Acuity vs Setmore for a Solo Practitioner
Disclosure: Neither tool can pay us anything. Acuity’s referral programme is open only to US-based Acuity subscribers, which we are not; we could find no Setmore programme to join. This comparison earns us $0 whichever way it goes.
Acuity has no free plan and starts at $192 a year. Setmore has a free plan that takes deposits, accepts cards and runs a branded booking page. If the reason you were looking at Acuity is that a no-show costs you money, you may be about to pay $192 for something you can have for nothing.
The short answer
Try Setmore free first. Acuity earns its price on varied services and intake, not on taking a deposit.
- 💳Deposits and card payments are free at Setmore. Acuity has no free plan at all — a 7-day trial, then $16 a month.
- 💰Setmore Pro is $60 a year. Acuity Starter is $192 — 3.2×. Acuity Premium is $588, 9.8×.
- 📋What Acuity actually buys: intake forms, packages, gift certificates and services with genuinely different rules and durations — working on the first attempt, without workarounds.
- ⚠️Setmore free will not sync your existing calendar. That is its $60 upgrade, and it is the one that matters.
Jump to: The price gap What $192 actually buys No free plan to land on Which one are you?
The price gap is not marginal
The two comparisons worth holding in your head:
Acuity Starter against Setmore Pro — $192 vs $60, a difference of $132 a year
Acuity Starter against Setmore Free — $192 vs $0
Whether the first gap is worth it is a genuine question. Whether the second one is depends entirely on the next section.
What Acuity’s price actually buys
It would be easy and wrong to present this as Setmore doing the same job for less. Acuity is a deeper product and the depth is specific.
| Capability | Setmore | Acuity |
|---|---|---|
| Take a deposit at booking | Free | From $192/yr |
| Accept cards, in person and online | Free | From $192/yr |
| Branded booking page | Free | From $192/yr |
| Intake forms before the appointment | — | Built around it |
| Services with different durations and rules | — | Built around it |
| Packages, bundles, gift certificates | — | Yes |
| Enforced cancellation window | — | First-class setting |
| Calendar sync | $60/yr | Included |
| Appointment volume | 200/mo free, unlimited on Pro | Unlimited on every tier |
| Regulated-practice terms | — | Premium tier |
Read the middle block. If your work involves a health questionnaire before the session, a 30/60/90 menu where each length has its own price and rules, or a five-session package sold up front, Acuity was built for that and Setmore was not. Bending a simpler tool into that shape is the year-long mistake we warned about in the Acuity and Calendly comparison, and it applies here too.
But read the top block as well, because it is where most people’s reason for looking at Acuity actually lives. “I need to take a deposit so people stop wasting my time” is the sentence that sends people to Acuity, and it is the one thing on this page that Setmore does for nothing.
The honest split. Acuity’s $192 buys you the machinery around the booking — forms, packages, varied services, enforced policy.
It does not uniquely buy you the ability to hold money. That is free at Setmore, free at Cal.com, and $588 a year at Square Appointments.
Acuity has no free plan to land on
This is a structural difference that outlasts any feature comparison. Acuity offers a seven-day trial with no card required — genuinely enough to find out whether the intake and deposit flow suit your practice. On day eight you are paying.
Setmore, Square Appointments, Cal.com and Calendly all have a working free plan underneath. If money is tight in month four, they degrade. Acuity stops.
That matters more for a new practice than for an established one, and it is worth naming rather than leaving as an asterisk: a product with a free tier gives you somewhere to land, and a product without one gives you a renewal date.
Which one are you?
Which one are you?
💳 I just need people to pay a deposit so they turn up
Setmore, free. That is the whole requirement and it costs nothing. Try it before spending $192 on the tool everyone recommends for this — the recommendation is right about the problem and expensive about the solution.
📋 Clients fill in a health or intake form before I see them
Acuity. Intake is what it is built around, and every workaround in a simpler tool is a form emailed separately and half-returned. $192 a year is not the expensive part of a practice that needs this.
🕐 I sell 30, 60 and 90-minute versions with different prices and rules
Acuity. Appointment types with genuinely different durations, prices and buffers work here on the first attempt. Setmore handles multiple services; it does not handle service-specific rules with the same depth.
📦 I sell five-session packages up front
Acuity, without hesitation. Packages and gift certificates are first-class here. This is the clearest case on the page.
💵 Money is tight and I am starting out
Setmore free, then $60 when you need calendar sync. Acuity gives you seven days and then a bill; there is no free plan to fall back to. Revisit Acuity when intake forms or packages become the thing slowing you down — not before.
What we could not verify
Setmore’s cancellation-window enforcement. Setmore’s free plan takes deposits, which is the mechanism most practices need. Whether it automatically enforces a cancellation window — the thing Acuity treats as a first-class setting — we did not confirm. If that specific behaviour is your requirement, ask before switching.
Setmore’s intake and service-rule depth. We compared published feature lists. Rows marked — mean we did not find the capability listed, not that we confirmed its absence.
Dates and currency. Setmore read 18 August 2026, Acuity 14 August 2026, both US pages. Setmore displayed annual billing only from where we sit, so no monthly rate is quoted.
The thing that actually decides it
Not the $132. It is whether the complicated part of your business happens at the booking or around it.
If the booking itself is simple — a time, a price, a deposit — Setmore does the whole job for $0 and Acuity is charging you $192 for depth you will not open.
If the booking drags a form, a duration rule, a package balance and a cancellation policy behind it, Acuity was designed for exactly that and Setmore will cost you a year of workarounds to save $132.
Write down what happens in the ten minutes before a client arrives. If the answer is “nothing”, you have your tool, and it is free.
Related: Is Setmore actually free?, Acuity vs Calendly, Square Appointments vs Setmore and the six-tool comparison.