For those of you who run small businesses where people need to book things: private yoga, tarot, massage, coaching… you (and I) know how hard email back-and-forth is.
You might find that setting up an automated process for people to book their sessions helps ease both your lives *and* increase your bookings.
You’ll want to pick a system that integrates with your (and their) calendar and takes payments, in my opinion, since that makes it one-stop-booking for your clients, and takes the follow-up off your to-do list.
Check out these options:
- Appointlet – https://www.appointlet.com/features/ – $15/mo, gmail, stripe
- This is what I use, and I really like it a lot! Easy to set up, affordable, and highly customizeable –> Acuity Scheduling – https://secure.acuityscheduling.com/signup.php also takes payments, $10mo
- ScheduleOnce – http://www.scheduleonce.com/pricing $5/mo no payments
- Calendly – https://calendly.com/ – works w gmail, mailchimp and other things you may use, doesn’t take payments, $10mo
- Satori – http://satoriapp.com/#billing – $29/mo, very focused on larger coaching contracts, this one can do integrated payments too
- PaySimple – https://paysimple.com/demo-launch.html, does booking, free if you don’t do payments w it [but why would you not do that?] or $50/mo
- 10to8 – https://10to8.com/features/, kinda for salons/yoga teachers, free if you are ok w their branding on the bookings page, can take $ and integrate w a mailing list
- Full Slate $29mo, takes single appts & payments, integrates w google calendar
Each platform listed above all have different +/- points, so I can’t say exactly which one you’d pick BUT, after digging thru a LOT of internet cruft these all seem like solid choices.
Here’s what the Acuity calendar interface looks like — you can set up times you’re always available, put in if you’re going to be away, and – my fave – if you link your calendar and book something social during a regular work availability time, it automatically blocks you out. No double booking!!