Scheduling tools look similar on the surface: share a link, someone picks a time, it lands in your calendar. The differences are in how you pay, how far the free plan goes, how you take payment for sessions and how well the tool works for a team. Here is how TidyCal, Calendly and Lunacal compare today.
Quick comparison of TidyCal, Calendly and Lunacal
TidyCal is a simple booking tool made by the AppSumo team. It is best known for its lifetime deal, which AppSumo says more than 129,000 people have bought instead of paying for a Calendly subscription. There is a free plan as well as a Pro subscription.
Calendly is the best known scheduling tool. It has a free plan and per-seat subscriptions, and its strength is team and sales scheduling: round robin, lead routing, CRM integrations, admin controls and an enterprise tier.
Lunacal is a per-user subscription tool with heavily customisable booking pages and strong features for paid sessions, such as packages and coupons.
TidyCal features and pricing
TidyCal’s free plan is generous: unlimited bookings and booking types, paid bookings, recurring and package bookings, group bookings and translation. The Individual lifetime plan ($29 on AppSumo at the time of writing) adds automatic Zoom, Meet and Teams links, an AI booking assistant, custom emails, analytics, Google Tag Manager, API access, manual approvals and 10 calendar connections. The Agency lifetime plan ($79) adds round robin and collective meetings, a team booking page and 10 SMS reminders a month in the US and Canada. Both lifetime plans keep a small TidyCal logo.
Pro costs $12 a month or $99 a year and removes branding, adds a custom domain, unlimited calendar connections, priority support and no platform fees. On the other plans TidyCal charges a 1% platform fee on payments processed through Stripe, on top of Stripe’s own fees. The lifetime deal is only for TidyCal users who do not already have a paid account.
Calendly features and pricing
Calendly’s free plan covers one event type, one calendar connection, one-on-one scheduling, a customisable booking page and the browser extension. Standard (from $10 per seat a month) adds unlimited event types, up to six calendars, automations and reminders, HubSpot and Mailchimp connections, and Stripe and PayPal payments. Teams ($16 per seat a month) adds round robin and team scheduling, lead qualification and routing, centrally managed event types, Marketo, Pardot and Salesforce, and an optional SSO add-on. Enterprise starts at $15,000 a year for 50 seats.
Calendly also offers Notetaker (recordings, transcripts and meeting recaps) and Callie, a beta AI assistant that schedules over email, as paid additions. Seats are needed only for hosts, not for the people who book.
Lunacal features and pricing
Lunacal’s Standard plan ($9 per user a month) includes unlimited calendars and services, online meeting tools, Stripe and PayPal payments, text and email reminders and booking page customisation. Teams ($15 per user a month at the time of writing) adds team scheduling, multi-session packages, round robin and webhooks. Enterprise ($25 per user a month) adds an AI voice agent, an MCP server (both beta), full branding, SSO and an account manager. Annual billing saves about 10%, and each plan has a 7-day free trial.
The standout features are the booking page widgets (videos, images, testimonials, documents, maps, forms and podcasts), 0% commission on paid bookings, packages that clients pay for upfront, coupons, and 13 or more booking languages. Lunacal’s AppSumo lifetime deal is sold out at the time of writing.
Key feature comparison for appointment scheduling
Calendar connections. TidyCal allows 1 calendar on Free, 10 on the lifetime plans and unlimited on Pro. Calendly allows 1 on Free and 6 on paid plans. Lunacal connects multiple Google, Outlook and Apple calendars on every plan with two-way sync.
Booking page customisation. Calendly and TidyCal give you a clean, customisable booking page. Lunacal goes much further, with themes, backgrounds and content widgets, which matters if the page is a client’s first impression of your business.
Team features. All three offer round robin, but at different levels: TidyCal on the $79 Agency lifetime plan, Lunacal on Teams, and Calendly on Teams with lead routing and Salesforce on top.
Customer support. TidyCal reserves priority support for Pro. Lunacal offers a free setup call, lists email and phone support in its plan comparison, and adds an account manager on Enterprise. Calendly’s Enterprise tier includes onboarding and dedicated account support.
Which scheduling tool should you choose?
Choose TidyCal if you are a freelancer, coach or consultant who wants reliable booking and occasional paid sessions without a monthly bill. The free plan may be enough, and the $29 lifetime plan adds the features most solo users want. The trade-offs are a small TidyCal logo, the 1% fee on payments and fewer team and integration options.
Choose Calendly if you run a sales team or customer team and need lead routing, Salesforce or HubSpot integration, admin controls and a tool that everyone you meet already recognises. It costs more per seat, but its team features are the most mature of the three.
Choose Lunacal if your booking page is part of how you sell, for example a coach, tutor, therapist or agency whose prospects land on the booking page from an ad or email. The rich pages, packages and coupons are built for that, and the per-user price is low.
Verdict
For most solo professionals on a budget, TidyCal’s $29 lifetime plan is the best value while the deal is live. Teams with a sales process are better served by Calendly. Lunacal is the pick for service businesses that want their booking page to do more of the selling.
