Appointly vs TrueBooker – Appointment Booking and Scheduler System

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.

TrueBooker is a powerful yet easy-to-use appointment scheduling system , designed to help individuals and businesses manage bookings efficiently. It offers a clean, professional interface with quick setup and intuitive scheduling controls, allowing you to accept and manage appointment requests directly from your website. Administrators can easily review, approve, or cancel bookings from the WordPress dashboard, ensuring smooth and organized appointment management. ⚠️ Important: Version 1.1.9 and later versions include database structure updates. Please backup your database before updating. Useful Links Official Page || TrueBooker Demos || Documentation TrueBooker is ideal for: TrueBooker is suitable for a wide range of use cases, including service providers, clinics, consultants and small businesses looking for a reliable booking solution without unnecessary complexity. Health & Wellness Professionals Health and wellness professionals such as doctors, dentists, therapists, nutritionists, physiotherapists, and wellness consultants who schedule patient or client visits. Beauty & Salon Services Beauty and salon services including hair stylists, makeup artists, nail technicians, and beauty professionals offering time-based services. Fitness & Gyms Fitness and training services such as personal trainers, yoga instructors, dance teachers, and fitness coaches who manage individual or group sessions. Maintenance & Repair Services Maintenance and repair services such as electricians, plumbers, mechanics, technicians, and other service providers who visit clients by appointment. Upgrade to PRO & Explore the TrueBooker Roadmap We’re continuously enhancing TrueBooker to provide a powerful and user-friendly appointment booking plugin for WordPress. PRO version is available with additional advanced features. Backend & Frontend Enhancements Premium dashboard UI design (Admin & Frontend) New module integration for extended control Custom brand settings (Company logo & business details) What’s New in TrueBooker ( Pro version ) We continuously enhance TrueBooker to deliver a smoother and more powerful appointment scheduling experience. Here’s what’s new in the latest update: Branch Management & Handler: Manage multiple branches with their own staff, services, and schedules. Assign branch managers to handle bookings and staff, ensuring smooth and accountable operations. Department Management & Handler: Organize services into departments and assign handlers to oversee appointments, staff, and operations for each department. Staff Dashboard: Give staff their own dashboard to manage personal details, assigned services, and schedules for better organization and efficiency. Service Timing & Holidays: Set specific working hours, holidays, and special day-offs for flexible scheduling. Refund Policy & Eligibility: Configure refund rules and eligibility within the plugin. Reschedule & Cancel Appointments: Allow customers and admins to easily modify or cancel bookings. Admin Rescheduling: Enable admins to reschedule appointments directly from the backend. Individual Staff Hours: Define custom working hours and breaks for each staff member. Appointment Filters: Quickly sort and manage appointments using backend filter dropdowns. Dynamic Pricing: Automatically adjust service prices based on duration, rules, or other criteria. Custom Scheduling Status: Create and assign custom status tags (e.g., Pending, Approved, Completed, Cancelled) for clear appointment tracking and management. Secure Payment Methods: Centrally manage currencies, deposits, and tax settings. Support for Local, PayPal, Stripe, and Mollie payments ensures smooth, transparent transactions. Custom Thank-You Page Redirection: Redirect customers to a custom thank-you or confirmation page after booking completion. Make Online Bookings Easy with TrueBooker Shortcode Powered & Easy to Use: No coding needed — easily integrate and manage all your bookings with an intuitive interface. Powerful Scheduling Tools: Set your working hours, breaks, and special days with full control over availability. Unlimited Services: Add and categorize as many services and sub-services as you like for customer convenience. Responsive & Customizable Design: Mobile- and desktop-friendly booking forms that you can style to match your brand. Seamless Website Integration: Embed TrueBooker effortlessly and let customers book through an interactive booking wizard. Core Functionality (For Pro version) TrueBooker offers essential tools to manage appointments, staff, services, and notifications, providing a seamless scheduling experience for any business. Tax: Automatically calculate taxes during appointment scheduling. Invoice: Create and send invoices for booked appointments. Cart: Treat appointments like cart items for an easy checkout process. Deposit Payment: Allow down payments to confirm bookings. Staff Member Selection: Let customers choose their preferred staff. Extra Services: Bundle multiple services into one booking. Multi-Booking: Schedule multiple appointments in one session. Holiday Setting: Block specific days/holidays to avoid bookings. Special Day Pricing: Set custom pricing for holidays or special events. Custom Service Duration: Adjust service length and pricing as needed. Custom Scheduling Status: Add custom tags/statuses to appointments. Rescheduling: Allow customers to change appointment date/time. Appointment Analytics: Track and analyze booking trends and performance. Payment Gateways: Support secure online payments through multiple gateways. And much more… Unlock PRO features with TrueBooker Booking PRO. Explore the full list of TrueBooker Booking features. To display the booking form Elementor Widget: Drag and drop the TrueBooker Booking Form widget into your page. Gutenberg Block: Add the TrueBooker Booking Form block from the block editor. Shortcode: Use the shortcode below in any page or post – [truebooker-bookingform] Key Benefits TrueBooker Booking makes appointment scheduling and online bookings easy and painless for both business owners and their customers. Flexible Scheduling: Fully customizable scheduling options with unlimited services, sub services, business hours. Simple Administration: Straightforward but feature-filled administration in the backend. Easy set-up and configuration: Booking form integration with shortcodes easily integrated with popular page builders like Elementor, WPBakery, or Gutenberg blocks No coding required: No need to touch a single line of code. Everything can be done from the backend. Professional Design: Clean and modern & responsive design that looks great on all devices. Extensive Documentation: detailed documentation to guide you trough the setup and all the features. Free version available: Most features are available in the free version of plugin. The Premium version is a great upgrade if you need some more features and flexibility. Great support: Quick and helpful support if you should ever need it.