Calendly vs Doodle

Calendly is the best-known meeting scheduling tool, founded in 2013 by Tope Awotona and based in Atlanta. You share a booking link or embed it on a website, invitees pick a time based on your real availability across connected Google, Outlook or iCloud calendars, and Calendly adds a video conferencing link, sends confirmations and reminders, and can follow up after the meeting.

Event types define duration, buffers, minimum notice, intake questions and payment collection through Stripe or PayPal. Team features include round-robin distribution, collective events that need several hosts, managed event templates and routing forms that qualify leads and send them to the right person, including routing based on Salesforce or HubSpot data. Workflows automate emails and text messages around meetings, and analytics show booking trends. Pricing is per seat: the free plan includes one event type and one calendar connection, Standard unlocks unlimited event types and integrations, Teams adds round robin, Salesforce and routing, and Enterprise adds SSO, SCIM and advanced security.

Calendly fits sales, recruiting and customer success teams that need reliable scheduling and CRM sync, and its familiarity among external invitees is a real advantage. Individuals can find better value elsewhere: Cal.com is open source with a generous free plan, SavvyCal lets invitees overlay their own calendar, and zcal is free for individuals. Chili Piper competes on inbound lead routing for larger sales teams, and Microsoft Bookings is included in many Microsoft 365 plans.

Doodle is a Swiss scheduling tool from Zurich, created by Michael Näf and Paul Sevinç and fully acquired by media group Tamedia, now TX Group, in 2014. It is best known for the group poll: the organizer proposes time slots, participants vote without needing an account, and the most popular slot becomes the meeting. It later added booking pages, 1:1 links and sign-up sheets.

The four meeting types are Group Poll, Booking Page, 1:1 and Sign-up Sheet, all synced with Google or Microsoft calendars to avoid double booking. Free includes one of each and three basic sign-up sheets, with ads. Pro costs $15 per month or $11 billed annually and unlocks unlimited polls and pages, deadlines, reminders, hidden participants, video links and no ads. Team is $21 per seat ($16 annually) from two seats and adds an admin console, booking on behalf of others, branding and Stripe payments. Enterprise starts at $15,000 per year.

Doodle is strongest for finding a time across many external people, such as committees, academic groups or multi-company workshops, where participants should not need an account. For sales and customer booking, Calendly has deeper routing, workflows and CRM integrations, Cal.com offers an open-source option, and YouCanBookMe is simpler for single booking pages. The free plan is now quite limited.

Doodle lists SOC 2, GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA (with a BAA) compliance, which helps regulated and European buyers. Tip: occasional pollers can stay on Free; anyone scheduling weekly should take Pro annually, which Doodle prices about 26% below monthly billing.