Acuity Scheduling vs Setmore
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
The short answer
Both sides assessedAcuity Scheduling compared with Setmore
Setmore has a free plan with up to four users and 200 appointments a month and charges $5 per user per month annually for unlimited everything, which undercuts Acuity badly on raw price. Acuity answers with packages, memberships, gift certificates, waitlists, and a HIPAA option that Setmore does not match. Start with Setmore if you only need bookings and reminders; move to Acuity the moment you want to sell packages or memberships.
Setmore compared with Acuity Scheduling
Acuity has no free plan and starts at $16 a month, but adds packages, memberships, subscriptions, gift certificates, and waitlists that Setmore does not attempt. Setmore is free for up to four staff and $5 a head after that, with HIPAA and API access included at that price rather than at $49. Start on Setmore if budget is the constraint; move to Acuity the moment you want to sell prepaid bundles or memberships.
Choose Acuity Scheduling if
Service businesses that charge for appointments and manage multiple staff or locations: salons, clinics, therapists, tutors, coaches, photographers, and studios that need prepayment, packages, memberships, and no-show control rather than a demo link.
Choose Setmore if
Very small service businesses on tight budgets: salons, barbers, tutors, trainers, small clinics, and independent practitioners who want online booking, reminders, and card payments for either nothing or five dollars a head.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Acuity Scheduling | Setmore |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Scheduling | Scheduling |
| Starting price | $16 per month billed annually ($20 month to month) (7 days trial) | $0 (Free), then $5 per user per month billed annually ($12 month to month) (free plan available) |
| Pricing model | Flat monthly subscription across three tiers, priced by how many staff or resource calendars you run, with unlimited appointments on every plan. No free tier. | Freemium, with a capped free plan and a single per-user Pro plan. Annual billing is dramatically cheaper than monthly. Enterprise is a custom quote. |
| Free plan | No | Up to four staff logins and 200 appointments a month, with a public Booking Page, online and in-person payments, email confirmations and reminders, website widget, mobile apps, and Google Analytics, Mailchimp, and Zapier connectors. Setmore branding is shown. |
| Free trial | 7 days, no credit card required | The free plan serves as the evaluation path; Pro features can be trialled from within the product |
| Best for | Service businesses that charge for appointments and manage multiple staff or locations: salons, clinics, therapists, tutors, coaches, photographers, and studios that need prepayment, packages, memberships, and no-show control rather than a demo link. | Very small service businesses on tight budgets: salons, barbers, tutors, trainers, small clinics, and independent practitioners who want online booking, reminders, and card payments for either nothing or five dollars a head. |
| Setup time | A working solo booking page takes an afternoon: appointment types, hours, payment processor, and reminder wording. A multi-staff shop with packages, memberships, and location rules is closer to a week of part-time configuration, mostly spent deciding policy rather than clicking. | An hour or two for a working booking page: add services with durations and prices, add staff and their hours, connect a payment processor, and embed the widget on your site. Most of that time is deciding your policies rather than configuring software. |
| Learning curve | Moderate. The scheduling basics are obvious, but the commerce features have real depth, and the interaction between packages, memberships, discount codes, and appointment types rewards someone reading the documentation rather than guessing. | Low. Setmore is deliberately simpler than Acuity or SimplyBook.me, which is both its main appeal and the reason businesses eventually outgrow it. Staff can be trained on the calendar in a single sitting. |
| Platforms | Web app, iOS, Android, Website and Squarespace embeds, Booking page on an Acuity URL | Web app, iOS, Android, Windows desktop, macOS desktop, Website widget and plugin, Branded customer app option |
| Compliance | HIPAA option on the Premium plan, GDPR, PCI handled through Stripe, Square, or PayPal | HIPAA via the Setmore Health configuration on Pro, PCI handled through Square, Stripe, PayPal, or LawPay |
| Founded | 2006 | 2011 |
| Headquarters | New York, New York, United States (operated within Squarespace) | Portland, Oregon, United States |
| Ownership | Owned by Squarespace, which was itself taken private by Permira in 2024 | Privately held and bootstrapped; no disclosed venture funding |
Strengths and limitations
Acuity Scheduling
Strengths
- The commerce layer is the deepest in this category: packages, memberships, subscriptions, gift certificates, discount codes, add-ons, and deposits all sit inside the booking flow rather than in a separate billing tool.
- Priced per business rather than per seat, so a six-person shop pays $27 a month total instead of $27 per person.
- Unlimited appointments on every tier, so a busy month never produces a surprise bill.
- Prepayment and deposits address no-shows at the root, and SMS reminders plus waitlists handle the rest, which together is the strongest no-show story available to a small service business.
Limitations
- No free plan and only a 7-day trial, which is the shortest evaluation window among the major scheduling tools.
- Branding removal, custom CSS, and API access are all Premium-only, so cosmetic control costs $49 a month.
- The API is not available below Premium, making Acuity a poor choice for anyone who wants to embed scheduling inside their own product at a small-business price.
- No inbound lead routing, qualification forms, or CRM-driven assignment, so it is unsuitable as a sales scheduling tool.
Setmore
Strengths
- The most generous free plan for a real service business in this category: four staff logins, 200 appointments a month, card payments, and a website widget at zero cost.
- Pro at $5 per user per month billed annually is the cheapest serious paid tier in the entire dossier, and it removes every meaningful limit.
- Online payments are available on the free plan, which almost no competitor allows, and four processors are supported including LawPay for legal practices.
- A HIPAA-compliant configuration on the $5 Pro plan makes it the cheapest route to compliant scheduling for a small healthcare or therapy practice.
Limitations
- No commerce program: no packages, memberships, subscriptions, or gift certificates, which is exactly the layer that makes a service business predictable revenue rather than per-visit cash.
- SMS reminders are Pro-only, which means the free plan lacks the single most effective no-show tool for the businesses most likely to use it.
- The 200-appointment monthly cap on free arrives faster than owners expect and is easy to hit in a busy month with two staff.
- Pro's headline $5 price is annual-only; month to month costs $12, so flexibility carries a very large premium.
Pricing compared
Acuity Scheduling
Flat monthly subscription across three tiers, priced by how many staff or resource calendars you run, with unlimited appointments on every plan. No free tier.
- Starter$16
- Standard$27
- Premium$49
Priced per business rather than per seat, Acuity is one of the best-value products in this category for anyone running more than one calendar. Standard at $27 a month covers six staff, SMS reminders, packages, memberships, gift certificates, and waitlists, which would cost several times that in per-seat scheduling software and would still be missing the commerce layer entirely. The weak spots are the absent free tier and the Premium bundling: branding removal, custom CSS, and API access are all locked together at $49, which feels like a toll on solo operators who only want an unbranded page. If you sell appointments, the money is well spent. If you book demos, you are buying a cash register you will never open.
Setmore
Freemium, with a capped free plan and a single per-user Pro plan. Annual billing is dramatically cheaper than monthly. Enterprise is a custom quote.
- Free$0
- Pro$5
- EnterpriseCustom quote
On price per capability, nothing else here comes close. A six-person business pays $30 a month on Pro for unlimited appointments, SMS reminders, recurring bookings, branding removal, API access, and a HIPAA option. The equivalent in per-seat sales scheduling software would be $60 to $100, and Acuity reserves HIPAA and API access for a $49 tier. The catch is scope: Setmore covers appointments, payments, and reminders competently and stops there, with no packages, memberships, subscriptions, or gift certificates, and no inbound routing at all. Judged as the value floor of the appointment-business category, it is exceptional. Judged as a growth path, you will eventually outgrow it.
Editorial verdict on each
Acuity Scheduling
Acuity is the right answer for a business that sells its time and the wrong answer for a business that sells software. Everything distinctive about it lives in the commerce layer: deposits at booking, packages, memberships, gift certificates, class capacity, waitlists, and a HIPAA option, all priced per business rather than per seat, which makes $27 a month for six staff calendars genuinely cheap. The complaints are real but narrow: no free plan, a stingy 7-day trial, and a Premium tier that bundles branding removal, custom CSS, and API access together at $49 so that wanting any one of them costs you all three. If you run a salon, a clinic, a studio, or a practice, buy it and stop shopping. If you are trying to get prospects onto a demo calendar, close this page and look at Calendly, Cal.com, or HubSpot Meetings instead.
Read the full Acuity Scheduling profileSetmore
Setmore is the value floor of appointment scheduling, and that is a compliment. The free plan is a working business system rather than a demonstration: four staff, 200 appointments a month, card payments, a website widget, and email reminders at zero cost. Pro at $5 per user per month billed annually then removes every cap and throws in SMS reminders, recurring appointments, branding removal, API access, and a HIPAA-compliant configuration, which collectively undercut every competitor in this dossier, several of them by a factor of five. The limits are equally clear. There is no commerce program, so packages, memberships, and gift certificates need Acuity or SimplyBook.me, and there is no routing or CRM layer, so sales teams should not be here at all. Buy it if you run a small service business and want the fundamentals done well for almost nothing, and revisit the decision the day you want to sell a ten-session bundle.
Read the full Setmore profileAcuity Scheduling profile last reviewed 2026-08-22; Setmore last reviewed 2026-08-22. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.