Appointly vs EMC – Embed Calendly Scheduling With Ease

For service businesses that can’t sell flat-rate. Where every appointment needs a custom quote before it becomes a booking. Appointly is a quote-based booking system for WordPress that puts you back in the loop. Instead of automatic scheduling and fixed prices, customers submit booking inquiries, you review each one, send a personalized quote (with or without pricing), and the customer accepts or declines. Every booking is deliberate, every price is yours to set, every customer gets a personal touch. Perfect for lawyers, consultants, tradespeople, event planners, hair & beauty salons, tattoo artists, photographers, yoga and fitness studios, tutors, and any service business that quotes before it confirms. Why Appointly? Most booking plugins force automatic scheduling with fixed prices. Appointly is different: Customer picks a date or time slot and submits an inquiry You review the request in the admin dashboard You send a personalized quote with a price and personal note Customer accepts or declines via a link in the email Booking confirmed, everyone gets notified This quote workflow gives you the flexibility to adjust pricing per request, check availability manually, and add a personal touch before confirming any booking. Exactly what service businesses with variable pricing need. Features: Booking Calendar: Beautiful, responsive appointment calendar with real-time availability. Day-mode (whole-day) and timeslot mode (customer picks a time slot of configurable length within a daily window) Unlimited Services: Create as many services as you need, with title, description, image, and base price Personal Offer Workflow: Review every inquiry and send customised offers with automatic email delivery and one-click Accept / Decline links SMTP Email Delivery: Reliable email delivery with presets for Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, IONOS, Strato, World4You, Host Europe, ALL-INKL, Hetzner, and more Default Email Templates: Five polished HTML email templates (inquiry, admin notification, offer, confirmation, cancellation) with light and dark modes, fully translatable Dark Mode: Calendar automatically adapts to the visitor’s colour scheme Accessibility: WCAG AA compliant with keyboard navigation Gutenberg Block & Shortcodes: Add the calendar via block editor or shortcode Setup Wizard: Guided onboarding in four steps GDPR Ready: Consent checkbox on the booking form, personal data exporter and eraser integration, encrypted SMTP credentials Multilingual: Full i18n support. German translation included (de_DE, de_DE_formal, de_AT, de_CH, de_CH_informal) Appointly Pro: Appointly Pro is a separate companion plugin that extends Appointly with professional booking features. It is sold on https://appointly.tscholene.com for €2.99 per month and is NOT distributed through the WordPress.org Plugin Directory. The free plugin remains fully functional without Pro. Pro is an opt-in upgrade, not a lock on existing features. Currently shipped in Appointly Pro: Custom Branding: Primary colour, accent colour, and logo applied across the frontend booking form and all customer emails. Custom Email Template Editor: Live preview editor for all 10 customer-facing and admin notification templates with placeholder picker. Custom Service Fields: Build your own booking form per service with text, textarea, number, select, and checkbox fields. Validation rules, drag-and-drop reordering, conditional rendering. Service Addons & Upsells: Offer extras with configurable pricing, quantity, and per-service availability. Per-line pricing in offer and confirmation emails. Recurring Bookings: Automatic re-booking for weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly sessions. Ideal for yoga teachers, therapists, coaches, and anyone running regular appointments. Direct Booking (Auto-Confirm): Per-service auto-confirm for fixed-price services. Customers book instantly without admin approval. Configurable lead-time and cancellation window. Blocked Dates: Block individual dates globally or per service, plus date-range blocks (“block December 20 to January 3”). Customer Self-Cancel: Secure email-link cancellation for direct-booking services. No admin contact needed. Planned for upcoming Pro releases (no timeline commitment): Booking Reminders: Automatic reminder emails sent before each appointment, plus an optional daily admin digest. Multi-day Bookings: Date-range bookings for multi-day events, workshops, retreats, and courses. Group Bookings: Multiple seats per time slot for classes and small-group events. Customer Self-Service Reschedule: Token-authenticated reschedule on top of the existing self-cancel flow. Cancellation Policies: Rule-based cutoff times and fees per service. Per-weekday Slot Schedules: Different availability windows per weekday (e.g. Mon/Wed/Fri morning + afternoon, Tue/Thu only afternoons) on top of the basic timeslot mode shipped in Appointly 2.1.0. iCal Feed: Subscribe to bookings in Google Calendar / Apple Calendar / Outlook. Deposit Collection via Stripe (using your own Stripe keys, no middleman). Learn more at https://appointly.tscholene.com Shortcodes & Block: Gutenberg Block: Search “Booking Calendar” in the block editor [appointly_calendar]: Display the booking calendar [appointly_calendar service="2"]: Calendar for a specific service [appointly_form service="2"]: Standalone booking form External services Appointly loads Google Fonts on the WordPress admin pages so the admin UI can render with the Appointly brand typography (Instrument Serif for hero headings, Plus Jakarta Sans for body text, DM Mono for data labels). This is the only external service that the free plugin connects to. Service: Google Fonts (https://fonts.google.com) Purpose: Loading three web font families so the admin SPA renders with the Appointly brand typography Data sent: Your browser’s IP address and User-Agent are sent to fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com when an admin user opens any Appointly admin page. No booking, customer, or plugin-specific data is transmitted. When: Only when an authenticated WordPress administrator opens an Appointly admin page. Fonts are never loaded on customer-facing booking pages, iCal feed requests, or REST API calls. Terms of use: https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq#what_does_using_the_google_fonts_api_mean_for_the_privacy_of_my_users Privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy If you prefer to block Google Fonts entirely (for example in a privacy-hardened admin environment), the admin UI degrades gracefully to a system font stack (system-ui / BlinkMacSystemFont / Segoe UI / ui-serif / Menlo) and remains fully functional. No other external services are contacted by the free plugin. Appointly does not call any payment providers (Stripe, PayPal), analytics services, license servers, or telemetry endpoints. Appointly Pro, the separate companion plugin sold on https://appointly.tscholene.com, will, when installed, connect to appointly.tscholene.com for license validation (once per day) and plugin update checks. That connection is a feature of the Pro plugin and does not affect this free plugin. Appointly Pro ships with its own readme, privacy disclosures, and external-services documentation. The free plugin on this page does not make any requests to appointly.tscholene.com at runtime. Build Instructions The admin dashboard and the Gutenberg block are pre-built with @wordpress/scripts (webpack) and ship as the compiled admin/build/ and blocks/build/ artefacts. To inspect or rebuild from source, clone the repository at https://github.com/jolenelederer/appointly (uncompiled admin/src/ + blocks/src/ are not shipped in the WP.org distribution since 2.1.0. They are dev-only). Source rebuild: cd admin && npm install && npm run build cd blocks && npm install && npm run build The public frontend calendar (public/js/appointly-calendar.js) and stylesheet (public/css/appointly-calendar.css) are not compiled: they are vanilla JavaScript and CSS, human-readable as-is.

EMC Scheduling Manager makes it easy to embed Calendly scheduling pages into your WordPress website. EMC is designed not only to embed scheduling pages, but also to help businesses improve booking completion and understand how visitors interact with their scheduling pages. Watch Demo Add Calendly booking forms anywhere on your site using a simple shortcode. Display your scheduling page inline, open it in a popup, or trigger it from a button — all without writing code. Whether you’re a consultant, coach, agency, or business owner, this plugin helps you turn website visitors into scheduled meetings quickly and easily. Upgrade to EMC Pro to unlock powerful tools for tracking bookings, improving conversion, upsell rates, and managing scheduling workflows more efficiently. Free Version Features The free version includes everything you need to start embedding Calendly scheduling pages in WordPress: Import Calendly event types directly into WordPress Embed scheduling pages with a shortcode Inline embed, popup button, and popup text widgets Visual widget customizer to generate embed shortcodes Prefill booking fields for logged-in users Customizable embed appearance Quick setup with no coding required Perfect for anyone who simply wants to add a Calendly booking widget to WordPress. Pro Version Features (Advanced Scheduling Tools) EMC Pro expands the plugin from a simple embed solution into a booking optimization toolkit, helping you increase completed bookings and understand what drives scheduling activity. Business Integrations & Marketing Tracking WooCommerce integration for booking after purchase Redirect users after scheduling to custom pages Track marketing campaigns Pass common UTM parameters like utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_content, and utm_term directly to your booking pages. CRM-friendly leads Integrate booking data with your CRM to see exactly which campaigns are converting into booked calls. Analytics & Booking Insights Track booking activity and engagement Know which channels, pages, and campaigns drive appointments and revenue growth. Export analytics data for reporting Scheduling Workflow Tools View and manage bookings from your WordPress dashboard Send automated and manual email reminders from WordPress Advanced Embedding Features Dynamic embed options for flexible booking layouts Enhanced shortcode customization Elementor integration EMC Pro helps turn your booking widget into a powerful scheduling and conversion tool. Upgrade to EMC Pro to unlock powerful features designed to help you increase bookings and manage scheduling more effectively. Learn More >> Shortcode To simply embed a scheduling page, use: [calendly url="https://calendly.com/example/call" type="1"] Example with customization: [calendly url="https://calendly.com/example/call" type="2" text="Book Now" text_color="#ffffff" text_size="14" button_style="1" button_size="1" button_color="#2694ea" branding="false" hide_details="false" style_class="custom_form_style"] Use the dynamic embedder when you want to display multiple Calendly event types on a single page, allowing visitors to switch between them without reloading the page. [calendly_dynamic_embedder url="https://calendly.com/example/call" form_height="600px"] (Pro Feature) Customize your dynamic embedder with these options form_height – Calendar height style – 1 for Horizontal tab display, 2 for Vertical tab display tab_color – Tab color tab_active – Active tab color text_color – Text color text_size – Text size show_slots – 1 Yes, 0 No slots_max – Maximum slots available slots_text – Eg “Only %d slots left” where %d is automatically replaced with booking slots left (Pro Feature) Display your availability slots with [calendly_slots url=”https://calendly.com/example/call”] or [calendly_dynamic_embedder show_slots=”1″] (Pro Feature) Customize how your availability slots is displayed with text – Eg “Only %d slots left” where %d is automatically replaced with booking slots left text_color – Text color text_size – Text size max_slots – Maximum slots available Customization Use the Widget Customizer under Dashboard > EMC > Customizer or configure the shortcode manually. Available Options type 1 – Inline embed 2 – Popup button 3 – Popup text url – Calendly scheduling page URL text – Button or link text text_color – Button or link text color text_size – Text size button_color – Button background color button_size 1 – Small 2 – Medium 3 – Large button_style 1 – Inline 2 – Floating branding – Show or hide branding prefill_fields – Prefill form fields for logged-in users hide_cookie_banner – Hide cookie banner hide_details – Hide event details style_class – Custom CSS class redirection_url – Page URL to redirect users to after booking completion (Pro) Built for Booking Conversion EMC Scheduling Manager is designed to do more than embed scheduling pages: Encourage faster decisions with limited availability indicators (Pro) Present multiple booking options without overwhelming visitors (Pro) Track how visitors interact with scheduling widgets (Pro) Optimize booking flows using real usage data (Pro) If scheduling is part of your sales or lead generation process, EMC Pro helps you optimize your booking flow for conversion. Why Use EMC Scheduling Manager Designed for consultants, coaches, agencies, and business that rely on scheduled calls to generate leads & sales. Turn website visitors into scheduled meetings by embedding your scheduling pages directly inside WordPress. Reduce booking friction with inline widgets, popup buttons, and customizable scheduling layouts. Increase booking completion rates by displaying limited availability (e.g. “Only 3 slots left”), encouraging faster decisions while remaining transparent. Keep visitors on your website while they book, improving engagement and reducing drop-offs. Offer multiple meeting options on one page using dynamic embeds so visitors can quickly choose the right event. Upgrade to Pro to unlock booking insights, and conversion tools that help you understand and grow your scheduling activity. Start with the free version and upgrade to EMC Pro when you’re ready to unlock advanced scheduling features. Learn More >> Popular Use Cases EMC is used by professionals and businesses that rely on scheduled meetings to generate leads, sales, or revenue: Consultants & coaches offering paid or free strategy calls Agencies booking discovery calls and client onboarding sessions Freelancers managing availability without email back-and-forth Online educators scheduling 1:1 sessions or onboarding calls WooCommerce store owners linking products to post-purchase booking flows Upgrade to Pro to unlock advanced analytics, availability tracking, and booking optimization features. Disclaimer This plugin is an unofficial integration for embedding Calendly scheduling pages in WordPress and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Calendly. The free version may display optional promotional notices in the WordPress admin dashboard. These notices can be dismissed using the “Don’t show again” option. You can also disable them using the following filter: add_filter('emcs_promotions', 'emcs_show_promotions'); function emcs_show_promotions() { return false; }