Three Calendly Alternatives That Are Actually Free
Disclosure: Calendly has no affiliate programme at all, so it could never have paid us. Of the three alternatives, we could find no programme at Cal.com or Setmore; we have an unapproved application with Square, which appears third. Nothing on this page is an affiliate link and no tool here has paid us anything.
Calendly’s free plan lets you sell one thing. One event type, one calendar, no payments. The moment you offer a second service — a different length, a different price, a free intro call — you are on the $120-a-year plan. Three tools give you more than that at $0, and they withhold three different things.
The short answer
Selling calls? Cal.com. Taking deposits? Setmore. High volume? Square.
- 💬Cal.com free = Calendly Standard. Unlimited event types, unlimited calendars, Stripe and PayPal payments — the exact $120 feature set, at $0.
- 💳Setmore free takes deposits and covers 4 users. 200 bookings a month, and no calendar sync.
- 📊Square Appointments free has no volume cap at all and unlimited staff calendars — but cannot charge a no-show.
- ⚠️All three put their own name on your booking page. So does Calendly’s free plan. Removing it is where the real prices start.
Jump to: What you are paying $120 for The three, side by side Where free stops Which one are you?
What Calendly’s $120 actually buys
Calendly’s free tier is described on its own pricing page as “for personal use”, and the label is accurate. It gives you 1 event type, 1 calendar connection, availability rules, video conferencing and the mobile apps.
Standard, at $10 per seat per month on annual billing — $120 a year, adds unlimited event types, multiple calendars, HubSpot and Mailchimp, Zapier and webhooks, and Stripe and PayPal for taking payment at booking.
So the question is narrow. Most people upgrade for one of two things:
a second event type, or the ability to take money at booking.
All three tools below include both, at $0.
The three, side by side
| Calendly Free | Cal.com | Setmore | Square Appts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Event types / services | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Take payment at booking | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Deposits / no-show charge | No | Yes | Yes | No — $588/yr |
| Calendar sync | 1 calendar | Unlimited | No — $60/yr | — |
| Booking volume | Unlimited | No stated limit | 200/month | Unlimited |
| Users included | 1 | 1 | 4 | Unlimited calendars |
| SMS notifications | — | Listed | Pro, $60/yr | — |
| Remove vendor branding | No | $144/yr | $60/yr | — |
| Cheapest paid tier | $120/yr | $144/yr | $60/yr | $588/yr |
Where “free” stops on each one
None of these is free forever in every sense, and the honest way to compare them is by naming what each one is holding hostage.
Cal.com holds your branding, and recurring events. Both sit on Teams at $144 a year — more than Calendly’s whole plan — and Teams is a product built for teams that a business of one will barely open. If your booking page must carry only your name, Cal.com stops being the cheap answer.
Setmore holds your calendar sync. Its free plan cannot read your existing Google or Outlook calendar, which means it can offer a client a slot you are already busy in. If Setmore is your only calendar, that costs nothing. If it is not, $60 a year is cheap insurance against one embarrassing double-booking.
Square holds the no-show charge. Its free plan is otherwise the most permissive here — no booking cap, unlimited staff calendars — but cancellation and prepayment policies live on Plus at $588 a year. For a practice where a missed appointment is an unsellable hour, that is the wrong tool at the wrong price, and Setmore does the same job at $0.
Which one are you?
Which one are you?
💬 I sell calls and I am about to pay Calendly $120
Cal.com, free. Unlimited event types, multiple calendars and payments — the three reasons you were upgrading — are all on its free plan, and it lists one-click import of your Calendly events. Worst case you lose an evening.
🛍️ A no-show costs me an hour I cannot resell
Setmore, free. Deposits and card payments at $0, where Acuity charges $192 and Square charges $588 for the same capability. Add $60 for calendar sync if your diary lives elsewhere.
📊 I take far more than 200 bookings a month
Square Appointments, free — no volume cap and unlimited staff calendars, where Setmore stops at 200 shared across four users. You still cannot charge a no-show without the $588 plan.
🏷️ My booking page must carry only my branding
Then no free plan here fits, and the cheapest fix is Setmore Pro at $60 — half of Calendly Standard and well under Cal.com Teams at $144. This is the one case where paying is unavoidable.
👥 My clients would rather see a name they recognise
Stay on Calendly. Familiarity converts: an unfamiliar booking flow loses people at the final step and the ones you lose never tell you. If your market is corporate and your bookings are high-value, $120 a year for recognition is a defensible purchase. This is the honest case for not switching.
What we could not verify
Square’s external calendar sync. Setmore publishes that its free plan has no two-way sync; we did not find the equivalent statement for Square Appointments, so that cell is blank rather than guessed.
Calendly’s branding removal. We did not establish which Calendly tier, if any, removes Calendly’s own name from a booking page.
Cal.com’s volume. Its pricing page says scheduling “with no usage limits” and we found no published cap. Absence of a stated limit is not a guarantee there is none.
The thing that actually decides it
Not the price. Three of the four options on this page cost $0 and the fourth costs $120.
What decides it is one question about your work: does money change hands because of the appointment?
If no — if you are picking a time to talk — Cal.com does everything Calendly charges $120 for, and does it free. If yes, and a missed slot costs you real money, Setmore takes a deposit at $0 while Square wants $588 and Acuity wants $192 for the same thing.
Answer that first, and the three tools sort themselves.
Related: Cal.com vs Calendly, Setmore vs Calendly, Square Appointments vs Setmore and the six-tool comparison.