Koalendar
A booking link whose free tier does not hold event types hostage
Koalendar is a personal and small-team meeting scheduling tool that turns your calendar availability into shareable booking pages, with a free forever plan that allows unlimited booking pages and two calendar connections, and a Pro plan from $6.99 per seat per month that adds unlimited calendar syncs, payment collection, round-robin and collective scheduling, custom reminders, and branding removal; it is bootstrapped, independent, and positioned explicitly as the Calendly alternative with a usable free tier.
Overview
Koalendar exists because of one specific pricing decision made by its largest competitor. Calendly's free plan allows exactly one event type and one calendar connection, which means a solo consultant who wants a 15-minute intro call and a 60-minute paid session has to pay. Koalendar's free plan allows unlimited booking pages and two calendar connections. Almost everything else about the product follows from wanting that comparison to be favourable.
The job it does is the personal booking link: a knowledge worker, freelancer, recruiter, or small team who needs other people to pick a time without an email thread. It is not an appointment system for a salon with staff and rooms, it has no point of sale, and it does not route inbound leads with qualification logic. It creates booking pages, checks calendars, sends reminders, and takes payment.
The company is small and deliberately so: founded in 2020, self-funded, no venture capital, and profitable by its own account. That has a real upside (the free tier is a positioning choice rather than a loss leader waiting to be withdrawn, and pricing has stayed low) and a real downside (there is no enterprise story, no SOC 2 marketing, and a small team behind the product).
Pro is priced at $6.99 per seat per month on annual billing, which is around a third of Calendly's Teams tier and roughly two thirds of Calendly Standard. Round-robin and collective scheduling, which Calendly puts behind its $16 Teams plan, sit on Koalendar's single paid tier. A Teams plan for ten or more seats is quoted rather than published, which is the one place the self-serve path stops.
Best for
Freelancers, consultants, coaches, recruiters, and small teams who want a straightforward booking link, need more than one meeting type without paying, and would rather spend $6.99 a seat than $16 for round-robin.
Not the right fit for
- Service businesses with staff, rooms, and a till; there is no point of sale, no inventory, no memberships, and no resource management, so a salon or clinic wants Square Appointments, Fresha, or Vagaro.
- Sales organisations needing inbound lead routing, qualification forms, and disqualification paths; Koalendar has round-robin but not the routing layer Calendly Teams or OnceHub provide.
- Buyers who require a published SOC 2 report, formal enterprise security review, or a signed enterprise agreement, none of which a small bootstrapped vendor is set up to provide.
- Developers who want to embed scheduling inside their own product; Koalendar offers webhooks and Zapier, not the calendar API surface Cronofy or Cal.com sell.
- Anyone who wants open source or self-hosting, which is Cal.com's territory and something Koalendar has never claimed.
How it works
- 1
You sign up, connect Google, Outlook, or iCloud, and set the hours you are willing to be booked. Koalendar computes availability from every connected calendar, so a personal calendar can block work time even on the free plan, which requires a paid upgrade at Calendly.
- 2
You create booking pages. Each is a meeting shape with its own duration, questions, location, buffers, and notice period. There is no cap on how many you create at any tier, which is the central difference from most free plans in this category.
- 3
You share the page as a link, embed it on your own site (WordPress, Wix, Shopify, Squarespace are all supported), or drop it into an email. Invitees see slots in their own timezone automatically and the booking page can be presented in any of more than 40 languages.
- 4
On confirmation, the meeting writes back to your calendar, a video link is generated for Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams, and reminder emails go out. On Pro, you can also collect payment in over 150 currencies with more than 20 payment methods including card, bank transfer, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, send SMS reminders, distribute bookings round robin across a team, and remove Koalendar's branding.
Feature breakdown
27 features in 5 modulesBooking pages and availability
The core scheduling engine, most of which is on the free plan.- Unlimited booking pages
- There is no cap on the number of meeting types you can create, on any plan including free. This is the single most important thing about Koalendar, because Calendly's free plan allows exactly one.
- Two calendar connections on free, unlimited on Pro
- Google, Outlook, and iCloud. Two connections on the free plan means a work calendar and a personal calendar can both block availability without paying, which Calendly free cannot do.
- Unlimited bookings
- No monthly meeting cap on any tier, including free, so a busy month never triggers an upgrade prompt.
- Automatic timezone detection
- Invitees see slots in their own timezone by default, removing the most common cause of missed international calls.
- Buffers, notice periods, and daily limits
- Padding either side of meetings, a minimum booking notice so nobody claims the next ten minutes, a future booking horizon, and caps on bookings per day.
- Double-booking prevention
- Availability is computed against every connected calendar so a slot already committed elsewhere never appears.
- Custom questions at booking
- Intake questions per booking page so you arrive at the call already knowing why it was booked.
Team scheduling
Round-robin and collective booking on a single cheap paid tier.- Round-robin distribution
- Inbound bookings rotate across team members by availability, which at Calendly requires the $16 Teams plan and here sits on the $6.99 Pro tier.
- Collective (multi-host) booking
- Meetings requiring several hosts to be free simultaneously, computed across all their calendars.
- Group bookings
- Capacity-limited group sessions for classes, workshops, and webinars where many invitees join one slot.
- Admin controls for team availability
- Administrative oversight of team members' pages and availability rather than every user configuring in isolation.
- Seat-based pricing including resources
- A seat can be a person or a bookable resource, so a meeting room or piece of equipment can occupy a seat rather than requiring a different product.
Payments, reminders, and no-shows
The Pro-tier features that turn a link into a business process.- Payment collection at booking
- Over 150 currencies and more than 20 payment methods including card, bank transfer, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Koalendar takes no percentage of its own; you pay only the processor's rate.
- Tax collection and receipts
- Tax applied at checkout with automatic receipt generation, which is unusual at this price point.
- Email and SMS reminders
- Automated reminders before the meeting to cut no-shows, with customisable templates on Pro.
- Custom reminder timing and content
- Control when reminders fire and what they say rather than accepting a fixed default.
- Automatic calendar invitations
- Invitees receive a proper calendar invite, not just a confirmation email, so the meeting exists on their side too.
Branding and embedding
How the booking page looks to the person receiving it.- Branded booking pages
- Your logo, colours, and custom text and messaging, so the page reads as yours rather than as a vendor's.
- Branding removal
- Koalendar's own branding is removed on Pro, which is the standard upgrade line in this category and is honestly signposted here.
- Website embedding
- Inline and popup embeds with documented support for WordPress, Wix, Shopify, and Squarespace, so booking happens on your site rather than on a redirect.
- 40-plus languages
- Booking pages render in more than 40 languages, available on the free plan rather than reserved as a paid feature.
- Confirmation redirects
- Send the invitee to your own thank-you page after booking, which is what makes conversion tracking possible.
Integrations and tracking
A deliberately modest surface, honest about what it is not.- Video conferencing
- Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams links generated automatically per booking.
- Zapier and Make
- General-purpose automation covering the integrations Koalendar does not build natively.
- Webhooks
- Fire on booking events so a developer can react programmatically without a full API platform.
- Google Analytics 4 and Meta Pixel
- Conversion tracking on booking pages, which matters if the link is part of a paid acquisition funnel.
- CSV and Excel export
- Booking data exports cleanly, which is a small thing that matters a great deal when you eventually leave.
Use cases
4 documentedFreelance consultant with three meeting types
A free 15-minute intro, a paid 60-minute strategy session, and a 30-minute client check-in. Calendly's free plan allows one of the three.
All three exist on Koalendar's free plan with both work and personal calendars connected, and upgrading to Pro at $6.99 adds the payment collection the strategy session needs.
Three-person agency fielding inbound enquiries
Enquiries land unevenly, one partner takes every call, and Calendly wants $16 a seat for round-robin.
Round-robin on Koalendar Pro distributes bookings across all three for $20.97 a month total instead of $48.
Recruiter running a hiring loop
Candidates need to book screens, and panel interviews need three interviewers free simultaneously.
Individual booking pages handle screens; collective booking computes availability across the whole panel; branded pages keep the candidate experience on the employer's brand.
Coach selling paid sessions internationally
Clients across six timezones and four currencies, with sessions that must be paid for before they are confirmed.
Automatic timezone detection, 150-plus currencies, 20-plus payment methods, tax and receipts, and no vendor percentage on top of the processor's fee.
Pricing
from $0 (Free Forever), then $6.99 per seat per month on annual billingFreemium per-seat subscription with a single published paid tier. A seat can be a person or a bookable resource. Teams of ten or more are quoted rather than published.
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Free Forever | $0 per month |
The genuinely useful free tier in this category. Calendly free allows one event type and one calendar; this allows unlimited pages and two calendars. |
| Pro | $6.99 per seat per month, billed annually |
Monthly billing is available at a higher rate; annual saves around 30 percent. Round-robin here costs less than half what Calendly charges for it. |
| Teams | Custom quoted |
The only tier requiring a conversation; everything below ten seats is fully self-serve. |
Add-ons
- Nonprofit and education discount (Discounted Pro pricing on application): Requires an eligibility application.
Billing notes
- Annual billing saves roughly 30 percent against monthly. Monthly billing keeps the option to downgrade or cancel at the end of any month.
- A seat can be a person or a bookable resource, so a meeting room counts as a seat rather than needing a different product.
- Payment collection carries no Koalendar percentage; you pay only your payment processor's rate, which is the correct model and not universal in this category.
- The free plan's real limit is two calendar syncs and no payments, reminders customisation, round-robin, or branding removal. It is not limited by event type count or booking volume.
- There is no published enterprise tier with SSO or a security package; teams of ten or more are handled by quote.
Value assessment: Koalendar is the best-value personal booking link for anyone who needs more than one meeting type. The free plan is genuinely usable long term (unlimited pages, unlimited bookings, two calendars, embedding, 40-plus languages) which makes it the correct recommendation for most solo users who would otherwise pay Calendly $10 for the privilege of a second event type. Pro at $6.99 a seat buys round-robin and collective scheduling that Calendly charges $16 for, plus payments with no vendor cut. What you give up is enterprise credentials, a deep integration catalogue, CRM logging, and the brand recognition that makes a Calendly link feel unremarkable to a stranger. For a small team, that is a very good trade.
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- The free plan allows unlimited booking pages and two calendar connections, which is materially more generous than Calendly, HubSpot Meetings, or most rivals at the same price of nothing.
- Round-robin and collective scheduling sit on the $6.99 tier rather than a $16 team plan, which halves the cost of the most common team upgrade in this category.
- Payment collection is broad (150-plus currencies, 20-plus methods, tax and receipts) and Koalendar takes no percentage of its own on top of the processor.
- Seats can be resources as well as people, so meeting rooms and equipment are covered without a second product.
- Bootstrapped, profitable, and independent since 2020, so pricing pressure from investors is absent and the free tier is a strategy rather than a subsidy.
- 40-plus languages and automatic timezone detection on the free plan make it usable internationally without paying.
- GA4 and Meta Pixel tracking plus confirmation redirects mean the booking page can be measured properly inside a paid acquisition funnel.
Limitations
- No inbound routing forms or lead qualification, so a sales team that needs to disqualify and route by answer needs Calendly Teams, OnceHub, or Chili Piper instead.
- No native CRM integrations of consequence; HubSpot and Salesforce logging goes through Zapier rather than a first-party connector with field mapping.
- The integration catalogue is small in absolute terms, and Zapier or Make carries most of the load.
- No published SOC 2 report or enterprise security package, which will stop it in any procurement process that requires one.
- Teams of ten or more are quoted rather than published, so the largest self-serve configuration is nine seats.
- No API for embedding scheduling inside another product; webhooks are the extent of the developer surface.
- It is a small company. That is a strength for pricing and a risk for buyers who care about vendor scale, and the brand carries none of Calendly's instant recognition when you send a link to a stranger.
Head-to-head comparisons
6 alternativesKoalendar vs Calendly
from $0 (Free), then $10 per seat per month (Standard, billed monthly)The entire reason Koalendar exists. Calendly free allows one event type and one calendar; Koalendar free allows unlimited pages and two calendars. Calendly puts round-robin behind a $16 Teams plan; Koalendar includes it at $6.99. Calendly wins decisively on brand recognition, CRM integrations, and routing forms, and its Enterprise tier at $15,000 a year is a different product entirely. For a solo user or a small team without a Salesforce dependency, Koalendar does the same job for a fraction of the money.
Full Koalendar vs Calendly comparisonKoalendar vs SimplyMeet.me
from $0 (Free Forever), then $5.99 per user per month billed annuallyThe closest peer in this batch. SimplyMeet.me free allows 3 meeting types and 50 meetings a month for one user, with Standard at $5.99 and Professional at $9.99. Koalendar free allows unlimited pages and unlimited bookings but only two calendars. SimplyMeet.me adds CalDAV support, routing forms, and poll meetings that Koalendar lacks; Koalendar has the better free plan and broader payment methods. Choose SimplyMeet.me if you need routing or a non-mainstream calendar; Koalendar if the free tier has to carry you.
Full Koalendar vs SimplyMeet.me comparisonKoalendar vs Picktime
from $0 (Free), then around $3 per user per month billed annuallyPicktime is a service-business scheduler wearing a free-tier badge: 3 team members, 3 resources, 2 locations, and 2 classes free, with paid plans from $3 per user. It handles rooms, classes, and staff that Koalendar simply does not model. Koalendar is a cleaner personal booking link with better payments and no service-business complexity. Pick Picktime if you have staff and rooms; Koalendar if you have a calendar and a link to send.
Full Koalendar vs Picktime comparisonKoalendar vs TidyCal
from $0 (free forever); $29 one-time for Individual LifetimeTidyCal sells a lifetime deal for roughly the cost of a few months of anything else, and covers the basics competently. Koalendar charges $6.99 a seat but has round-robin, collective booking, 150-plus currencies, resource seats, and a substantially better free tier. TidyCal is the right answer if you want to pay once and never think about it; Koalendar if you need team scheduling or expect the product to keep developing.
Full Koalendar vs TidyCal comparisonKoalendar vs zcal
from $0 (free forever); $7/user/mo for Pro on annual billingZcal competes on the same free-tier-generosity axis and on the polish of the booking experience, with a free plan that is unusually complete. Koalendar counters with round-robin and collective scheduling on a cheap paid tier plus far broader payment support. Both are sensible escapes from Calendly's one-event-type free plan; compare the paid tiers on whether you need team distribution.
Full Koalendar vs zcal comparisonKoalendar vs Cronofy
from Free developer account, then around $139 per month for the entry API planDifferent purchases entirely. Cronofy sells calendar and scheduling infrastructure to developers embedding availability inside their own product, from $139 a month for the API, plus a Scheduler product at around £12 per seat. Koalendar sells a finished booking page to a person. If you are building scheduling into software you ship, Koalendar is not a candidate; if you just need people to book time with you, Cronofy is absurd overkill.
Full Koalendar vs Cronofy comparisonImplementation & onboarding
- Setup time
- Ten minutes. Connect a calendar, set your hours, create a booking page, share the link. Payments add a processor connection and perhaps another ten minutes.
- Learning curve
- Minimal. The product is deliberately narrow and the interface reflects that; anyone who has used Calendly will be productive immediately, and anyone who has not will be productive in an afternoon.
- Onboarding
- Entirely self-serve for the free and Pro plans. Only the ten-plus seat Teams tier involves a conversation, and dedicated account support is what that tier is buying.
- Migration notes
- There is no importer from Calendly or other schedulers, so booking pages are recreated by hand, which for most users is fifteen minutes of work. Existing booked meetings stay on your calendar regardless, since the calendar is the system of record. The real migration cost is updating the link everywhere you have published it: email signatures, website, social profiles, and proposal templates. Booking history exports to CSV or Excel.
Platform, API & security
- Platforms
- Web applicationMobile responsive booking pagesWebsite embeds for WordPress, Wix, Shopify, and Squarespace
- API
- Webhooks on booking events plus Zapier and Make for automation. There is no public scheduling API for embedding availability inside another product, which is a deliberate scope decision rather than an omission.
- Compliance
- GDPR
- Data residency
- Not published as a configurable option.
- SSO
- Not offered on published plans; there is no enterprise identity tier.
- Security notes
- Calendar access uses OAuth to Google, Outlook, and iCloud rather than credential storage. There is no published SOC 2 Type 2 report or trust centre, which is the expected profile for a small bootstrapped vendor and a genuine blocker in formal procurement.
Support & resources
- Channels
- Email supportIn-product help
- Documentation
- Help documentation and comparison guides on koalendar.com, including an explicit free versus Pro comparison guide.
- Community
- No large official forum; the company publishes an extensive blog covering scheduling software pricing and competitor comparisons.
Company
- Founded
- 2020
- Headquarters
- Independent, small distributed team
- Ownership
- Bootstrapped and independent
- Employees
- Small (not publicly disclosed)
- Funding
- Self-funded with no external investment; the company describes itself as bootstrapped and profitable.
Timeline
- 2020Founded as a self-funded independent product, positioned from the start as a Calendly alternative with a genuinely usable free plan.
- 2022Adds team scheduling with round-robin and collective booking on the single paid tier rather than behind a separate team plan.
- 2024Expands payment collection to more than 150 currencies and 20-plus payment methods, with tax handling and automatic receipts.
- 2025Adds GA4 and Meta Pixel conversion tracking and broadens embedding support across WordPress, Wix, Shopify, and Squarespace.
- 2026Pricing stands at a Free Forever plan with unlimited booking pages and two calendar syncs, Pro at $6.99 per seat per month annually, and a quoted Teams tier for ten or more seats.
Integrations
- Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCloud
- Zoom
- Google Meet
- Microsoft Teams
- Zapier and Make
- Webhooks
- Stripe and Apple Pay and Google Pay for payments
- WordPress, Wix, Shopify, and Squarespace embeds
- Google Analytics 4 and Meta Pixel
Frequently asked questions
10 questionsWhat is Koalendar?
Koalendar is a meeting scheduling tool that turns your calendar availability into shareable booking pages. Invitees pick a slot, the meeting writes back to your calendar with a video link, and reminders go out automatically. It is aimed at freelancers, consultants, recruiters, and small teams rather than at service businesses with staff and rooms.
What does the Koalendar free plan actually include?
Unlimited booking pages, unlimited bookings, two calendar syncs across Google, Outlook, and iCloud, Zoom and Google Meet and Teams links, website embedding, 40-plus languages, and automatic timezone detection. The point of comparison is Calendly, whose free plan allows exactly one event type and one calendar connection.
When is the Koalendar free plan not enough?
When you need to collect payment at booking, connect more than two calendars, customise reminder timing or send SMS reminders, distribute bookings round robin across a team, or remove Koalendar's branding from the page. Those are the Pro features, and Pro is $6.99 per seat per month on annual billing.
How much does Koalendar cost?
The Free Forever plan is $0. Pro is $6.99 per seat per month billed annually, with monthly billing available at a higher rate and annual saving around 30 percent. Teams of ten or more seats are quoted rather than published. A seat can be a person or a bookable resource such as a meeting room.
Does Koalendar support round-robin and group meetings?
Yes, both on the Pro tier. Round-robin rotates inbound bookings across team members by availability, collective booking finds slots where several hosts are free simultaneously, and group bookings handle capacity-limited sessions like classes or workshops. Calendly puts round-robin behind its $16 Teams plan, so this is one of the clearest savings.
Can Koalendar take payments, and does it take a cut?
Pro collects payment at booking in more than 150 currencies with over 20 payment methods including card, bank transfer, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, with tax handling and automatic receipts. Koalendar takes no percentage of its own; you pay only your payment processor's standard rate.
Does Koalendar do lead routing for sales teams?
No. It has round-robin distribution but no routing forms, no qualification logic, and no disqualification paths. If you need a visitor to answer questions and be routed to the right owner or turned away, look at Calendly Teams, OnceHub, or a dedicated inbound routing product.
Can Koalendar run a salon or clinic?
No. There is no point of sale, no inventory, no memberships or packages, no staff commission, and no proper resource and room modelling beyond treating a resource as a seat. A service business with staff and a till wants Square Appointments, Fresha, Vagaro, or Picktime.
Who is behind Koalendar?
It was founded in 2020 as a self-funded independent company with no venture capital, and describes itself as bootstrapped and profitable. That keeps the pricing low and the free tier stable, but it also means no enterprise sales motion, no published SOC 2 report, and a small team.
How hard is it to switch from Calendly?
The product itself takes about fifteen minutes to set up, since booking pages have to be recreated by hand rather than imported. The real work is updating your link everywhere it is published: email signature, website, social profiles, and proposal templates. Existing booked meetings are unaffected because they live on your calendar, not in the scheduler.
Editorial verdict
Koalendar is the right recommendation for anyone whose objection to Calendly is the price of a second event type. The free plan is genuinely complete for a solo user, with unlimited booking pages, unlimited bookings, two calendar connections, embedding, and 40-plus languages, and Pro at $6.99 a seat delivers round-robin and collective scheduling that Calendly charges $16 for, plus payments with no vendor cut. What you are giving up is real but narrow: no routing forms, no first-party CRM connectors, no SOC 2, no API, and none of Calendly's brand familiarity when a stranger clicks the link. If you are a freelancer, a coach, or a team of three or four fielding inbound calls, buy this and spend the difference elsewhere. If your scheduling has to log into Salesforce, qualify leads, or survive a security review, it is the wrong tool and you should stop reading here.
Written by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Awards, when shown, are judged against the published criteria in our methodology.