If you happen to run a business that requires appointments and reservations, including an online reservation system is important as it helps to reduce workload and increase revenue.
To simplify the process of adding a booking system to your website there are lots of WordPress plugins available with many booking features. These plugins have the power to make sure that your bookings are synced with your teams calendars and the availability is updated with each booking process.
In an effort to find the best booking plugins, we have gathered and compared the features of the top 4 booking plugins in the WordPress directory!
1. Bookly Plugin
Bookly is one of the most powerful booking scheduling plugins for WordPress which allows you to accept online bookings and automate the reservation system on your website. With this plugin, you can manage your booking calendar, services, client reservations, and more, all in one place.
Free features
- Customers can quickly schedule and book appointments directly without contacting you and your employees.
- The plugin is responsive/mobile friendly across all devices.
- Customers can select the category, services, and the person from whom they wish to get their service done.
- Customers can select convenient dates from the available time slots.
- Reminder SMS and email notifications can be sent to the customers.
- Appearance of the layout can be customized as per your requirements.
- Unlimited number of clients can be added to the customer list.
- Calendars can be viewed in monthly, weekly, and daily format.
- Admin has the option to approve/cancel appointments automatically with ease
Pro features
- Many templates are available for email reminder notifications like birthday greetings, follow-ups, upcoming appointments, next day agendas, etc.
- Advanced features like showing address fields, birthday fields, Facebook login, timezone switcher, etc for customizing online booking forms are available.
- Through add-ons, it is possible to integrate Google Calendar & Outlook Calendar.
- Customer lists along with the appointment and payment information can be imported and exported.
- Built-in-analytics is available with which you can see a comprehensive report about the number of booking, customers, and payments.
- Multiple add-ons are available to include various payment gateways (2Checkout, Authorize.Net, PayPal, Stripe, etc), group bookings, custom fields, service extra times, recurring appointments, deposits, coupons, personal staff cabinet, the user account for clients automatic invoicing, and much more.
Further, we reached the developer’s team and found that there are no features for integrating CRM and membership plugins compatibility is not available. Click here to learn more about the features of Bookly plugin.
Pricing
- Free
- Bookly Pro: $89.00, one-time payment with 6 months support (15 days money-back guarantee)
- Bookly add-ons: starts from $10 and goes up to $89
Click here to view the pricing page of Bookly Pro.
2. Booking Calendar
Booking Calendar is one of the best booking plugins for WordPress which allows your customers to check availability and make reservations via your website. It also provides features that can help clients to view available time slots/dates and pay online for their reservations.
Free features
- Booking and settings can be stored in the database
- Calendar designs can be customized as per your website requirement
- Plugin is responsive across all devices
- Bookings can be displayed in the calendar overview and can be managed
- Single/multiple booking options can be enabled/disabled by the admin
- Email notifications can be received by both admin and site visitors about specific booking
- Admin can accept or decline specific bookings
- Number of bookings can be viewed on booking dashboard section
Pro features
- Booking can be duplicated on another booking resource
- Bookings can be exported into CSV format
- Bookings can be added or exported manually into Google Calendar
- Notes can be added to the bookings as additional important information
- New form fields like text fields, drop-down lists, ratio-buttons, check-boxes, etc can be included
- Email templates can be configured and activated for different booking actions with shortcodes
- Bookings can be imported via Google API from public Google Calendar
Click here to learn more about the features of the Booking Calendar.
Pricing
Single site edition (1 website), one-time payment
- Personal: $47.40
- Business small: $89.40
- Business medium: $149.40
- Business large: $209.40
- Multiuser: $389.40
Developer edition (2 websites), one-time payment
- Personal: $71.40
- Business small: $119.40
- Business medium: $239.40
- Business large: $299.40
- Multiuser: $479.40
Multisite edition (5 websites), one-time payment
- Personal: $89.40
- Business small: $179.40
- Business medium: $299.40
- Business large: $359.40
- Multiuser: $539.40
Click here to view the pricing page of Booking Calendar.
3. WooCommerce Bookings
WooCommerce Bookings is one of the powerful booking plugins that allows you to convert your services and products into bookable resources. This plugin is perfect for those who want to offer appointments, services, or rentals
Pro features
- Time slots can be fixed for appointments so that customers can pick their convenient times
- Single/multiple booking options can be enabled/disabled by the admin
- Offers can be provided for people who are booking multiple slots
- Booking availability can be displayed as per the customer’s time zone
- Booking cancelation option can be set up as per admin requirement
- Reminder email notifications for reservation, confirmation, and booking dates can be sent to customers
- Google Calendar integration is available
Click here to learn more about the features of WooCommmerce bookings.
Pricing
-
- Single site: $249, one-time payment
Click here to view the pricing page of WooCommerce Bookings.
4. Calendarista Basic Edition
Calendarista Basic Edition is a booking plugin that provides an efficient online booking experience to your customers. This plugin offers three payment gateways (PayPal, Stripe, 2Checkout), Google Map integration, backend calendar, etc which allows you to build an awesome booking system on your website.
Free features
- Payment can be collected offline
- Booking timeslots can be autogenerated
- Single or multiple booking options can be enabled/disabled by admin
- Any part can be customized that are displayed to the customers
- Minimum and maximum notice times can be displayed for bookings
- Multiple services can be displayed in a drop-down list
- Admin can view sales, request payments, and confirm payments for bookings
- Confirm/ cancel appointments can be viewed in the back-end of calendar
Pro features
- Customers can book one or more packages
- Custom date format lists can be provided to choose from
- Data capture fields can be customized as per the requirement of your business via custom form fields
- Departure and destination drop-down fields can be defined along with a predefined location and cost
- Price can be calculated based on the distance traveled
- Bookings can have minimum and maximum days of selection
- Multiple services can be grouped under a drop-down list
- Google Calendar integration is available
Click here to learn more about the features of Calendarista Basic Edition.
Pricing
- Regular license: $47, one-time payment
- Extended support: $15.75 up to 12 months
Click here to view the pricing page of Calendarista Basic Edition.
Comparison chart
| # | Bookly | Booking Calendar | WooCommerce Bookings | Calendarista Basic Edition |
| Pricing | Free version and premium version starts from $89, one-time payment | Free version and premium version starts from $47.40, one-time payment | Premium version starts from $249, one-time payment | Free version and premium version starts from $47, one-time payment |
| Calendar | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Payment gateway options | Pay online using add-ons like 2Checkout, Authorize.Net, PayUbiz, Mollie, PayPal, Payson, PayU, Stripe | Pay online using PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.Net, Sage Pay, iDEAL via Sisow, iPay88 | Pay online using extension which has automatic and manual payment methods | Pay online using PayPal, Stripe, 2Checkout, and WooCommerce |
| Google Calendar integration | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Multi currencies and multilanguage | Only multi-language support | Only multi-language support | N/A | Only multi-language support |
| Reminder email notifications | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
*Note – All the information mentioned in our blog was collected at the time of writing.
A powerful booking plugin can easily transform your WordPress website into a fully-functional online booking system. Every website is different and unique so, compare your requirements with these plugin features and select one that fits your needs.
Have you ever been benefited from any other booking plugins? Do share your thoughts in the comments section!