Standard adds: text reminders (the card says “check global availability”), an appointment waitlist, memberships and packages, and gift certificates.
• Premium adds: an AI Booking Assistant, hiding the Acuity logo on the scheduling page, multiple time zones for staff and locations, and a custom API and CSS.
• Enterprise: unlimited calendars, with no published price.

The bill changes at four points (prices billed monthly, read September 25, 2026):

1. A second calendar: Starter at $20 a month becomes Standard at $34.
2. A Standard feature you need while on Starter, such as text reminders: $20 becomes $34.
3. A seventh calendar or a Premium feature: $34 becomes $61.
4. More than 36 calendars: Enterprise, with no published price.

A second location counts against the same caps, because Acuity’s cards say to use a calendar per employee or location. Teams that run several sites can compare their options in our guide to multi-location scheduling software.

Which Acuity Scheduling alternative fits your business

Start with what you book when you pick an Acuity alternative. Calendly prices its plans around hosts and event types, which suits meetings on a call or video link; Square Appointments, Vagaro and Twizzlo add staff calendars and payments at booking for service businesses. Then price the tool at your next hire, not only your current team, using Table 2.

If you are weighing salon management suites rather than schedulers, our Phorest alternatives and Timely alternatives for salons guides price those platforms.

Calendly: for client meetings on a call or video link

Calendly bills per seat, at $12 a seat a month on Standard ($10 billed annually) and $20 on Teams ($16 billed annually), according to Calendly’s pricing page, read September 25, 2026. The page says seats are required for users who connect calendars and host meetings, and invitees need no seat. The Free plan covers one event type and one calendar connection, and Enterprise starts at $15,000 a year at 50 seats.

Calendly suits solo consultants and client meetings. Its limitation for a team is the per-seat bill: seven hosts on Standard cost $84 a month ($70 billed annually). Our Calendly pricing page tracks each plan.

Square Appointments: for a free plan with payments built in

Square Appointments bills per location: Square Free is $0 a month per location, labeled “For solo professionals,” with unlimited staff calendars; Square Plus is $49 a month per location and adds a cancellation policy and no-show fees, multi-staff appointment booking and a waitlist; Square Premium is $149 a month per location (Square’s pricing page, read September 25, 2026). Appointment reminders come on every plan, Square Free included (plan grid captured September 27, 2026).

Its limitation is that each location is billed separately: two locations on Square Plus cost $98 a month. Square Appointments pricing covers the plans line by line, and our Square Appointments vs Acuity comparison prices the two side by side from 1 to 36 staff.

Setmore: for small teams that want a free start

Setmore bills per user: its Free plan covers up to four users, and Pro costs $12 a user a month ($5 billed annually) with unlimited users, according to Setmore’s pricing page, read September 25, 2026. Pro adds 2-way calendar sync, SMS reminders with 500 SMS credits a month (availability varies by country, the page notes), recurring appointments, deposits and API access.

Setmore suits small teams on a budget. Past four users you pay per user: seven users on Pro cost $84 a month ($35 billed annually). Setmore pricing tracks each plan, and teams already on Setmore that pass four users can compare their options in our Setmore alternatives guide. Our Setmore vs Acuity comparison sets the two plan by plan at one to 10 staff, billed monthly and annually.

Vagaro: for salons and spas that want an all-in-one suite

Vagaro bills per calendar: Vagaro’s help center, read September 25, 2026, lists $23.99 a month, a limited-time rate, with one bookable calendar, plus $10 a month for each added employee calendar up to seven licenses, after which new employees are added at no charge. Add-ons are priced separately, including Forms at $10 a month and MySite at $20 a month.

The base subscription also lists a waitlist, payroll reporting with custom commission tiers, and reports on sales, employees and inventory, according to Vagaro’s help article on base-subscription features, read September 28, 2026.

Seven staff come to $83.99 a month. Vagaro’s help center prints no subscription price for an added location, so ask Vagaro before you open a second shop. Vagaro pricing tracks the plan, and our Vagaro vs Acuity comparison sets the two side by side.

Google Calendar: for one free booking page

Appointment schedules are built into Google Calendar. On Google’s feature chart for appointment schedules, read September 28, 2026, a free personal account gets one booking page; Google One Premium or an eligible Workspace plan adds more pages, email reminders and multi-calendar checks, and payments need an eligible Workspace plan. Reminders are email only.

It fits one person taking bookings inside Google Calendar. Our Google appointment scheduler guide covers the setup and what each Google plan includes.

When staying on Acuity makes sense

Acuity still fits a solo practitioner on one calendar, or a team inside six calendars that sells memberships, packages or gift certificates, or relies on custom client forms and payments through Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo (plan cards captured September 27, 2026). At one calendar, Starter costs $20 a month ($16 billed annually), on the pricing page read September 25, 2026.

Where Twizzlo fits after Acuity Scheduling

Twizzlo, which publishes this guide, is web-based online booking and appointment scheduling software for appointment-based service businesses, with a public booking page, email and SMS reminders, client records, staff schedules and shifts, and Stripe payments and tips.

Twizzlo has two plans. Free is $0 a month for up to 150 bookings, with no SMS. Business Pro is $29.99 a month per business, with unlimited bookings, 50 SMS a month and $0.03 per message after that, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Both plans include unlimited staff and locations, and support runs 24/7. Online payments carry your Stripe processing rate plus a 1.5% Twizzlo platform fee. Clients can prepay the full service price at booking, and no-show fees are supported, applied at the business’s discretion. The full list is on the features page.

Twizzlo does not run payroll, commission tracking or memberships. If you sell packages or gift certificates through Acuity, or rely on its custom client forms, check each one against the features page before you switch.

Twizzlo fits service businesses with staff or more than one location that bring in clients through their own channels: the public booking page, a booking link for each location, and their website and social profiles. Our salon appointment software page shows how a salon runs it.

Planning Your Migration from Acuity Scheduling

Moving off Acuity takes four steps: list and export the data you rely on, rebuild services and staff in the new tool, tell clients about the new booking link, and switch over in a short, planned window. Run it as one project with one owner, and keep Acuity live until the new link works.

Step 1: Export what matters

Start with your client list, appointment history, staff settings, service menu, the questions on your client forms and notification templates. Audit what you use before you move it, and sort each item into one of three buckets:

1. Must migrate now
2. Nice to have later
3. Retire entirely

Old service names, duplicate client records and abandoned appointment types do not need to come with you.

Step 2: Rebuild the workflow, not just the data

A straight copy of the old setup carries its workarounds into the new tool, so build around the way you want the business to run. Focus on:

• Service structure: clean names, realistic durations and correct staff assignments
• Location setup: separate availability where needed, central oversight where possible
• Permissions: owners, managers, front desk and providers should not all see the same controls
• Payments and reminders: booking, confirmation and checkout should work as one process

If your team needs a cleaner rollout process, review our user onboarding best practices for software adoption. Staff adoption matters as much as feature selection.

Step 3: Tell clients about the change

Clients need a clear next step, not a long explanation. Keep the message to three points:

• the new booking link and the date it starts
• what happens to appointments already booked
• who to contact with questions

Send the new link to repeat clients more than once: in text reminders, in email confirmations and in your Instagram bio if clients book from there.

Step 4: Run a short go-live window

Pick a date, train the team, test the live workflow, then close the old booking path. Keep one manager responsible for tracking issues.

Example: a salon sets up the new tool on Monday, rehearses with staff on Tuesday, soft-launches the new link on Wednesday and completes the cutover by the end of the week.

A Decision Framework for Your Next Scheduling Software

Score each shortlisted tool on the six criteria in Table 3, pass or fail, before you compare prices, then price the tools that pass at the staff count you expect in a year.

Table 3. Six questions to score any scheduling tool before you compare prices.

The most important question

Ask this before anything else: Will this platform’s price change when you hire or open a location? Table 2 answers it for staff at one location, and FAQ 5 answers it for a second location.

Frequently Asked Questions