6 best booking plugins for WordPress

With a free booking system for WordPress, your customers can book appointments, reserve tables, schedule salon times, book cabins, and much more. We have tested the best booking systems for WordPress and list them out for you here!  

Free booking systems for WordPress 

There are hundreds of different booking solutions and plugins for WordPress. We have tested about ten and selected our favourites. All plugins are free and offer basic features at no extra cost. 

Easy Appointments

Easy Appointments is a powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you manage bookings for multiple locations and services. You can manage multiple employees, enter holidays, and much more. We like the powerful features that allow you to customise the calendars’ look. 

There is a paid version that offers integration with Google Calendar, PayPal, and WooCommerce. It is also possible to send automatic SMS to customers thanks to an integration with Twilio.  

Simply Schedule Appointments

Simply Schedule Appointments is a WordPress plugin with a sleek and simple user interface that lets you create customisable calendars to create a design that suits your brand. 

There is a paid version that includes integration with Google Calendar, Mailchimp, Zoom, Google Analytics, and payments with Stripe and PayPal.  

WP Simple Booking Calendar

WP Simple Booking Calendar is a simple plugin suitable for those who want to accept bookings on days and do not need many other features. It is the most accessible plugin that we tested. This plugin might suit those who want to rent out a cabin or accept other bookings that span days rather than hours.  

Amelia 

Amelia is a large plugin with many features and a well-designed interface that gives a modern and professional impression. It is clear to us that there is a team of developers behind it that cares. It is flexible for industries such as hairdressers, consultants, healthcare, education, and more. 

The premium version of Amelia is packed with functionality. There are many options for accepting payments, creating tickets for events, integrations with many services, and advanced systems for sending notifications to customers.  

WP Booking Calendar 

WP Booking Calendar is a plugin that is more than 15 years old and has a long history of being one of the most popular options for WordPress. It comes with basic functionalities and a simple user interface for both administrators and customers. 

There are several paid versions of WP Booking Calendar that include different features. The functionality thus varies depending on how much you are willing to pay. This hopefully means you can find a cost-effective option that suits you, although it can make it a bit difficult to choose.  

Bookly 

Bookly is the most popular full-fledged booking system available for WordPress. It includes most of the features you can think of, including options to book different employees and services, and useful statistics to see how the business develops. Bookly has good booking features for customers and works well on computers, tablets, and mobiles. 

Bookly is available in a paid version with many options. For example, you can accept payments with a transaction fee, send out SMS reminders where you pay per SMS, and add extra features such as gift cards and a mobile app for administration.  

Why paid booking systems are worth it 

Many booking system plugins are available at no cost but nearly all have premium versions that you can pay for, and there can be many good reasons to pay up. Here are some of the primary reasons you should consider a paid booking system:  

Accept payments

If you want to be able to accept payments, you will usually need to use a paid booking system since integrations with payment systems are considered a premium feature. You can access services such as Stripe and PayPal, but the range varies between plugins. If you have a payment option integrated in your booking system, it can make it easier for your customers and make them more likely to book.  

Send reminders

Some booking systems offer reminders to customers in the form of email dispatches at no extra cost, but if you want to use SMS dispatches, you will need to pay. In some cases, you need to pay for both a premium plugin and for each SMS you send. It may be worth the cost as it can reduce the number of missed bookings.  

WooCommerce

If you have a webshop that is based on WooCommerce and want to integrate a booking system into the store, you can use the Premium versions of specific plugins.  

There is also an official booking system for WooCommerce, but it’s not available in a free version. 

Customer service

When you pay for a plugin, you sometimes get access to better customer service. This means that developers can answer your questions about features, integrations, and customisations you want to make. Note that it’s quite rare for free plugins to have customer service, but have their support on the WordPress.org support page.

Getting started with a booking system on WordPress 

To get started with a booking system in WordPress, the easiest way is to go to the ‘Plugins’ tab in WordPress and search for the plugin you want to test. From there, you can read more and click on ‘Install’ when you’ve found a suitable plugin.  

On the same page, you can also activate automatic updates. Automatic updates are useful because they ensure that your website always has the latest security updates in place. However, automatic updates can also change your website without you realising it. To avoid this, we recommend Managed WordPress, which can monitor automatic updates and notify you if an update changes the appearance of your website.