Acuity Scheduling vs TidyCal

Acuity Scheduling is an online appointment booking tool for service businesses. It was founded by Gavin Zuchlinski and acquired by Squarespace in 2019, and it is also sold inside Squarespace as Squarespace Scheduling. Clients pick a service, a staff member and a time from a booking page, fill in intake forms, pay a deposit or the full price, and receive email and SMS reminders, while the business manages availability, buffers and booking rules per staff member and location.

Beyond basic booking, Acuity handles the commercial side of appointments: packages, gift certificates, memberships and subscriptions, coupons, and payments through Stripe, Square or PayPal. Intake forms support conditional questions, which matters for clinics, therapists and coaches. Plans are tiered by the number of staff calendars: Starter (formerly Emerging) covers one, Standard (formerly Growing) up to six and Premium (formerly Powerhouse) up to 36 with multiple locations. There is a free trial but no permanent free plan.

Acuity fits salons, spas, therapists, tutors, fitness studios and consultants who sell time to individual clients. It is less suited to B2B sales teams that need round-robin routing and CRM enrichment, where Calendly or Chili Piper are stronger. Compared with Square Appointments it is more flexible on forms and packages, and compared with SimplyBook.me it offers a cleaner client experience, though its admin interface feels dated in places and SMS reminders have limits.

TidyCal is a scheduling tool made by AppSumo, the software deals marketplace founded by Noah Kagan in Austin, Texas. Its main selling point is pricing: a free plan covers unlimited bookings, a low-cost Pro subscription unlocks all features, and lifetime licenses have also been sold through AppSumo as one-off deals.

Users create booking types for different kinds of meetings, share booking pages and let invitees pick times that sync with Google Calendar, Outlook or iCloud calendars to prevent double bookings. It supports video links for Zoom and Google Meet, buffer times, booking limits, reminders and confirmations, group bookings for workshops, packages for selling several sessions at once, and paid bookings through Stripe or PayPal. Custom questions, automatic time zone detection and simple branding cover most of what a solo professional needs.

TidyCal suits freelancers, coaches and consultants who want reliable booking and paid consultations without an expensive recurring bill. It has limited team features such as round-robin routing, fewer integrations and basic customization, so teams needing lead routing and CRM connections should look at Calendly, Chili Piper or SavvyCal. Cal.com is an open-source option with a generous free tier, and Zcal is another free alternative. For one person selling their time, the free plan and low Pro price are hard to beat.