16 Best WordPress Booking Plugins in 2024 (Compared)

Last Updated on July 12, 2024 by 4 Comments

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First Pick

Amelia

Pricing: $49 per year
Standout Features: Enterprise-Level Booking Plugin, Performance Optimization, Seamless Appointment Scheduling

Visit AmeliaRead Overview
Second Pick

Simply Schedule Appointments

Pricing: $99 per year
Standout Features: Simple Setup, Interactive Setup Wizard, Advanced Scheduling Options

Visit Simply Schedule AppointmentsRead Overview
Third Pick

Appointment Hour Booking

Pricing: €59 per year
Standout Features: Beginner-Friendly UI, Visual Configuration, Automatic Price Calculator

Visit Appointment Hour BookingRead Overview
Blog / WordPress / 16 Best WordPress Booking Plugins in 2024 (Compared)

Using tools that save time is an essential task for business owners. One way to do that is to eliminate manually scheduling customer appointments with tools for automatic booking. Fortunately, WordPress booking plugins can make your job easier and improve the experience for your visitors.

WordPress provides you with a wide variety of WordPress plugins, and in this post, we’ll introduce you to 16 of the best booking plugins, discussing their key features and pricing.

What is a WordPress Booking Plugin?

A WordPress booking plugin integrates with WordPress, enabling users to create and manage bookings for services or products. It allows you to set up a booking system on your WordPress website, allowing visitors to select a date and time, input their information, and make a reservation directly.

Some of the features that you’ll typically find in a booking plugin are:

  • Customizable booking forms
  • Allow/disallow scheduling based on availability
  • Payment integration
  • Round-robin scheduling options
  • Automated confirmation and reminder emails
  • Customer management tools
  • Integration with Google Calendar, iCal, and other calendar systems
  • Managing resources required for bookings (people, properties, items, etc.)

Best Booking Plugins for WordPress


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When we created this group of the best booking plugins for WordPress, we considered the most important features that your business needs. To be at the top, each should have a user-friendly interface, the ability to create customized booking forms, payment integration options, automated booking confirmations, and helpful documentation. Additionally, we evaluated our choices for integrating other functionalities, such as email providers for businesses. Last but certainly not least, we chose plugins that work well with the latest version of WordPress and were highly rated and reviewed by those who use them.

With that said, let’s show you your best WordPress scheduling options!

1. Amelia

🥇 Best Booking Plugin Overall

A screenshot of Amelia's home

Amelia is an events and appointments booking calendar plugin geared towards enterprise-level businesses. The feature-rich booking system lets you automate the appointment scheduling process on your site’s back and front ends:

The back-end calendar view of the Amelia WordPress booking plugin

One of this tool’s unique advantages is its performance optimization. For example, Amelia incorporates page preloading and other advanced technologies. This helps it deliver the best experience possible to you and your customers.

What We Like About Amelia

  • User-Friendly Interface: Amelia offers a beginner-friendly dashboard that simplifies managing appointments and bookings for customers and business owners.
  • Group Appointment Bookings: Amelia supports group appointments, allowing customers to book appointments for multiple people in a single booking.
  • Integrations: Amelia allows you to connect with well-known payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe, and Mollie, along with WooCommerce. This gives you various payment options to choose from.
  • Customization Features: You can customize booking systems with the plugin to align with your brand colors and identity. This helps your business uphold a consistent brand image.

What Could Be Improved

  • Complex Setup: You may need time and effort to set up all features correctly, as the plugin provides many customization options. Therefore, you must adjust various settings to tailor the options to your business needs, like setting working hours and service availability.
  • Learning Curve: Users unfamiliar with advanced booking systems may find it challenging to get used to the many features and customization options available. It may take some time for admins and employees to become skilled at using all the functions effectively.

🥇 Why We Picked It

Amelia is our clear top choice because it shines for its user-friendly interface and ease of use. It lets you set up appointments in minutes, offers a smooth booking flow for clients, and integrates with popular calendars for effortless scheduling.

Who is Amelia Best For?

Amelia is a splendid choice for a plugin with a quick installation and setup process. It’s also handy if you want to primarily book in-person appointments and meetings (gyms, salons, etc.). Your customers can pay online (premium only) or offline.

Community Reviews and Ratings

Users appreciate Amelia’s comprehensive features and functionality, excellent customer support, ease of use, and positive impact on scheduling appointments and events, making it a highly recommended solution.

Price

Free, with premium plans starting at $49 per year.

Get Amelia

2. Simply Schedule Appointments

🥈 Simplest Booking Plugin

The Simply Schedule Appointments plugin

Another simple yet powerful WordPress booking plugin you might consider using is Simply Schedule Appointments. This freemium tool makes accepting appointments through your WordPress site seamless. It’s quick and easy to set up and promises to have you ready to display your availability within minutes.

Simply Schedule Appointments comes in both free and premium versions. While the plugin is feature-rich, it has no unnecessary bloat or confusing settings. The interface is one of the most modern and clean ones included on this list:

The interface of the Simply Schedule Appointments plugin

You can create appointment types and manage your bookings from the back end. This plugin is also ideal for arranging phone calls and meetings. For example, it’s a solid option if you’re a trainer, counselor, or consultant. The interactive setup wizard lets you quickly create and add a booking form to your site. It also fully integrates with our own Divi Builder, making it all the easier to use.

What We Like About Simply Schedule Appointments

  • Integrations: Simply Schedule Appointments seamlessly integrates with popular services like Google Calendar, Mailchimp, Zoom, Webex, and Webhooks.
  • Email and SMS Notifications: The plugin sends confirmation emails to administrators and users once an appointment is booked. Additionally, it offers the option to send notifications through SMS, providing convenient communication channels.
  • Frontend Shortcodes: Various frontend shortcodes are available, allowing users to easily add appointment booking forms to their websites. These shortcodes allow users to display appointment types, available dates, booking forms, and scheduled appointments on the front end.
  • Ease of Use: The plugin makes it straightforward for users and website administrators to schedule appointments without requiring coding knowledge. Additionally, its clean interface and simple setup process make it incredibly user-friendly.

What Could Be Improved

  • Calendar Integration Limitation: Schedule Appointments only integrate with Google Calendar and The Events Calendar, which may limit options for users who prefer alternative calendar solutions.

🥈 Why We Picked It

Simply Schedule Appointments is our next choice plugin because of its easy-to-use interface, vital appointment and payment management features, smooth integration with popular platforms, and excellent customer support.

Who is Simply Schedule Appointments Best For?

Simply Schedule Appointments is for you if you want a plugin that lets your customers quickly and easily schedule phone calls, meetings, or sessions. It’s perfect if you want a freemium tool that isn’t overly simple or too complex.

Community Reviews and Ratings

Customers appreciate the Appointment Booking Calendar for its ease of use, excellent customer support, and dedication of its development team. The plugin’s features and reliability also receive high praise in reviews.

Price

Free, with premium plans starting at $99 per year.

Get Simply Schedule Appointments

3. Appointment Hour Booking

🥉Best Booking Plugin For Physical Events

A screenshot of Appointment Hour Booking's home

Appointment Hour Booking is a freemium WordPress booking plugin that lets you build appointment forms and apply specific times for availability. On the front end of your site, your customers can select from the displayed start times for the chosen service. Then, they can submit payments.

Also, the UI is more beginner-friendly when compared to many other WordPress booking plugins on this list:

The interface of the Appointment Hour Booking plugin

The Appointment Hour Booking plugin’s visual configuration makes building your calendar and forms straightforward. It also offers a wide range of customization and configuration options that make it flexible for small and large businesses.

What We Like About Appointment Hour Booking

  • Automated Time Calculations: Start times are automatically calculated by Appointment Hour Booking based on open hours and service duration, reducing manual work for users.
  • Multilingual: With the calendar’s availability in over 53 languages, the plugin caters to a diverse user base.
  • Integrations: Additionally, the plugin integrates with payment processors such as PayPal, Stripe, and others. They also offer add-ons for services like reCaptcha, MailChimp, and more.

What Could Be Improved

  • Limited Free Version: While the free version is functional, you may find yourself needing to upgrade to access more advanced functionalities that are more suitable in certain use cases, leading to potential additional costs.

🥉 Why We Picked It

Lastly, Appointment Hour Booking is the third choice as it excels for businesses with complex schedules. It lets you define multiple services, durations, and prices and avoids double-booking, making it ideal for anything from medical appointments to personal training.

Who is Appointment Hour Booking Best For?

Appointment Hour Booking is for creating appointment booking forms with specified start and end times. Therefore, it’s a useful plugin for offering classes, workshops, events, or meetings.

Community Reviews and Ratings

Users praise the Appointment Hour Booking plugin for its adaptability, ease of use, and excellent customer service. They value its ability to fulfill various requirements and the extensive features it provides.

Price

Free, with premium plans starting at €59 (~$64) yearly.

Get Appointment Hour Booking

4. Hotel Booking Plugin by MotoPress

A screenshot of MotoPress's home

The Hotel Booking Plugin by MotoPress is an excellent choice for those wanting to build a hotel booking or rental property website. Using any WordPress theme, you can easily book, list, and manage properties or rooms.

The plugin works with any WordPress theme, allowing you to create a booking site easily. Divi users will be happy to know that Hotel Booking integrates with Divi by adding a booking module directly into the Visual Builder. With so many design options, you can create beautiful booking pages for real estate, campsites, rentals, and more.

Bookings with Divi Builder

What We Like About Hotel Booking Plugin

  • No Limits: You can list unlimited accommodations and services, providing flexibility for various hospitality businesses.
  • Versatile Usage: Hotel Booking by MotoPress is suitable for a wide range of hospitality businesses such as hotels, vacation rentals, apartment agencies, hostels, and more, making it a versatile option for different establishments.
  • Customizable Email Templates: MotoPress provides customizable email templates, helping you maintain a unified brand image in all your customer communications.
  • Payment Gateways: MotoPress offers a broad range of default payment gateways, including PayPal, 2Checkout, Braintree, and Stripe.

What Could Be Improved

  • Pricing: The plugin costs $139 for one website, including one year of support, which some users might consider relatively high.

Who is Hotel Booking Plugin Best For?

Hotel Booking Plugin is for you if you want a complete solution booking platform for real estate, camping, hotels, or any other reservation-based website. With Hotel Booking by MotoPress, you can create stunning booking pages that match the look and feel of the rest of your website.

Community Reviews and Ratings

Users appreciate the plugin’s great functionality, ease of configuration, and comprehensive features. However, users do highlight that the support can be better.

Price

Free version available. The paid version starts at $139/yr.

Get Hotel Booking by MotoPress

5. WooCommerce Bookings and Appointments

WooCommerce Bookings & Appointments - PluginHive LP - July 2024

WooCommerce Bookings and Appointments is another booking tool designed to integrate booking functionalities into WooCommerce-powered websites. Whether you offer services, rentals, or appointments, this plugin transforms your products into bookable resources. It allows businesses to efficiently manage bookings, ensuring a smooth and user-friendly customer experience.

The WooCommerce appointment plugin offers flexible booking options, enabling single-day, multiple fixed-day, or flexible bookings with start and end dates to cater to various scheduling needs. Dynamic cost calculation ensures that booking costs are tailored based on the number of slots, additional services, and guests. This feature provides a transparent pricing model for the business and its customers.

Flexible Booking Options Tied to Payments

Enhanced management features allow businesses to set availability rules for specific dates, times, or recurring bookings, ensuring efficient scheduling and resource allocation. Integration capabilities include syncing bookings with Google Calendar, sending email notifications and reminders, and accepting partial payments or deposits. These features streamline the booking process, making it easy to keep track of appointments and communicate with customers.

What We Like About WooCommerce Bookings and Appointments

  • Comprehensive Booking Options: It supports many booking scenarios, from single appointments to complex recurring bookings, making it versatile for diverse business needs.
  • Integration and Automation: Integration with Google Calendar streamlines scheduling and management, while email notifications enhance customer communication. The plugin also works seamlessly with other plugins like WooCommerce Deposits for partial payments and WooCommerce UPS Shipping for shipping bookable products.WooCommerce Product Addon for offering customizations.
  • Flexible Pricing Structures: The plugin’s dynamic cost calculation allows businesses to implement complex pricing strategies easily.
    Robust Support and Updates: Regular updates and excellent customer support ensure that the plugin remains reliable and up-to-date with WooCommerce and WordPress updates.

What Could Be Improved

  • User Interface Enhancement: While the current user interface is functional, updating it with a more modern design could further enhance usability and provide an even more intuitive experience for users.

Who is Bookings and Appointments Best For?

This plugin is best suited for businesses offering services, rentals, or appointments that require flexible booking options and seamless integration with WooCommerce. It’s ideal for hotel bookings, equipment rentals, car parking bookings, course bookings, class bookings, and hotel reservations. It caters to businesses looking to enhance customer experience through efficient booking management.

Community Reviews and Ratings

Customers consistently praise the WooCommerce Bookings and Appointments plugin for its reliability, extensive features, and responsive customer support, reflected in its high rating of 4.96 out of 5 based on 306 customer reviews.

Price

This plugin is available for a single site for $99/yr with multiple site licenses available.

Get WooCommerce Bookings and Appointments

6. The Events Calendar

The Event Calendar plugin

The Events Calendar is one of the best WordPress events calendar plugins, and it can be an all-in-one solution for event ticketing. It lets you easily create and add an events calendar to your website. With the free Event Tickets add-on, you can allow users to book tickets for those events (whether online or in person). And, because it makes it easy to manage ticketing and RSVPs, you won’t need a separate RSVP plugin for any type of event site.

The Events Calendar plugin interface

This feature-rich plugin is highly customizable and extensible. In addition, it is easy to use and comes with a lot of support. That’s especially true if you upgrade to Events Calendar Pro. If you want a more robust event booking combo, Events Calendar integrates with Simply Schedule Events for the best of both worlds.

What We Like About The Events Calendar

  • Intuitive User Interface: The Events Calendar Plugin features an intuitive user interface that simplifies the process for newcomers, making adding necessary event information effortless.
  • Features: One of the most feature-packed event management systems available on the market, it offers a range of functions. These include event setup, scheduling dates and times, specifying venues, RSVP capabilities, and more.
  • Personalization: You can customize the calendar’s appearance to align it with your website’s style and branding, ensuring a consistent and cohesive look.
  • Responsive: The plugin has a responsive design ensures the calendar adapts well to different devices, providing a smooth user experience on desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

What Could Be Improved

  • Limited Free Version: While the free version of the plugin offers basic functionalities, some advanced features, such as recurring events, custom fields, and advanced widgets, are only available in the Pro version.
  • Added Costs: The Events Calendar offers various add-ons that provide additional features such as ticket selling, community events, and advanced search options. However, it’s important to note that you may need to purchase multiple add-ons to meet their specific requirements.

Who is The Events Calendar Best For?

The Events Calendar is best suited for you when running an events website. This powerful tool is an excellent way to sell tickets and book guests.

Community Reviews and Ratings

People appreciate The Events Calendar’s tremendous support, quick and helpful customer service, and the plugin’s functionality. It’s praised as a valuable tool with the potential for more features and improvements.

Price

Free, with premium plans starting at $99/year.

Get The Events Calendar

7. WP Simple Booking Calendar

A screenshot of WPSBC's home

Next on our list, WP Simple Booking Calendar is a popular WordPress booking plugin that lets you streamline renting out your property to customers via your website. Visitors can check your home or room’s availability and quickly book it.

You’ll be able to manage calendars and appointments from the back end easily:

The WP Simple Booking Calendar plugin settings

The free version has standard features for creating and displaying a booking calendar on your site. However, premium plans unlock more features, including advanced editing, customizing, and publishing options.

What We Like About WP Simple Booking Calendar

  • Ease of Use: The plugin is easy to install and embed on websites, allowing users to display availability with just a few clicks.
  • Responsive: The calendar by WP Simple Booking Calendar layout is responsive, ensuring compatibility across different devices.
  • Premium Features: The premium version offers advanced features like creating multiple calendars, syncing with popular booking sites, bulk editing, user management, and more.

What Could Be Improved

  • Restricted Free Version: You cannot sync events from other calendars or display them with the free version on your website. You must manually create all events, which can be time-consuming. Neither can you rename or delete legends. All the options redirect you to the Premium version.

Who is WP Simple Booking Calendar Best For?

If you want a freemium WordPress booking plugin for a property rental website, WP Simple Booking Calendar is for you. Whether you’re renting your vacation home, office space, or personal items and equipment, it’s worth checking out. However, remember that it doesn’t allow you to accept online payments. To do so, you need to switch to the WP Booking System.

Community Reviews and Ratings

The WP Simple Booking Calendar plugin has a 5 out of 5 rating on the WordPress repository for its simplicity and functions.

Price

Free, with premium plans starting at $39/year.

Get WP Simple Booking Calendar

8. WPForms

The WPForms WordPress plugin

If you’ve been using WordPress for a while, you’ve probably heard of WPForms. Along with being a very popular form builder, this freemium plugin can help you schedule bookings through your website. This tutorial goes into more depth on how the plugin works.

It lets you quickly and easily create booking forms using a user-friendly drag-and-drop builder:

The WPForms form builder interface

You can set specific fields to be “required,” such as the day and time for the appointment. You can also add completed forms anywhere on your site. That includes pages, posts, sidebars, and widget areas.

WPForms Lite is a powerful free version of the plugin that you can use for various forms. However, you must upgrade to a Pro plan to use the date/time form field features. Divi users benefit from seamless integration with WPForms through a custom module inside the Divi Builder. This makes it easy to add forms to your posts and pages and customize them with many design settings.

What We Like About WPForms

  • User-Friendly Interface: WPForms provides an easy-to-use interface with a drag-and-drop form builder, allowing anyone to create forms effortlessly. Additionally, even without coding skills, users can create forms seamlessly.
  • Conditional Logic: Using the conditional logic feature, you can create interactive forms that adapt based on user responses, making the form-filling process smoother and enhancing user engagement.
  • Seamless Integrations: WPForms integrates seamlessly with email marketing tools, CRM systems, payment gateways, and various third-party tools, creating a streamlined workflow and enhancing the user experience.
  • Templates: You can choose from more than 300 templates in the Pro version. These templates can be customized to suit your requirements.

What Could Be Improved

  • Add-ons: WPForms provides essential core features in its plugin; however, you might have to install extra add-ons for particular functionalities, potentially increasing complexity.
  • Learning Curve: User journey tracking and conditional logic might take some time to learn if you are new to creating forms and analyzing data.

Who is WPForms Best For?

WPForms is a formidable option for you if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to build your forms. This plugin can help you create many different types, from signup and booking to survey and contact forms.

Community Reviews and Ratings

Users appreciate the WPForms’ ease of use, flexibility, and reliability on the WordPress plugin repository.

Price

Free, with premium plans starting at $49.50 per year.

Get WPForms

9. StartBooking

The Start Booking website

Next on our list of WordPress booking plugins is StartBooking. This plugin is slightly different from many other options we’ll see. First, it’s essentially an all-in-one solution. StartBooking is premium online scheduling software that lets you add a calendar to your WordPress site.

From your site’s front end, your visitors can schedule appointments, view appointment details, and cancel appointments:

SmartBooking demo

StartBooking uses innovative cloud technology to power its managed scheduling system. Plus, it provides a collection of handy features and functionality for streamlining your booking process. This robust tool allows you to schedule unlimited appointments and assign specific staff members to individual services.

What We Like About StartBooking

  • Form Editor: With a powerful form editor, you can configure the steps of the booking flow, toggle displayed information, and adjust colors to suit your preferences. This flexibility lets you streamline the booking process and make necessary adjustments easily.
  • Customizability: The plugin allows you to customize the booking flow completely. You can adjust the booking process to align with your brand and website design. This customization helps you create a special and interactive experience for your customers.
  • Features: Start Booking offers a range of features to power your business, including customer profiles, appointment history, individual staff working hours, service details, and more.

What Could Be Improved

  • Limited Payment Gateway: Start Booking only accepts payments via Stripe. While it is popular, some users might prefer additional payment gateways for flexibility. The limited payment gateway options could be a drawback for businesses with specific payment preferences.
  • Learning Curve: While the plugin offers customization options, configuring and optimizing the booking flow may require some time and effort to familiarize yourself with the form editor and settings.

Who is StartBooking Best For?

StartBooking is for you if you’re looking for a scalable scheduling solution for service appointments. Therefore, it’s especially useful if your business offers classes or other services that require group booking.

Price

No Free Plan. Paid Plans start at $79 per year.

Get StartBooking

10. Bookly

A screenshot of Bookly's home

Next, Bookly is a freemium scheduling plugin that automates the online booking process. You can use it to effortlessly accept reservations on your website and manage your services calendar.

The robust, feature-rich, and modern admin panel is easy to navigate. It also offers many settings and tools for viewing and managing your appointments. This includes a well-organized dashboard that gives you a snapshot of important appointment-related data:

Bookly dashboard

Bookly is a powerful option for many businesses, from salons to transportation companies. If you want advanced features such as online payments, you can upgrade to Bookly Pro. However, unlike other premium WordPress booking plugins, this is a one-time fee rather than a monthly or annual subscription.

What We Like About Bookly

  • Comprehensive Reporting: Bookly provides detailed reports in calendar and list form, enabling businesses to track bookings and appointments effectively.
  • Automated Notifications: Bookly will send you email and SMS notifications to remind you of your upcoming appointments, helping you remember and reducing the chances of missing them.
  • User-Friendly Navigation: Bookly is created to help you navigate easily, allowing you to set up and handle your bookings without facing any complications.

What Could Be Improved

  • Addons: Bookly offers extra add-ons for basic features like custom fields, coupons, carts, deposits, etc. These add-ons can increase the total cost of buying the plugin.

Who is Bookly Best For?

Bookly is an excellent choice for a reliable and flexible freemium WordPress booking plugin. It’s an excellent choice for salons, health and wellness spas, gyms, and professional services with multiple staff members.

Community Reviews and Ratings

Thanks to its features, add-ons, and flexibility, the plugin has a 4.5 out of 5 rating on the WordPress repository.

Price

Free, with a premium version available for a one-time payment of $89.

Get Bookly

11. BirchPress Scheduler

A screenshot of BirchPress's home

BirchPress Scheduler is another modern WordPress booking plugin that lets you create and embed a scheduling calendar anywhere on your site. It’s mainly aimed toward small businesses, making it a quality option for spas, salons, studios, etc.

This premium plugin doesn’t offer a free version. However, the features you get make it a worthwhile investment. This is especially true if you’re looking for a tool to help with staff assignments and accept online payments.

In addition, the interface is clean and easy to use:

BirchPress dashboard

You can book specific times and service durations and assign pricing information. In addition, the plugin offers multiple pricing tiers from which you can choose.

What We Like About BirchPress Scheduler

  • Customization: You can customize booking forms, email notifications, and reminders with the plugin to create a personalized experience for clients and staff.
  • User-Friendly Interface: BirchPress Scheduler Pro uses the standard WordPress interface, helping you easily navigate and adjust settings in the WordPress admin dashboard.
  • Role Management: The plugin adds new user roles, such as staff members and business managers. This enables you to manage schedules and appointments effectively while controlling access.
  • Integrations: BirchPress Scheduler Pro connects smoothly with well-known platforms such as Google Calendar, iCal, iPhone, Android, and Outlook, allowing you to sync your schedules effortlessly.

What Could Be Improved

  • Limited Email Customization: BirchPress provides email notifications, but the customization options for these notifications may be limited, limiting your ability to personalize communication with users.
  • Additional Costs for Full Features: To access additional features like payment integration beyond PayPal or Authorize.net, you must choose higher-priced plans like Business or Business+. This might raise the total cost of using the plugin.

Who is BirchPress Scheduler Best For?

If you run a service-based business, such as a salon or yoga studio, and want a powerful premium booking manager, BirchPress Scheduler is for you. It’s also a smart choice if multiple staff members handle your services. That’s because this tool lets you leverage helpful staff appointment features. BirchPress is developer-friendly, with a wide range of customization features for advanced users.

Price

BirchPress Scheduler doesn’t offer a free plan. Paid plans start at $99/year.

Get BirchPress Scheduler

12. Booking Calendar

A screenshot of Booking Calendar's home

Booking Calendar is one of the most popular WordPress booking plugins available. It has over 60,000 active installations and a 4.5 out of 5-star rating. In addition, it’s one of the oldest scheduling tools for the Content Management System (CMS).

This freemium plugin lets you customize calendars and use them to display booking availability for properties and services. It’s also effortless to use and comes with a clean, user-friendly admin panel:

The Booking Calendar plugin dashboard.

Your users can select specific days and time slots from the calendar view. Then, they and you will receive email notifications about the bookings, which you can approve or deny.

What We Like About Booking Calendar

  • Syncing: WP Booking Calendar lets you synchronize your bookings with various services such as Google Calendar, Airbnb, Booking.com, and others.
  • Resource Management: With the premium versions of the plugin, you can handle multiple booking resources (calendars). This is useful for businesses that provide different booking services or properties.
  • Customization: The plugin provides customization choices for booking form fields, email templates, calendar appearance, and additional features. You can adjust the booking system to align with your website’s design and branding.

What Could Be Improved

  • Limited Styling: The styling options of the plugin are somewhat restricted, which might limit your ability to customize the design thoroughly to your preferences.
  • Additional Costs: You can only access more advanced features such as online payments, selecting ranges of days, and enabling auto-approval/cancellation by opting for the higher-priced versions of the plugin.

Who is Booking Calendar Best For?

Booking Calendar is for you if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to manage multiple daily appointments. It’s also an excellent option to integrate data from other travel-and-stay websites. That includes Airbnb, TripAdvisor, and Booking.com.

Community Reviews and Ratings

People appreciate the WP Booking Calendar for its fast, reliable support, high customization options, and overall excellent performance.

Price

Free, with premium plans starting at a one-time payment of $41.87.

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13. WooCommerce Appointments

The WooCommerce Appointments plugin by BookingWP

Most of the WordPress booking plugins we’ve discussed so far are for WordPress in general. However, WooCommerce Appointments by BookingWP is ideal if you’re looking for a premium scheduling tool for your e-commerce store. It offers full integration with WooCommerce, as well as with Google Calendar.

From the front end of your shop, users will be able to view your services. They can also filter appointments by availability and schedule their preferred times:

The WooCommerce Appointments plugin demo

You can also let users filter by price or by category. In addition, WooCommerce Appointments enables you to add extra form fields. You can apply flexible availability and pricing rules and assign multiple staff members to appointments.

What We Like About WooCommerce Appointments

  • Effortless Installation: The plugin is user-friendly and can be set up without programming expertise or extensive training, thus saving time and energy.
  • Staff Administration & Access: It enables allocating multiple staff members to appointments, organizes calendars for each employee, and empowers staff to manage their availability individually.
  • Support for Multiple Languages and Currencies: It works completely with WooCommerce and its multicurrency mode. The plugin also works seamlessly with well-known multilingual plugins, expanding the business’s reach for global operations.
  • Discounted Renewal: You get a flat 50% discount when you renew the plugin after its billing period. Moreover, this can potentially reduce your business expenses and ultimately stabilize your profits in the future.

What Could Be Improved

  • No Free Version: The plugin doesn’t have a basic free version, which might disappoint users on a strict budget or those willing to test the plugin.

Who is WooCommerce Appointments Best For?

If you’re already a WooCommerce site owner, WooCommerce Appointments is a straightforward way of enabling bookings and appointments on your site. You’ll also be able to request and accept payments. In addition, it’s a more affordable alternative to the other WooCommerce-specific plugins on this list.

Price

WooCommerce Appointment’s pricing starts at $89 for the first year. Then, $44.50/year thereafter.

Get WooCommerce Appointments

14. Easy Appointments

A screenshot of Easy Appointments's home

Easy Appointments is a widely used and highly-rated WordPress booking plugin. It simplifies the process of scheduling and managing multiple appointments for different locations and services via your website. While the interface can be a little overwhelming, it is packed with helpful features:

The Easy Appointments plugin interface

All of the settings and configurations are neatly organized. This makes finding what you’re looking for relatively easy. The free version is sufficient for basic booking forms and calendars. However, a paid extension is also available if you want access to features such as online payment gateway integrations.

What We Like About Easy Appointments

  • Multiple Locations, Services, and Workers: You can conveniently organize appointments with different services and staff members at various places. This feature benefits multiple businesses, such as salons, medical practices, and fitness trainers.
  • Email Notifications: You receive automated email notifications for appointment creation and updates, improving communication efficiency. These notifications are sent to customers, admin users, and employees.
  • Custom Form Fields: You can swiftly create custom form fields, set them as required, change their order, and validate user input.

What Could Be Improved

  • Lack of Author Support: Some users have expressed dissatisfaction with the support provided by the plugin author. They mentioned experiencing delays in responses and receiving insufficient assistance.

Who is Easy Appointments Best For?

Easy Appointments is for you if you have a business that offers multiple services that need appointments. This includes law offices, cleaning companies, and doctors.

Community Reviews and Ratings

Users appreciate the Easy Appointments plugin’s usefulness, ease of use, and solid performance after initial setup.

Price

Free, with a premium extension starting at $39 yearly.

Get Easy Appointments

15. WooCommerce Bookings

A screenshot of Woo Booking's home

WooCommerce Bookings is an official WooCommerce extension that lets you add booking and scheduling functionality to your e-commerce shop. With this premium tool, you can easily integrate your booking system into your existing storefront:

WooCommerce Bookings demo

WooCommerce Bookings lets you create schedules the same way you would products. Also, you can integrate with various payment gateways for automatic invoicing.

What We Like About WooCommerce Bookings

  • Automatic Reminders: WooCommerce Bookings sends reminders to customers before their bookings. Consequently, this helps reduce no-shows and ultimately boosts appointment attendance rates.
  • Time Zone Compatibility: It displays availability in the customer’s time zone, a convenient feature, especially for online services or deliveries to customers in different locations.
  • Customizable Pricing: You can offer special pricing for groups, individuals, or specific days. This feature allows for dynamic pricing strategies to attract different customer segments.

What Could Be Improved

  • Price: The plugin’s price starts at $249, making it one of the most expensive booking plugins in the market. Other plugins with similar functionality offer freemium options or lower starting prices.
  • Support: WooCommerce Bookings support is limited to email only. If you need help quickly, or if prefer phone or chat support, this can be inconvenient,.

Who is WooCommerce Bookings Best For?

WooCommerce Bookings is a great option if you’re looking for a reliable, premium WooCommerce extension to book appointments through your e-commerce site. It’s especially valuable if your business model involves selling your time. For example, selling professional services, classes, training sessions, or property, such as a rental home, is handy.

Price

WooComemrce Bookings start at $249 per year.

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16. Team Booking

A screenshot of TeamBooking's home

Rounding off our list of the best WordPress booking plugins is Team Booking. This premium tool has thousands of sales on CodeCanyon and a nearly 5.0-star rating. In addition, the innovative booking system comes with an impressive range of features for creating appointment and booking calendars.

The Team Booking interface

With Team Booking, all availability plans are made using Google Calendar. First, you can simply create events. Then, those availability slots become visible to your customers on the front end.

What We Like About Team Booking

  • Customizable Reservation Forms: You can create as many services as you want, each with customizable reservation forms to suit different appointments and requirements.
  • Campaigns and Coupons: You can design personalized promotional campaigns and coupons. This enables you to increase sales, reward loyal customers, attract more clients, and enhance your business.
  • Virtual Meeting Integration: TeamBooking lets you connect with Zoom and Google Meet to schedule virtual meetings automatically following each booking.

What Could Be Improved

  • Lack of Certain Features: Team Booking lacks features such as service categorization and functional conditional fields, which can restrict the plugin’s capabilities in specific situations.
  • No Multi-Day Event Support: The plugin currently does not support multi-day events, which may be a limitation if you require this feature.

Who is Team Booking Best For?

If you want an affordable yet premium booking plugin, Team Booking is a great option. In addition to regular appointments and events, you can also use Team Booking for unscheduled meetings. In other words, it’s useful for bookings that don’t require specific time slots (such as support tickets).

Price

Team Booking is available for a one-time fee of $39.

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Comparing the Best WordPress Booking Plugins

As a business owner, you’re tasked with many responsibilities. Fortunately, tools such as WordPress booking plugins can help lighten your workload. By using appointment scheduling software, you can save time for you and your customers.

Top Booking Plugin Feature Comparison

Each of these plugins comes with a wide range of different features. We compared the most notable features in our top three picks to help you hone in on which plugin will best serve your needs.

🥇 Amelia🥈 Simply Schedule Appointments🥉 Appointment Hour Booking
Free Version✔️✔️✔️
Google Calendar Integration✔️✔️✔️
Recurring Appointments✔️✔️
Appointment Deposits✔️✔️
Custom Styling and Branding✔️✔️
Stripe/PayPal Integration✔️✔️✔️
Multiple Vendors/Attendants✔️✔️
Frontend Interface for Clients✔️✔️
Starting Price$49/yr$99/yr$59/yr
Get AmeliaGet Simply Schedule AppointmentsGet Appointment Hour Booking

Booking Plugin Price Comparison

As we’ve seen, there are many quality WordPress booking plugins. Here is a list of every plugin we covered in this post and their prices for easy comparison.

PluginPriceFree OptionUser Reviews (avg)
🥇 Amelia$49/year✔️⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.5/5)Visit
🥈Simply Schedule Appointments$99/year✔️⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Visit
🥉Appointment Hour Booking€59.00 (~$64)/yearly.✔️⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Visit
4Hotel Booking Plugin by MotoPress$139/year✔️⭐⭐⭐⭐Visit
5Woo Bookings & Appointments by PluginHive$99/year✔️⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Visit
6Events Calendar$99/year✔️⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.5/5)Visit
7WP Simple Booking Calendar$39/year✔️⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Visit
8WPForms$49.50/year✔️⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Visit
9StartBooking$79/yearN/AVisit
10Bookly$89 one-time✔️⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.5/5)Visit
11BirchPress Scheduler$99/yearN/AVisit
12Booking Calendar$41.87 one-time✔️⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.5/5)Visit
13WooCommerce Appointments$89/ first year ($44.50/Year thereafter)N/AVisit
14Easy Appointments$39/year✔️⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.5/5)Visit
15WooCommerce Bookings$249/yearN/AVisit
16Team Booking$39 one-timeN/AVisit

What is the Best WordPress Booking Plugin?

Therefore, the best option for you depends on your budget and needs. For an enterprise-level booking manager for your business, look no further than Amelia. If you’re looking for a freemium option that’ll allow you to test out your booking software before introducing it to your clients, consider having Simply Schedule Appointments as your booking plugin. Luckily, both of these plugins have integrations with Divi. Lastly, if you need a booking plugin that requires appointments that have specified start and end times, Appointment Hour Booking is the best booking plugin that you can use for your WordPress website.

Do you think we missed any booking plugins? Which one is your favorite from our list? Let us know in the comments section, and let’s start a conversation!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Before we wrap up, let’s answer some of your most common questions about WordPress booking plugins. Did we miss one? Leave a question below, and we will respond!

What is the best WordPress booking plugin?
The best WordPress booking plugin is WPForms. It allows you to create booking forms on your website. You can build a form with any type of input fields and integrate it with Google Calendar and payment gateways for a lightweight booking system.
What is the best free booking plugin for WordPress?
Regarding free booking plugins for WordPress, Simply Schedule Appointments is a fantastic choice. It is known for its excellent UX design, compatibility with page builder plugins, customizable notification emails, and unlimited event types and blackout dates.
On what kinds of websites can booking plugins be utilized?
Booking plugins can be incredibly versatile, supporting various reservations for services, rentals, events, dining, tours, and more. The possibilities are endless with solutions like WooCommerce Bookings and Simply Schedule Appointments. You can even create simple booking or reservation forms using the WPForms plugin.
How can I add a booking calendar to WordPress?
To add a booking calendar to WordPress, consider Amelia's booking calendar feature, which is perfect for individuals and professional coaches. Alternatively, the Simply Schedule Appointments plugin can add a simple booking system to your WordPress site.
Can a WordPress website be used to book appointments?
Indeed, WordPress offers several powerful booking management plugins. WooCommerce Bookings is excellent for payment collection, while Simply Schedule Appointments provides a free option. To accept bookings using a more straightforward submission form, consider the WPForms plugin.
What is the best appointment booking plugin for WordPress?
Amelia is hard to beat if you are looking for an exceptional appointment booking system. Trusted by over 50,000 websites to manage their daily bookings, it has almost 350 five-star reviews and is designed specifically for appointments and event bookings.
Which is the best calendar booking plugin for WordPress?
Regarding calendar booking plugins for WordPress, Amelia excels once again. It integrates with all major calendar services providers, such as Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook, and Zoom, and also integrates seamlessly with Divi and Elementor.
What is the best event booking plugin for WordPress?
The Events Calendar plugin is the optimal choice for selling event bookings and attracting leads from event attendees. It offers a seamless event booking and organization solution on WordPress websites, featuring a user-friendly interface, customizable templates, ticketing options, and calendar integration.
What is the best hotel booking plugin for WordPress?
For hotel bookings, the Booking Calendar plugin shines with its user-friendly interface for booking properties, hotels, and rental spaces. Available for free, it's trusted by over 60,000 active users and has received over 500 glowing reviews!
What is the best plugin for booking recurring appointments?
The Amelia plugin is fantastic for booking recurring appointments. Its simplicity, easy-to-use nature, and recurring appointment feature make it a great choice. Plus, you can start with a free plan and upgrade as your needs grow, making it affordable and reliable.

Featured Image Illustration via ivector/shutterstock

Top Picks

Explore Our Top Picks

Here are our favorites! 👇

medal iconAmeliaoutgoing link medal iconSimply Schedule Appointmentsoutgoing link medal iconAppointment Hour Bookingoutgoing link
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With so many great options available, it can be hard to pick one. Find out why Amelia is our favorite. 👇

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4 Comments

  1. Thank you for such an exhaustive article on the subject. Absolutely must for all entrepreneurs of all sizes. In this pandemic booking software dedicated to health industry will greatly help all citizens.

  2. Thank you for an excellent article. I can’t find a plugin that allows you to book several items at the same time. For example, I need to rent 5 decorations for 1 date. All plugins offer me to fill in the same information 5 times. Maybe you know a plugin in which you can put goods in the basket and select a possible date for renting goods already in the basket?

  3. Well, to be honest those are all good, but not even close to Booking. I mean everyone uses it, why would you reinvent the wheel?

  4. Will, thanks for this review. Please consider adding a rating table (i.e., rate features) or purpose-based rating (i.e., rank for meeting specific needs) for comparison. After reading the entire article, they all sound very similar, and I am overwhelmed with the choices and don’t know where to start to make a decision.

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