Setmore vs TidyCal
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
Editorial assessmentSetmore compared with TidyCal
TidyCal is a one-time purchase for booking links and simple paid bookings, which suits a solo operator who resents subscriptions. Setmore is free up to four staff with unlimited appointments, then $5 a head for a full appointment system with SMS, recurring bookings, and in-person payments. If you are one person selling calls, TidyCal. If you run a shop with staff and a counter, Setmore.
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 TidyCal if
Solo consultants, coaches, tutors, and service freelancers who sell their time and want a paid booking page with packages, subscriptions, and a storefront for a one-time $29 or $79 payment instead of a recurring per-seat bill.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Setmore | TidyCal |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Scheduling | Scheduling |
| Starting price | $0 (Free), then $5 per user per month billed annually ($12 month to month) | $0 (free forever); $29 one-time for Individual Lifetime |
| 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. | A free forever plan, two one-time lifetime licenses sold through AppSumo, and one optional monthly or annual subscription for branding removal and priority support. There is no per-seat pricing. |
| 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. | Free forever: unlimited bookings, unlimited booking types, paid bookings via Stripe and PayPal, recurring and package bookings, Stripe subscriptions, discount codes, ratings and reviews, guest invites, a digital storefront, your own booking page, and translation. Limited to 1 calendar connection with normal TidyCal branding. |
| Free trial | The free plan is the evaluation path; Pro carries a 30-day refund window | No trial needed; the free plan is permanent and includes paid bookings |
| 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. | Solo consultants, coaches, tutors, and service freelancers who sell their time and want a paid booking page with packages, subscriptions, and a storefront for a one-time $29 or $79 payment instead of a recurring per-seat bill. |
| 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. | Under fifteen minutes to a live paid booking page: connect a calendar, create a booking type, connect Stripe or PayPal. Configuring packages, subscriptions, and a storefront adds an hour. |
| 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. | Very low. The interface is deliberately plain and the settings are shallow, which is the point; there is no data model to design and no automation builder to learn. |
| Platforms | Web app, iOS, Android, Windows desktop, macOS desktop, Website widget and plugin, Branded customer app option | Web app, Hosted booking pages, REST API (paid tiers) |
| Compliance | HIPAA via the Setmore Health configuration on Pro, PCI handled through Square, Stripe, PayPal, or LawPay | GDPR (privacy policy and terms published by Sumo Group, Inc.), No SOC 2, HIPAA, or ISO 27001 certification advertised on public pages |
| Founded | 2011 | 2021 |
| Headquarters | Portland, Oregon, United States | Austin, Texas, United States |
| Ownership | Privately held and bootstrapped; no disclosed venture funding | Owned by Sumo Group, Inc., the privately held operator of AppSumo |
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.
TidyCal
Strengths
- The free plan includes paid bookings, packages, subscriptions, and discount codes, which is a stronger commerce layer than most competitors offer at any price.
- A one-time $29 or $79 license removes the recurring-cost objection entirely, which is the single biggest reason freelancers abandon scheduling subscriptions.
- Genuine service-business features that scheduling tools usually ignore: no-show fees, cancellation controls, reschedule restrictions, manual approvals, and post-booking ratings and reviews.
- The digital storefront lets a consultant attach a paid PDF, course, or template to a booking, turning the page into a small product catalogue.
Limitations
- No CRM integration at all; there is no Salesforce or HubSpot connection, so bookings reach a sales system only through Zapier on paid tiers.
- No inbound routing: no qualification forms, no conditional logic, no attribute-based assignment, which rules it out for a real demo funnel.
- No mobile app, a complaint that recurs consistently in third-party reviews, and no desktop or browser-extension clients.
- SMS reminders only reach US and Canadian numbers, and only on the two most expensive tiers.
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.
TidyCal
A free forever plan, two one-time lifetime licenses sold through AppSumo, and one optional monthly or annual subscription for branding removal and priority support. There is no per-seat pricing.
- Free$0
- Individual Lifetime$29
- Agency Lifetime$79
- Pro$12
On price per capability TidyCal is the outlier in the category and it is not close: $29 once buys a paid booking page with packages, subscriptions, a storefront, analytics, and API access that competitors charge $10 to $17 per seat per month for. The honest framing is that TidyCal is cheap because it stops short of everything a growing company eventually needs, namely CRM sync, lead routing, SSO, compliance, and a mobile app. For a one-person service business the value is close to unbeatable. For a company that expects to hire a sales team, the $29 is real but the ceiling arrives quickly.
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 profileTidyCal
TidyCal is the best value in scheduling and it is not particularly close, provided you fit the profile: one person, or a small agency, selling time for money. The free plan already does paid bookings, packages, and subscriptions, and $29 once unlocks nearly everything else worth having. The reason it is cheap is legible in the feature table, though. There is no CRM sync, no lead routing, no SSO, no compliance story, and no mobile app, so a company that hires a sales team will outgrow it inside a year. Buy it as a transaction tool for a service business, not as the scheduling layer for a company you intend to scale.
Read the full TidyCal profileSetmore profile last reviewed 2026-09-27; TidyCal 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 TidyCal?
TidyCal is a one-time purchase for booking links and simple paid bookings, which suits a solo operator who resents subscriptions. Setmore is free up to four staff with unlimited appointments, then $5 a head for a full appointment system with SMS, recurring bookings, and in-person payments. If you are one person selling calls, TidyCal. If you run a shop with staff and a counter, Setmore.
Is Setmore or TidyCal cheaper?
Setmore starts at $0 (Free), then $5 per user per month billed annually ($12 month to month). TidyCal starts at $0 (free forever); $29 one-time for Individual Lifetime. 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. TidyCal pricing model: A free forever plan, two one-time lifetime licenses sold through AppSumo, and one optional monthly or annual subscription for branding removal and priority support. There is no per-seat pricing.
Does Setmore or TidyCal 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. TidyCal has a free plan. Free forever: unlimited bookings, unlimited booking types, paid bookings via Stripe and PayPal, recurring and package bookings, Stripe subscriptions, discount codes, ratings and reviews, guest invites, a digital storefront, your own booking page, and translation. Trial terms: No trial needed; the free plan is permanent and includes paid bookings.
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 TidyCal?
Solo consultants, coaches, tutors, and service freelancers who sell their time and want a paid booking page with packages, subscriptions, and a storefront for a one-time $29 or $79 payment instead of a recurring per-seat bill.
What are the best alternatives to Setmore and TidyCal?
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.
