Koalendar – Easy Appointment Scheduling & Booking Plugin vs Store Vacation Lite for WooCommerce

Koalendar is a WordPress booking and appointment scheduling plugin that lets visitors book meetings, services, and appointments directly from your website. It removes the back and forth emails and manual coordination by syncing bookings automatically with your calendar. Built for WordPress users, Koalendar is easy to install, simple to configure, and works out of the box for individuals and small teams. It keeps availability up to date, prevents double bookings, and helps you turn any WordPress site into a complete online booking system in just minutes, with a Free Forever plan to get started. See Koalendar in action Watch how easy it is to set up and start accepting bookings on your WordPress website: Top Features WordPress booking and appointment scheduling plugin Unlimited booking pages and appointments Calendar sync with Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCloud Accept online payments for services and appointments Personalized booking pages that match your website design Multiple appointment types with custom durations Group bookings and classes with attendee limits Smart availability rules, buffers, and time off Team scheduling with shared and round robin availability Automated booking confirmations and reminders Easy embedding using WordPress blocks, shortcodes, or widgets Perfect for Koalendar is designed for small businesses, professionals, and teams who need a reliable scheduling system: Consultants and freelancers Coaches, tutors, and educators Agencies and remote teams Service based businesses Sales teams booking meetings and demos Anyone who needs an online scheduling calendar on their WordPress website Integrations Koalendar integrates seamlessly with the tools you already use, so your online booking system, calendar, and business workflows stay perfectly aligned. This allows you to manage appointments, meetings, and services without manual updates or double bookings. Calendar integrations with Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCloud to keep availability accurate in real time Video meeting integrations with Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, automatically generating meeting links for online appointments Payment integrations with Stripe, allowing clients to pay when they book an appointment or service Automation platforms such as Zapier, Make, n8n, and Pabbly to connect Koalendar with hundreds of apps and automate follow ups or internal workflows WordPress friendly setup, plus productivity tools like a Chrome extension for quickly sharing booking links Personalized Booking Pages Create clean, professional booking pages that match your brand and website design. Your visitors can make an appointment without leaving your website. Customize colors and layout Share a direct booking link or embed on any page Works with WordPress blocks, shortcodes, or widgets Optimized for desktop and mobile users Smart Availability and Calendar Sync Koalendar connects to all your existing calendars to keep your schedule accurate at all times. Sync with Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCloud Prevent double bookings automatically Set working hours, buffers, and time off Control availability per meeting or service Team Collaboration Built for teams that need shared scheduling. Schedule meetings with multiple team members Round robin and collective availability options Each team member connects their own calendar Perfect for agencies and growing small businesses Multiple Services and Appointment Types Koalendar lets you create multiple services and appointment types within a single booking system, each with its own duration, availability, and rules. This makes it easy to offer different kinds of meetings or services on your WordPress website without juggling multiple calendars or tools. Visitors simply choose the service they need and book an appointment online that fits your schedule. For example, a service based business such as a wellness studio, repair service, or local professional can create appointment types like initial visits, recurring services, or premium sessions, each with its own time length and booking rules, making it easy for customers to schedule the right service directly from the website. Group Bookings and Classes Koalendar makes it easy to manage group bookings and classes directly from your WordPress website. You can allow multiple attendees to book the same session, set participant limits, and keep everything organized in one scheduling system. This is ideal for workshops, coaching programs, fitness or wellness classes, and training sessions, where multiple people need to book the same time slot while you stay in control of capacity and availability. Custom Automations and Reminders (included in PRO plan) Send personalized confirmation and reminder emails before each appointment or meeting. This helps keep clients informed, reduces no shows, and saves time spent on manual follow ups. Custom Booking Forms (included in PRO plan) Collect additional information at the time of booking, such as contact details, service preferences, or special requests. This is especially useful for service businesses that need context before an appointment. Payments (included in PRO plan) Accept online payments for appointments and services directly through your booking system. Charge for consultations, classes, or sessions in advance to simplify billing and secure bookings before they happen. Backlog updates Here are some recent product updates: Appointment types (services): list multiple services directly on your booking page, each with its own price and duration Multiple and recurring bookings: invitees can book multiple dates, or set up recurring bookings, in a single flow Booking durations in hours or days: configure event durations using hours or days New booking page editor: redesigned editor for faster page creation and updates Koalendar available in Spanish and French File upload: collect files with the Google Drive integration Stripe Checkout: offer more payment methods and collect taxes Gmail integration: send booking emails from your own address New integrations: Zapier and Telegram Apple Pay and Google Pay supported automatically on supported devices and browsers

Formerly known as Woo Store Vacation — trusted by WooCommerce stores since 2017. Going on vacation, closing for a holiday, or pausing for a fulfilment break? Store Vacation Lite for WooCommerce lets you temporarily stop taking new orders while keeping your store visible to customers. Instead of taking your website offline, the plugin keeps your shop browsable and your products indexed while giving you control over whether visitors can place new orders. Schedule a vacation period, disable purchases, display a clear notice, and automatically reopen your store when the vacation ends. This is useful when you want to: Take time off without receiving new orders. Pause checkout while still letting customers browse products. Show a clear vacation or holiday notice on your store. Let customers know when your shop will reopen. Keep selected products available during vacation mode. Avoid confusion, missed expectations, or unnecessary support messages. Pause WooCommerce orders while keeping your store visible When vacation mode is active, your shop remains online and accessible to visitors. Customers can still browse your products, but purchases can be paused by disabling the cart, checkout, and add-to-cart buttons. This preserves your storefront and product visibility — and your SEO ranking — while preventing new orders during periods when you are unavailable. Schedule your vacation dates Set a start date and end date for your vacation period based on your site’s local timezone. Store Vacation Lite for WooCommerce automatically applies the vacation settings during the scheduled period and restores normal store behavior when the vacation ends. You can also deactivate vacation mode manually at any time if you return earlier than planned. Display a custom vacation notice Create a clear vacation message to explain why the store is temporarily closed and when customers should return. The vacation notice can include: Custom message text. Start and end date smart tags. Custom text and background colors. A call-to-action button. A custom button URL, such as a contact page. The notice appears on WooCommerce shop and product pages. You can also place it on other pages using the Store Vacation Notice block, Elementor widget, or [woo_store_vacation] shortcode. Control product availability during vacation mode Sometimes you may want to pause most of your store while keeping selected products available. Store Vacation Lite for WooCommerce includes condition settings that let you keep specific items purchasable while vacation mode is active. You can exclude selected: Products. Product categories. Product tags. Product types. Shipping classes. This gives you more flexibility than fully closing the entire store — perfect for keeping digital downloads, gift cards, or pre-orders available while pausing physical fulfilment. Built for real store situations Store Vacation Lite for WooCommerce is designed for the closure situations WooCommerce merchants actually run into: personal vacations, holidays, illness, family emergencies, fulfilment delays, stock reviews, maintenance windows, or short business breaks. The plugin is translation-ready and includes configuration support for multilingual stores using WPML and Polylang. Lite features Schedule a temporary vacation period. Pause purchases automatically during vacation mode. Keep your shop and products visible while paused. Display a vacation notice on WooCommerce shop and product pages. Add the notice anywhere with a block, shortcode, or Elementor widget. Add a call-to-action button to the notice. Use {{start_date}} and {{end_date}} smart tags in your message. Customize notice text and background colors. Keep selected products, categories, tags, product types, or shipping classes available. Allow shop managers to manage vacation settings. HPOS compatible. Translation-ready with WPML and Polylang support. Need more control? Upgrade to Store Vacation Pro Store Vacation Pro adds advanced scheduling, saved-cart tools, storefront controls, and vacation reporting for stores that need to do more than pause purchases. Upgrade to Store Vacation Pro to unlock the full workflow. With Store Vacation Pro, you can: Plan closures for real business rhythms Schedule unlimited vacation periods — plan holidays and seasonal breaks months in advance. Set recurring weekday closures — close every Sunday, every Monday morning, or any custom pattern. Configure opening hours — publish your business hours and auto-close the shop outside them. View a calendar of every upcoming, active, and past closure at a glance. Turn closures into conversions, not lost customers Save Cart for Later — customers can save their cart before you close, then restore it in one click when you reopen. Shareable saved cart link — customers copy, bookmark, or share their cart across devices. Email the saved cart — send the restore link straight to the customer’s inbox from the storefront. Allow cart building while checkout is closed — shoppers keep adding items during vacation and check out the moment you reopen. Countdown timer — show a live counter to your reopening date directly in the notice. Announcement bar — display a site-wide vacation banner across every page. Advance notice before closure — warn customers days ahead so they can order early. Measure what happens while you’re away Vacation reports dashboard — see cart interactions, checkouts, revenue, and unique customers during each closure. Recent activity table — every add-to-cart, cart update, saved cart, and checkout that happened while paused, with product and customer resolution. Filters and CSV export — narrow by date range and vacation period, export the raw event log. Configurable data retention — auto-prune old event logs after your chosen number of days, weeks, months, or years. Track vacation orders — flag and filter orders placed while vacation mode was active, right from the WooCommerce Orders screen. Control exactly what customers see Replace shop pages with custom content — serve your own vacation landing page instead of the default product grid. Password-protect shop access — gate the store behind a shared password. Private access links — send unique URLs that unlock the store for approved customers. Bypass restrictions for unlocked visitors — approved shoppers check out normally while the rest of the store is paused. Hide prices, add-to-cart, and mini cart — strip commerce UI entirely during vacation, converting the store into a browsable catalog. Advanced vacation notices — reusable templates with smart tags, rich text, CTAs, and custom styling. Vacation Content block — build custom pages that only appear while the store is in vacation mode. Fine-tune product availability Exclude by product, category, tag, product type, shipping class, WooCommerce brand, or user role. Copy conditions between schedules so you don’t rebuild the same exceptions for every closure. Ship it with confidence Admin reminder emails — get an email before each vacation starts. Dashboard widget — see upcoming closures at a glance on your WP admin dashboard. Force close the store instantly — pause purchases immediately without setting up a schedule. Import and export settings — move Store Vacation configuration between sites. REST API — access vacation schedule data programmatically. If your store needs recurring closures, multiple schedules, opening hours, saved carts, vacation reporting, or more control over what customers see while the shop is closed, Store Vacation Pro is the best upgrade path.