{
    "title": "Calendly Alternatives 2027: 8 Paid, Free & Open-Source",
    "url": "https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/calendly/",
    "summary": "The best Calendly alternatives in 2027 are SavvyCal (best overall, $12/user/mo billed monthly), Cal.com (best free plan: Unlimited links and calendars, 1 user) and Cal.diy (best open source, MIT). Calendly itself starts at $12/seat/mo. Zekai checked these prices on vendor pages on 13 Nov 2026; 5 more are compared below, including 2 with a free plan and 2 open source.",
    "tool": {
        "name": "Calendly",
        "starting_price": "$12/seat/mo",
        "free_plan": "1 event type, 1 calendar connection, 1-on-1 scheduling",
        "price_checked": "2026-11-13",
        "pricing_url": "https://calendly.com/pricing"
    },
    "task": "meeting scheduling and booking links",
    "prices_checked": "2026-11-13",
    "date_modified": "2026-11-13",
    "alternatives": [
        {
            "name": "SavvyCal",
            "type": "Paid",
            "starting_price": "$12/user/mo billed monthly",
            "free_plan_limit": "No free plan",
            "best_for": "Team links and polls at an entry price",
            "difference": "Basic includes round-robin and shared-availability team links, unlimited calendars across Google, Microsoft, iCloud and Fastmail, and group polls; Calendly keeps round robin on Teams at $20.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "pricing_url": "https://savvycal.com/pricing",
            "website": "https://savvycal.com"
        },
        {
            "name": "Acuity Scheduling",
            "type": "Paid",
            "starting_price": "$20/mo billed monthly",
            "free_plan_limit": "No free plan",
            "best_for": "Service businesses that sell appointments and packages",
            "difference": "Takes payments through Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo on every plan, and Standard adds packages, memberships, gift certificates and an appointment waitlist; plans are priced per calendar, not per seat.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "pricing_url": "https://www.acuityscheduling.com/pricing",
            "website": "https://www.acuityscheduling.com"
        },
        {
            "name": "zcal",
            "type": "Free plan + paid",
            "starting_price": "$10.50/user/mo billed monthly",
            "free_plan_limit": "Unlimited links and calendars; groups up to 5 per slot",
            "best_for": "Free unlimited links for solo users",
            "difference": "Free plan has unlimited links, unlimited connected calendar accounts and meeting polls, where Calendly Free allows one event type and one calendar; Pro adds teams, SMS reminders and removes branding.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "pricing_url": "https://zcal.co/pricing",
            "website": "https://zcal.co"
        },
        {
            "name": "Cal.com",
            "type": "Free plan + paid",
            "starting_price": "$16/user/mo billed monthly",
            "free_plan_limit": "1 user, unlimited links and calendars, Stripe and PayPal payments",
            "best_for": "Unlimited event types free, teams paid",
            "difference": "Free plan covers one user with unlimited links and calendars, email and SMS notifications and Stripe or PayPal payments, plus 1-click import of Calendly events.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "pricing_url": "https://cal.com/pricing",
            "website": "https://cal.com",
            "zekai_score": 9.5,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/cal-com/"
        },
        {
            "name": "Reclaim AI",
            "type": "Free plan + paid",
            "starting_price": "$12/seat/mo billed monthly",
            "free_plan_limit": "Lite: 1 user, 1 calendar sync, 1 scheduling link",
            "best_for": "Booking links plus automatic focus-time blocking",
            "difference": "Scheduling links are one part of a calendar planner with Focus Time, Habits and Smart Meetings; Lite allows 1 scheduling link, Starter 3 and Business unlimited.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "pricing_url": "https://reclaim.ai/pricing",
            "website": "https://reclaim.ai",
            "zekai_score": 9,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/reclaim-ai/"
        },
        {
            "name": "Cal.diy",
            "type": "Open source",
            "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)",
            "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)",
            "licence": "MIT",
            "best_for": "Self-hosted booking pages you fully control",
            "difference": "MIT community edition of Cal.com with Teams, Organizations, Insights, Workflows and SSO/SAML removed; there is no hosted version, and the README recommends it for personal, non-production use.",
            "website": "https://github.com/calcom/cal.diy",
            "repository": "https://github.com/calcom/cal.diy",
            "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/cal-com/",
            "commercial_use": "Yes (MIT), though the README recommends personal, non-production use.",
            "runs_on": "Server with Node.js 18+ and PostgreSQL 13+.",
            "setup": "hard: Node, Yarn, PostgreSQL and calendar OAuth keys; README warns of admin skills.",
            "github_stars": 50000,
            "stars_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "last_commit": "2026-11-11",
            "last_release": "2026-03-01",
            "zekai_score": 7.7,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/cal-com/"
        },
        {
            "name": "Easy!Appointments",
            "type": "Open source",
            "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)",
            "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)",
            "licence": "GPL-3.0",
            "best_for": "Self-hosted bookings for small service businesses",
            "difference": "Customers book through your web page with Google Calendar synchronisation; it runs on PHP 8.2+ and MySQL behind Apache or Nginx, so you own the data but handle the hosting.",
            "website": "https://easyappointments.org/",
            "repository": "https://github.com/alextselegidis/easyappointments",
            "commercial_use": "Yes (GPL-3.0); distributed changes must stay GPL-3.0.",
            "runs_on": "Apache or Nginx with PHP 8.2+ and a MySQL database.",
            "setup": "moderate: Web server, PHP, MySQL and a config file to edit.",
            "github_stars": 4500,
            "stars_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "last_commit": "2026-10-19",
            "last_release": "2026-10-19"
        },
        {
            "name": "Rallly",
            "type": "Open source",
            "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)",
            "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)",
            "licence": "AGPL-3.0",
            "best_for": "Group meeting polls, a Doodle-style flow",
            "difference": "Date and time polls where participants vote on options and comment; it does not publish a booking page from your calendar availability the way Calendly does.",
            "website": "https://rallly.co",
            "repository": "https://github.com/lukevella/rallly",
            "commercial_use": "Yes; AGPL-3.0 means sharing changes if you run it as a service.",
            "runs_on": "Any host that runs Docker.",
            "setup": "moderate: Docker image plus database and email settings from the docs.",
            "github_stars": 5400,
            "stars_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "last_commit": "2026-11-13",
            "last_release": "2026-11-11"
        }
    ],
    "faq": [
        {
            "q": "What is the best alternative to Calendly in 2027?",
            "a": "SavvyCal is the best overall Calendly alternative on this page ($12/user/mo billed monthly). For no cost, Cal.com has a free plan (1 user, unlimited links and calendars, Stripe and PayPal payments). To self-host, Cal.diy is open source (MIT)."
        },
        {
            "q": "Is there a free version of Calendly?",
            "a": "Yes. Calendly has a free plan: 1 event type, 1 calendar connection, 1-on-1 scheduling. Paid plans start at $12/seat/mo, checked on 13 Nov 2026."
        },
        {
            "q": "Is there a 100% free alternative to Calendly?",
            "a": "Yes. Cal.diy, Easy!Appointments, Rallly are open source and free to self-host. zcal, Cal.com, Reclaim AI have a free plan with limits, shown in the table."
        },
        {
            "q": "What is cheaper than Calendly?",
            "a": "zcal starts at $10.50/user/mo billed monthly, against $12/seat/mo for Calendly, as listed on each vendor's pricing page on 13 Nov 2026."
        },
        {
            "q": "How much do Calendly alternatives cost for a team of 5?",
            "a": "If each of 5 people buys the entry paid plan, at the prices Zekai checked on 13 Nov 2026, the monthly cost is zcal $52.50/mo, SavvyCal $60/mo, Reclaim AI $60/mo, against Calendly $60/mo for Calendly. Team and business plans can cost more per seat. The Zekai Cost Finder on this page recalculates for any team size."
        },
        {
            "q": "Which is better, SavvyCal or Calendly?",
            "a": "Basic includes round-robin and shared-availability team links, unlimited calendars across Google, Microsoft, iCloud and Fastmail, and group polls; Calendly keeps round robin on Teams at $20. Choose SavvyCal if you need round-robin or team links without stepping up to a $20-per-seat tier. Stay with Calendly if you want a free tier or Calendly's HubSpot, Mailchimp and Salesforce connectors."
        },
        {
            "q": "Why are people leaving Calendly?",
            "a": "The documented reasons are: Calendly's change log says Notetaker may be turned on automatically for some newly created accounts, with a setting to turn it off (13 Mar 2026); Calendly's change log says Notetaker is in limited release and not available to all users, even though the pricing page lists it with Standard and Teams (1 Apr 2026). Each is sourced in the section above."
        }
    ],
    "publisher": "Zekai (zekaiwork.com) — independently reviewed; prices read on vendor pages on the dates shown.",
    "licence": "Free to quote with a link to https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/calendly/. Bulk copying or republishing the dataset is not permitted."
}