Online booking for small businesses: the options compared

Write down what has to be available before you can accept a booking. A free hour in a calendar might be enough for a consultation. A treatment may need a qualified member of staff and a room. A mobile service may need travel time and a check that the customer is in your service area.

If you must inspect a job or prepare a quote before agreeing a time, a booking request may be more suitable than an instant confirmation. Do not let the website promise an appointment that the team must then undo.

The vendor prices below were checked on 13 October 2026. Billing period, booking allowances, staff numbers and optional features all affect the comparison. Check the current quote and tax treatment before subscribing.

• List the services, appointment lengths and time needed between bookings.
• Decide whether customers choose a staff member, any available person or a place in a group.
• Include rooms, equipment, capacity and any travel restrictions.
• Write down your deposit, payment, cancellation and rescheduling process.
• Decide where phone bookings go so they cannot conflict with online bookings.
• List the information that must reach your customer records, job system or accounts software.

A meeting scheduler fits businesses where customers mainly need to choose time with a person. Calendly's Free plan includes one event type and one calendar connection, with unlimited one-to-one meetings. That can be enough for a consultant offering one kind of introductory call.

The pricing page checked for this guide displayed Standard at $10 per seat per month, billed yearly, and Teams at $16 per seat per month, billed yearly. These are the displayed dollar prices, not converted pound quotes. Calendly also accepts GBP for new UK subscriptions, so confirm the sterling price at checkout. Monthly billing has a different rate.

Standard adds multiple event types, up to six calendar connections, automated reminders and payment connections. Teams adds features such as round-robin assignment, which distributes meetings between team members. Invitees do not need a paid seat, but account seats affect your subscription cost.

Use a meeting scheduler when calendar availability describes the job well. Test any requirements beyond that, such as a shared room, linked appointments or postcode-dependent travel. A familiar calendar tool should not make promises that your real schedule cannot keep.

An appointment app is worth trying for a salon, treatment provider or service business with defined appointment lengths. SimplyBook.me supports service providers, service durations, buffer time between appointments and booking limits. It offers a booking website and a widget for showing booking within your existing site.

Its plans include a set number of service providers rather than charging separately for every provider within that allowance. At the checked prices, the monthly-billing options were as follows. Confirm VAT treatment on your quote, because the displayed plan figures alone do not establish what your business will pay.

• Free is £0, with 50 bookings a month, one provider and one premium custom feature. The free plan needs monthly renewal.
• Basic is £12.90 a month, with 100 bookings, five providers and three premium custom features.
• Standard is £25 a month, with 500 bookings, 15 providers and eight premium custom features.
• Premium is £55 a month, with 2,000 bookings, 30 providers and unlimited premium custom features.

SimplyBook.me uses custom features to mean optional functions within its app, not software built for you. For example, intake forms and memberships count towards the premium-feature allowance. List the functions you need together before choosing a plan.

A class or event tool fits when people book places in a scheduled session rather than time with one employee. Bookwhen includes ticket handling and class scheduling. Its paid plans allow unlimited locations and classes, with limits on monthly bookings, team members and booking pages.

At the checked monthly prices, Lite was £12 plus VAT for 300 bookings and two team members. Standard was £19 plus VAT for 800 bookings and five team members. Plus was £39 plus VAT for 1,800 bookings and ten team members. Its Free plan allowed 50 bookings a month for free events only.

Standard adds reminder emails, a waiting list, passes and attendance tracking. These can make it a better fit for regular classes than a basic meeting link. Lite can suit simpler paid events where those functions are unnecessary.

Annual billing was £120, £190 or £390 plus VAT for the respective paid plans. Payment processing fees are separate from the subscription. Check how your particular course, family booking or membership works during the trial rather than relying on a feature name alone.

If you already pay for business software, check whether it offers booking that meets your list of requirements. Compare the relevant plan or add-on cost with a separate app. An included tool is only good value if it handles the work without creating extra administration.

A booking link can be enough to get started. An embedded booking panel keeps the customer on your page, but still uses the external app's availability and rules. Putting a standard app inside a custom-looking website does not turn it into a system built for your business.

For many small businesses, setting up a suitable app and adding it to the website is the sensible answer. Check the customer journey on a phone, how bookings reach staff calendars and whether all staff use the same schedule. You do not need a new website solely because your booking button needs improving.

SimplyBook.me's annual-billing equivalents were lower than monthly billing, including £10.90 a month for Basic and £20.80 for Standard. Budget separately for optional messaging and the payment processor's fees. Paying annually before testing the real workflow can tie up money in a plan that does not fit.

Consider a custom system when staff repeatedly check, reassign or correct bookings after the customer has made them. The reason to build is a defined gap, such as several resources needing to be reserved together, complex eligibility rules or booking details that must create a job in another system.

Some ready-made apps already handle resources, classes and detailed availability. Test those first. Custom software makes sense when the specific combination of rules is unsupported, depends on information in other systems or needs a customer journey that the available settings cannot provide.

Our custom software starts at £2,500. A booking system's scope depends on its rules, connections, payments and staff tools. Agree what the quote includes rather than treating that starting price as the price of every booking project.

You can also keep a suitable booking app and build the missing connection around it. For example, a confirmed booking could create the right job record automatically. The useful result is less retyping and fewer manual checks, not replacing a subscription for its own sake.

Acme Ltd sends technicians to customer sites. A valid appointment needs a technician with the right qualification, enough travel time and the correct equipment. If an app cannot check that combination, a custom process could offer only eligible slots or send uncertain jobs for approval instead of confirming them immediately.

A low monthly subscription can remain cheaper than a custom build for years. Do not assume custom software pays for itself just because it avoids one app fee. Compare the subscription and setup costs with the time spent on manual work, then compare that total with a build and its ongoing support.

Include hosting, security updates, backups, email or text messages, payment processing and future changes in a custom quote. A built system still relies on services and needs maintenance. Ask what happens if a calendar connection or payment service changes.

For either route, check how you can export customer and booking data, what remains accessible when you cancel and who can administer the account. For custom work, agree ownership of the code, documentation and access in the contract. A system built for you does not automatically mean you own every part of it.

• Count the bookings and staff you expect to need, then check the appropriate allowance rather than the cheapest advertised plan.
• Add the features required together, including reminders, deposits, passes and connections to other software.
• Record which tasks staff must still do by hand and how much time they actually take.
• Compare monthly and annual commitments, taxes, messaging costs and payment fees.
• For a build, ask for the setup price and an ongoing cost breakdown for the same requirements.

Set up the actual services, staff hours and resources in a trial or test system. Include holidays and existing phone bookings. Ask someone unfamiliar with the setup to book on a phone. Then check the staff view, confirmation, reminder and cancellation process.

Make sure two customers cannot take the same unavailable slot or exceed a class's capacity. Check what happens when a payment fails or a connection is unavailable. Use a provider's test-payment mode where available, and agree any real payment test before charging money.

Give customers privacy information when you collect their details. The ICO's guidance covers explaining purposes, recipients and retention. Collect only what you need and check extra requirements before asking for health information. Make cancellation and payment terms clear before booking, and check the rules for your particular service if unsure.

• Book, reschedule and cancel a representative appointment or class place.
• Try a staff absence, a blocked room or a fully booked session.
• Check that phone and online bookings appear in the schedule everyone uses.
• Confirm that deposits and refunds follow the agreed process.
• Check that required information reaches your other systems without manual correction.
• Choose who receives error alerts and how staff take bookings if the service is unavailable.