If your business relies on appointments, you have a WordPress site and you haven’t installed a booking plugin yet, you need to get on that. Specifically one of these appointment booking WordPress plugins.
There’s no reason for so many businesses to still force their customers to call them on the phone, contact them by email and wait for a response, or worst of all, physically come into their offices to schedule an appointment. Implementing an easy-to-use booking plugin can lead to increased sales from people who work during most of your hours, or who don’t feel like going through hold times and waiting for a receptionist to book via phone. And it can lead to more appointments being made on impulse, especially since you can hit them with the option to book immediately after your web copy has (hopefully) done its job.
Thankfully, WordPress offers a ton of options for completing this task.
We’ve covered booking plugins before, but only as they relate to the hotels niche. Today, we’re covering 15 more, and expanding our view to include appointment booking WordPress plugins intended for scheduling just about anything!
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1. Amelia Enterprise-Level Appointment Booking
Amelia is one of the most powerful appointment booking plugins you can choose for your business. This automated booking solution keeps working 24/7 so you never miss a new customer. Just install, configure your settings and you’re ready to rock-n-roll!
The Amelia booking plugin includes easy to use features to build your own appointment booking forms. Powerful options include support for multiple employees (along with the ability to add specific services, regular hours and time off for each), local currency, service extras, email notifications, image galleries, coupons, plus color/font options for the front-end design.
With your form ready, customers are able to use the interactive appointments calendar (monthly, weekly, daily as well as list/timeline views) and unique step-by-step booking wizard with faceted filtering to find an appointment time for a specific service with a specific staff member (or even at an exact location). When it’s time to pay, customer’s can use Amelia built-in payment gateways to to reserve their time or opt for an on-site payment.
Amelia even includes a useful shortcode to create a services page. Simple paste the shortcode on a new page any to display your current services with the parameters to specific one service, a whole category or all categories).
Still not sold? Checkout our full Amelia appointment booking plugin review to see all of the features and options in action!
2. Booknetic
With Booknetic you can easily build a better appointments and bookings calendar to grow your business. This modern and responsive appointment calendar include numerous features to save you time and money as well as make the booking process seamless for customers. From form creation to payment processing Booknetic can do it all. Whether you operate a salon, a fitness center, a legal office or other professional business Booknetic is sure to meet your (and your clients) needs.
Once installed you can utilize Booknetic to create your own automated appointment booking system for your website. But it all starts with the form builder. Using built-in options in the live form builder for overall design, color scheme, booking steps, multi-level service categories, staff, locations and more you can create a form perfectly tailored for your business. Plus you can create comprehensive service offering with extra add-ons as well as staff availability.
Booknetic also enables you to accept payments or deposits prior to an appointment time. Allow customers to choose from PayPal, Strip or onsite payment. Or utilize WooCommerce to seamlessly integrate your booking calendar with added payment options. Other notable features include an detailed dashboard for your and your staff, the ability to export your customers and/or appointments to excel (great for data management or for managing staff schedules), as well as translation ready via WPML.
But that’s not all. Your customers will love Booknetic too. The elegant and modern UX is both attractive and intuitive. Clients have the ability to book on any device to easily filter by staff, services or location to find an appointment time that meets their needs. And depending on options you’ve enabled, they can also book one time, recurring and even group appointments. Built-in support for SMS and email notifications, plus Google Calendar 2-way sync, means they won’t miss what they’ve booked. Keeping your clientele happy and your business booming.
3. Vik Appointments
Build a complete appointments and scheduling system for your business with WordPress and Vik Appointments. This powerful WordPress plugin is full of features to make managing your time quick and easy.
The first of which is a reliable calendar, complete with online reservations. With Vik, you have the option to add services, time slots, durations, event capacity and even employee availability (via time and location). And if your business offers special pricing based on time of day, holiday or season you can add that in too! This way clients can book appointments with ease, whether it’s for a nail appointment or tax consultation.
Vik Appointments also makes it easy to manage reservations and customer invoices. You can even setup automatic email and SMS notifications to let customers know when their reservation has been confirmed, or to follow up with reminders. And since multiple payment gateways are supported by Vik Appointments Pro it’s easy to accepts payments online. Making the appointment booking process seamless for your clients, from start to finish!
4. WooCommerce Bookings And Appointments
Whatever your business, WooCommerce Bookings and Appointments by PluginHive is another great choice. This flexible booking plugin makes it easy to setup forms on your site for bookings by month, day, hour or even minute. Plus you can enable the ability for clients to select multiple appointments in one booking – which is a great feature if you’re renting out event space, rooms at a bed and breakfast, a multi-day conference or festival, etc.
The plugin allows for multiple staff members and individual pricing. This way your team can charge according to their expertise, and thanks to the plugin’s Dynamic Total Booking Cost calculation clientele can see at the rate options when booking. You can also enable booking add-ons for any extra services or features you might offer (such as an add-on for aroma therapy when getting a massage).
The WooCommerce Bookings and Appointments plugin also includes options for email notifications as well as cancellations (if you allow for them). And with the built-in Google Calendar Sync, it’s easy for you and your clients to add new appointments to your schedule. Other plugin features include name your price, file attachments, variable pricing (such as higher prices on weekends or holidays), WPML compatibility, multiple language support, global syncing of assets between your booking calendar and store, plus tons more. Checkout the main plugin website to learn more.
5. Book an Appointment Online PRO
Make it easy for your clientele to book appointments with Book an Appointment Online PRO. This plugin allows users to book according to team member (or they can skip ahead without preference) or service, then select a date and time. And because the plugin’s calendars and selections are responsive – booking is quick and easy on any device. Visit the Book an Appointment Online PRO demo to see for yourself!
Besides being straightforward for customers, Book an Appointment Online PRO is also a breeze to setup on your WordPress site. Just use the plugin’s quick start features to add your team and offerings. Add as many staff members as you’d like, choose from 2 different work schedules (hours or shifts), setup booking time format, add PayPal checkout and more. Plus you can enable SMS reminders – so your customers will never miss an appointment again! Other plugin options include job positions, photos, vacation days, service categories, and integration with WPML, Twilio, PayPal, SMSC and Firebase.
6. Appointment Booking and Online Scheduling (Free)
The Appointment Booking & Online Scheduling plugin by vCita is a great option to add an appointments form to your WordPress site. The plugin is perfect for booking events, classes, one on one services and more.
vCita’s plugin offers options for online scheduling such as service appointments with a specific staff member, booking confirmations, and payment support. But what really sets vCita apart is the built-in messaging and callback functionality. The plugin syncs with the vCita Mobile App to notify you instantly about new booking requests or to send appointment reminders. Plus it allows you to send messages and files to your client before you meet. Allowing you to connect with clientele and establish rapport.
But that’s not all cVita can do for your business. For more features, upgrade to a vCita Business Management premium plan. Depending on the plan you choose, this can unlock features for analytics, coupons, client texting, email marketing, staff permissions, and even priority support. Plans start at $15/mo for basic online scheduling, or $29/mo for the Essentials – a personalized client portal, online business calendar plus support for billing and invoicing. Though to utilize the full suite of business management tools, you will need a Platinum plan. But considering that vCita is like multiple business services in one, it’s a more than reasonable investment.
7. Bookly Appointment Booking and Scheduling
If you’ve been looking at powerful appointment booking WordPress plugins then you’ve probably come across Bookly before. This popular online booking plugin is optimized to help you book more appointments no matter when or how your customers access your site.
Bookly is mobile and translation ready, so your forms look great in any language on any device. Plus, built-in support for email and SMS notifications plus Google Calendar integration ensure your customers never miss an appointment. Want to charge at the time of booking? No problem – Bookly’s payment portal integrations including PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net, Mollie, Payson, PayU Latam, 2checkout, PayUbiz and WooCommerce. Other features include color scheme options, flex scheduling, holidays, booking process steps, 50+ currencies and more.
Want to give Bookly a try before you buy? Get the free Bookly plugin on WordPress.org to see just how awesome appointment booking can be.
8. Appointment Booking Calendar (Free)
If you have simpler appointment booking needs (perhaps needs that aren’t worth paying money to fulfill) then the free Appointment Booking Calendar could be your best bet. It offers greater functionality than many free versions of comparable plugins. Features that come with this plugin include bookable time slots, email notifications, the ability to export to Google Drive, printable booking lists, customization of availability and the number of times a user can book, captchas and more.
However, in order to access many of the best features, you need to shell out for the premium version. For instance, if you charge your customers to make an appointment, this plugin isn’t the best idea, as the free version only works with PayPal. To use any other payment gateway, you’re going to have to fork over some cash.
9. Templatic Appointment Booking
Templatic’s offering to the booking world is a little different than most. It doesn’t just present the user with a calendar; it takes them directly to the form. The calendar comes up when a user clicks on the date section. So, this is more like the kind of setup your customers will be used to if they book a lot of flights or hotel rooms. That familiarity is a strength.
Like most appointment booking WordPress plugins, the Templatic Booking WordPress Plugin will enable advanced booking features inside your theme, which is perfect for rentals. And after you buy the plugin, it takes care of everything for you, with no monthly or other transaction fees. This is also one of the few plugins that will allow your customers to pay with a direct bank transfer. (However, if you’d like to stick with credit cards, you can always activate other gateways, like with any other plugin.)
Other features include a variable booking form, seasonal prices and the ability to offer the customer other services with their booking. And as a side note, the plugin works great with many of Templatic’s WordPress themes – specifically Service Biz which already includes the plugin.
10. Appointments (Free)
Appointments is one of the more comprehensive free bookings plugin available for WordPress sites. With the plugin’s feature list, I have no reason to dispute that claim. One unique feature: if you have multiple staff members that handle appointments, you can give each of them their own calendar – with a bio and picture attached – so that customers can pick which of your employees they’d prefer to book with.
It also works in reverse: the client can pick from a list of services your company offers, and if each one is assigned to a different employee, then they’ll automatically book with that employee. Not only that, it features easy integration with Google Calendars – both for you and the customer – with no coding required. And finally, it takes just three clicks for a customer to book an appointment: one to select a time, one to continue to the confirmation screen and one to confirm. That convenience may well be reflected in your sales.
With a list of over 30 other features, including custom color labels, autofill for repeat customers, Google Maps integration and the ability to login through social media, I’m going to have to say this looks like the best appointment-booking plugin out there at the moment. That price can’t be beat, either.
11. Booked Appointment Booking
Booked is a premium appointments manager with plenty of features and options to build an appointments booking form for your business. Accept guest bookings or require users to register for an account, allow users to manager their pending and approved appointments, add custom fields and time slots, create multiple calendars, accept paid bookings using Booked’s WooCommerce integration and more.
Book is also easy to customize. Choose from unlimited color for select options, a responsive layout, login and register form, customizable emails, etc. Plus the built-in shortcodes make it easy for your to insert calendars and login forms on any post or page. There’s even an “Add to Google Calendar” option you can add to help customers remember their appointments.
12. Easy Appointments (Free)
The Easy Appointments plugin is just that – easy. It’s a quick and simple way to add an appointments system to your WordPress site. The plugin supports multiple services, workers, locations and a flexible time table so you can create an advanced timetable of appointment options.When setting up your Easy Appointments plugin there are also options to enable ad customize email notifications for booking confirmation, appointment status and confirmation/cancel.
When it comes to form styling, Easy Appointments keeps it easy too! Choose a 1-2 column layout, drag & drop form fields (and even create your own), add prices or labels, localize the date picker and more. Plus there’s built-in reporting to help you keep track of form conversions and stats.
13. gAppointments for Gravity Forms
So far we’ve covered stand alone appointment booking plugins, but what if you want a more powerful forms system? Like Gravity Forms? That’s where gAppointments comes in. This premium plugin adds appointment booking features to the popular Gravity Forms plugin.
When you combine gAppointments with Gravity Forms you’ll have added support for paid bookings, nearly unlimited payment gateways, multiple bookings per date, service intervals, custom services, recurring appointments, Google & Yahoo calendar links, email notifications, auto confirm/complete appointments and more. This plus easy styling settings, translation options and simple front-end form management makes gAppointments a great choice.
14. Booking Ultra Pro Appointments Calendar (Free)
The Booking Ultra Pro plugin offers great features to build a booking calendar and manage your appointments via your WordPress site. Visitors can book an appointment using the easy 4-step booking process to secure a time, then the plugin will add the reservation to your individual staff’s dashboard so they can manage their own upcoming appointments.
Want more features? The free Booking Ultra Pro plugin offers a premium upgrade for mobile payments, group bookings, private notes, Google calendar integration, flex pricing, multiple locations and more
15. WooCommerce Bookings
Build your own appointments form using WooCommerce! Just install the WooCommerce Appointment Booking add-on to begin taking reservations, selling tickets, booking appointments and more. Just add your products or services and use the plugin to enter bookable times and then wait for customers to book times.
That’s not all. With this WooCommerce add on you can have single or multi-person bookable events, offer special pricing, display availability by time zone, set up reservation confirmations and reminders, offer cancellations, sync with Google calendars, and more. You can also stack with additional WooCommerce official addons to accept deposits, allow for third part vendors to take appointments, offer booking addons, etc.
Wrapping up the Best Appointment Booking WordPress Plugins
There’s no shortage of appointment booking WordPress plugins that will let you book an appointment via WordPress. There are so many, in fact, that the choice can easily be overwhelming. But hopefully, having a guide like this will prevent that from happening. Any other plugins I should know about? Anything you want to tell me about the ones listed above like your personal experiences? Leave a comment below!
Keep reading the article at WPExplorer. The article was originally written by Tom Ewer on 2019-12-31 11:15:03.
The article was hand-picked and curated for you by the Editorial Team of WP Archives.