Setmore vs SimplyBook.me
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
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The short answer
Both sides assessedSetmore compared with SimplyBook.me
SimplyBook.me goes much further on reach and configurability with Reserve with Google, Instagram and Facebook booking, a full booking website, memberships, and packages, but meters you on bookings per month and counts your capability in custom features. Setmore is simpler and dramatically cheaper at volume. Pick SimplyBook.me if you want a booking storefront with many moving parts; pick Setmore if you want unlimited appointments for five dollars a head.
SimplyBook.me compared with Setmore
Setmore is dramatically cheaper and dramatically simpler: free for four staff with unlimited appointments, then $5 per user with SMS credits and API access. SimplyBook.me answers with memberships, packages, coupons, gift cards, tickets, resources, and Reserve with Google, none of which Setmore has. Start with Setmore if the fundamentals are the whole job; take SimplyBook.me if the commerce and discovery layers are what you are actually buying.
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.
Choose SimplyBook.me if
Consumer-facing service businesses that need to be discoverable (Reserve with Google, Instagram, Facebook, a real booking website) and that want to assemble exactly the commerce features they use, at a booking volume that fits inside a plan allowance.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Setmore | SimplyBook.me |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Scheduling | Scheduling |
| Starting price | $0 (Free), then $5 per user per month billed annually ($12 month to month) | €0 (Free), then €11.90 per month billed annually (Basic; €13.90 monthly) |
| Pricing model | 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. | Freemium subscription metered on two axes: bookings included per month and how many optional custom features can be active at once, with providers also capped per tier. SMS, WhatsApp, AI voice, extra bookings, and a custom domain are sold separately. |
| Free plan | Up to four staff logins and unlimited appointments, 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. | 50 bookings a month, one service provider, and one custom feature, on the core booking system with a booking website and calendar sync. |
| Free trial | The free plan is the evaluation path; Pro carries a 30-day refund window | 14 days with access to most premium features and 50 bookings, no credit card required |
| Best for | 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. | Consumer-facing service businesses that need to be discoverable (Reserve with Google, Instagram, Facebook, a real booking website) and that want to assemble exactly the commerce features they use, at a booking volume that fits inside a plan allowance. |
| Setup time | 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. | Half a day for a basic setup, and realistically a week for a business using the commerce features properly. The extra time is spent choosing custom features against your plan allowance and configuring the booking website, not fighting the software. |
| Learning curve | 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. | The steepest in this dossier. The custom feature model is powerful and unfamiliar, the settings surface is large, and the interaction between memberships, packages, coupons, and services rewards reading the documentation rather than guessing. |
| Platforms | Web app, iOS, Android, Windows desktop, macOS desktop, Website widget and plugin, Branded customer app option | Web app, Generated booking website with CMS, iframe, button, and contact widgets, WordPress and Joomla plugins, Reserve with Google, Facebook, and Instagram booking, Mobile apps |
| Compliance | HIPAA via the Setmore Health configuration on Pro, PCI handled through Square, Stripe, PayPal, or LawPay | ISO/IEC 27001:2022 (certified by NQA), HIPAA features with a BAA on Standard, Premium, and Enterprise, GDPR, PCI handled through the connected payment processor |
| Founded | 2011 | 2011 |
| Headquarters | Portland, Oregon, United States | Cyprus, with offices in Ukraine and Iceland |
| Ownership | Privately held and bootstrapped; no disclosed venture funding | Part of the team.blue group since 2023 |
Strengths and limitations
Setmore
Strengths
- The most generous free plan for a real service business in this category: four staff logins, unlimited appointments, 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 free plan tops out at four staff logins and carries Setmore branding, so a growing team reaches Pro on headcount or features rather than volume.
- Pro's headline $5 price is annual-only; month to month costs $12, so flexibility carries a very large premium.
SimplyBook.me
Strengths
- Reserve with Google, Facebook, and Instagram booking put live availability where consumers actually search, which no other product in this dossier matches.
- The product generates a full booking website with a small CMS, custom pages, reviews, and a directory listing rather than a single booking page.
- The custom feature catalogue is the widest in the category, covering memberships, packages, coupons and gift cards, tickets, add-ons, resources, classes, multiple locations, and client login.
- A permanently free plan at 50 bookings a month rather than a one-week trial, which is a far more honest evaluation path than Acuity offers.
Limitations
- Two independent meters (bookings per month and active custom features) make the pricing hard to predict and hard to compare against flat-rate competitors.
- Booking overages at $4 per 100 mean the bill rises with success, which is the opposite structure from Acuity and Setmore's unlimited-appointment plans.
- SMS, WhatsApp, and AI voice are credit packs at $8 per 100, so no-show reduction carries an explicit and ongoing running cost.
- API access starts at the €49.90 Premium tier and the High Load API is Enterprise-only, making this an expensive developer platform relative to Setmore or Cal.com.
Pricing compared
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.
SimplyBook.me
Freemium subscription metered on two axes: bookings included per month and how many optional custom features can be active at once, with providers also capped per tier. SMS, WhatsApp, AI voice, extra bookings, and a custom domain are sold separately.
- Free€0
- Basic€11.90
- Standard€24.90
- Premium€49.90
- EnterpriseCustom quote
The modular model is either excellent or exasperating depending on your feature list. If the three things your business needs happen to be three custom features, Basic at €11.90 is a bargain and undercuts Acuity's entry tier while doing more. If you need memberships, packages, coupons, classes, intake forms, and multiple locations together, you are on Standard at €24.90, which is roughly Acuity Standard's price with a booking cap attached but with far better discovery through Reserve with Google and social booking. The genuine weak spot is metered communications and metered volume: SMS credits and $4-per-100 overage bookings mean the bill moves with success, and a business doing 800 bookings a month is paying to grow. Buy it for reach and configurability, not for predictability.
Editorial verdict on each
Setmore
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, unlimited appointments, card payments, a website widget, and email reminders at zero cost. Pro at $5 per user per month billed annually then adds 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 profileSimplyBook.me
SimplyBook.me is the most capable and least predictable product in this category. Nothing else here puts live availability into Google Search results, Instagram, and Facebook simultaneously while also generating a full booking website with a CMS, and nothing else offers memberships, packages, gift cards, tickets, resources, and AI voice booking from the same catalogue. The price of that reach is complexity and metering. You are constrained on two independent axes, bookings per month and active custom features, with $4-per-100 overages and $8-per-100 SMS credits on top, which means the bill rises as the business succeeds. Buy it if discovery is your hardest problem and you are willing to spend a week learning the configuration model. If you want unlimited appointments and a bill that never moves, Acuity is the calmer purchase, and if you simply want the fundamentals for almost nothing, Setmore is the cheaper one.
Read the full SimplyBook.me profileSetmore profile last reviewed 2026-09-27; SimplyBook.me last reviewed 2026-09-27. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.
The best in Scheduling & Booking
23 trackedScheduling tools replace the back-and-forth of finding a time by exposing real calendar availability as a bookable link, with routing, reminders, and payment collection built in.
The booking link everyone already recognizes, with the routing, teams, and integrations underneath to stay the standard.
The free tier is the product: design-led booking pages with almost nothing held back.
Open-source scheduling that doubles as booking infrastructure for other products, compounding through its developer ecosystem.
Fills the calendar with your work rather than just other people's meetings, turning scheduling into an AI planning problem.
A group poll goes out in five minutes with no calendar connection required, and participants just see a grid of times and click.
Frequently asked questions
6 questionsWhat is the difference between Setmore and SimplyBook.me?
SimplyBook.me goes much further on reach and configurability with Reserve with Google, Instagram and Facebook booking, a full booking website, memberships, and packages, but meters you on bookings per month and counts your capability in custom features. Setmore is simpler and dramatically cheaper at volume. Pick SimplyBook.me if you want a booking storefront with many moving parts; pick Setmore if you want unlimited appointments for five dollars a head.
Is Setmore or SimplyBook.me cheaper?
Setmore starts at $0 (Free), then $5 per user per month billed annually ($12 month to month). SimplyBook.me starts at €0 (Free), then €11.90 per month billed annually (Basic; €13.90 monthly). The billing models differ, so the entry price is rarely the whole cost. Setmore pricing model: 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. SimplyBook.me pricing model: Freemium subscription metered on two axes: bookings included per month and how many optional custom features can be active at once, with providers also capped per tier.
Does Setmore or SimplyBook.me have a free plan?
Setmore has a free plan. Up to four staff logins and unlimited appointments, 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. Trial terms: The free plan is the evaluation path; Pro carries a 30-day refund window. SimplyBook.me has a free plan. 50 bookings a month, one service provider, and one custom feature, on the core booking system with a booking website and calendar sync. Trial terms: 14 days with access to most premium features and 50 bookings, no credit card required.
Who should choose Setmore?
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.
Who should choose SimplyBook.me?
Consumer-facing service businesses that need to be discoverable (Reserve with Google, Instagram, Facebook, a real booking website) and that want to assemble exactly the commerce features they use, at a booking volume that fits inside a plan allowance.
What are the best alternatives to Setmore and SimplyBook.me?
SaaSTracker profiles 23 products in Scheduling & Booking. The Summer 2026 awards in the category went to Calendly (Category Leader), zcal (Best Value), Cal.com (Momentum). Every profile is compiled from primary sources, so a shortlist can be built from pricing, limitations, and fit rather than from star ratings.
