Calendly
Appointment scheduling tool by shared link for consultants and sales teams, connected to calendars and CRMs
Overview
Calendly is the most widely used appointment scheduling tool for business meetings: you publish a link, the other person picks a time slot from your actual calendar availability, and the event auto-creates with a video link. It handles event types, buffer time between meetings, time zones, group meetings and round-robin distribution across a sales team. The free plan is limited to one event type and one connected calendar, but with unlimited meetings. Standard costs 10 USD per user per month on annual billing, Teams costs 16 USD per user per month, and Enterprise starts at 15,000 USD per year. A 14-day free trial is offered before auto-conversion to the free plan.
Calendly's interface and website are available in French, but billing stays in US dollars, exposing a French SME to exchange rate risk. Calendly is not a commercial booking tool: it brings no customers, manages no marketplace, checkout or deposit in the salon or restaurant sense, though Stripe and PayPal integrations let you charge for a consultation at booking. SMS notifications are on paid plans. The API and webhooks are well documented and the integration ecosystem is the broadest in this panel, with HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Calendar. The limit for a micro-business is the free plan, very restricted with only one event type, and the price jump per user once an entire team needs it.
Our verdict
Best for consultants, sales staff and executives who want to eliminate email back-and-forth for scheduling and connect their calendar to a CRM. Avoid if you are looking for salon or practice software: Calendly does not handle checkout, client records for commerce or visibility, and per-user billing in dollars becomes pricey for a team.