Looking for a Calendly alternative? What to check before you switch

Calendly is a good product, and if it is working for you there is no prize for switching. The people who move away from it usually do so for one of four reasons. Working out which one is yours matters, because three of them are solved by a different tool and one is not.

Reason 1: you want to own the booking data

On a hosted scheduling service, your clients' names, email addresses and appointment history live on someone else's infrastructure, under their retention policy. For a dental practice or a clinic, that can be a genuine compliance conversation rather than a preference.

BookYourSlot is self-hosted. The database is ours to run and the data in it is yours. That is the main thing it offers over a hosted competitor (the longer argument is here).

Reason 2: the branding is not yours

Free tiers of hosted schedulers put their name on your booking page and in the emails your clients receive. When the booking page is the first thing a new client sees, that matters more than it sounds.

Reason 3: per-seat pricing does not fit

Per-user pricing is fine for a sales team and awkward for a salon with six chairs and a rotating roster. Self-hosting moves the cost from per-seat to a fixed server bill that does not change when you hire.

Reason 4: you need a specific feature

This is the one to be careful about. Be concrete about which feature, then check it actually exists in the tool you are moving to. Here is where BookYourSlot honestly stands today.

What works now

• Personal booking pages with a public link per practitioner
• Working hours, date overrides, buffers and minimum notice
• Guest time zone detection, so slots show in their local time
• Google Calendar two-way sync, once connected
• Automatic confirmation, reschedule and cancellation emails
• Self-serve reschedule and cancel from the confirmation email
• Recurring events, seats per slot, and require-confirmation event types
• Embeds and webhooks to automate around the booking

What is not here yet

• Shared team pages with round-robin assignment. Each person has their own page today.
• Scheduled reminder messages before an appointment.
• Payments and deposits, which need a payment provider configured.
• Built-in video meetings, which need a provider configured.

If something in that second list is load-bearing for your business, stay where you are for now. We would rather tell you that than have you migrate and find out.

Common questions

Can I import my existing bookings?

There is no bulk importer. Most businesses switch by connecting Google Calendar, which means existing commitments already block out your availability, then pointing new bookings at the new link.

Do my clients need an account?

No. Guests book with a name and an email address. Accounts are only for the people taking bookings.

How long does switching take?

Setting up event types and availability takes about five minutes (walkthrough here). The slow part is updating your link everywhere it appears.

Try it free alongside your current tool before you move anything.