Set up appointment scheduling
Let customers book themselves in. Confirmations and reminders handled automatically.
Tools that power the Set up appointment scheduling stack
Calendly
Scheduling automation
Share a booking link and let contacts pick available times without back-and-forth emails
Cal.com
Open-source scheduling
Self-hostable Calendly alternative with full customization and no per-booking fees
Acuity Scheduling
Service business booking
Appointment scheduling with intake forms, packages, and payment collection at booking
Google Calendar API
Custom calendar integration
Build a fully custom scheduling experience backed by Google Calendar availability
- 1Calendly
Sign up for Calendly and connect your Google or Outlook calendar. Create an Event Type for each meeting format (30-min call, 60-min demo). Set your working hours and any buffer time between appointments. Share your personal booking link in your email signature and add the Calendly embed widget to your website contact page.
Open Calendly - 2Cal.com
Deploy Cal.com via their hosted cloud or self-host with Docker. Connect your calendar provider for real availability. Create event types and customize the booking page with your brand colors. Use Cal.com's embed snippet to drop a booking calendar directly into your product, keeping users in your app rather than redirecting them.
Open Cal.com - 3Acuity Scheduling
Sign up for Acuity and set up your appointment types with durations and prices. Add intake forms so clients provide information before arriving. Enable payment collection at booking via Stripe so you avoid no-shows. Configure automated confirmation and reminder emails at 24 hours and 1 hour before each appointment.
Open Acuity Scheduling - 4Google Calendar API
Enable the Google Calendar API in the Google Cloud Console and create OAuth 2.0 credentials. Use the googleapis npm package to call calendar.freebusy.query() to find open slots in a user's calendar. Present those slots in your UI and call calendar.events.insert() to book the selected time. Store the event ID to handle cancellations and reschedules.
Open Google Calendar API
Frequently asked questions
Costs depend on your scale. Most tools in this stack offer a free tier to start. Open the cost calculator on this page to estimate monthly cost based on your users and revenue.
This stack uses 4 tools: Calendly, Cal.com, Acuity Scheduling, Google Calendar API. Each tool is picked to work well with the others and to cover a specific part of the workflow.
Yes. The stack is a recommended starting point. You can replace any tool with an alternative you already use. Check the setup guide first to confirm the integration points you'll need to rebuild.
Most makers finish the 4-step setup in under an hour. Creating accounts and connecting the first integration takes the most time.
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