Sugar Calendar Bookings Scheduling Appointments Lite vs WP BASE Booking of Appointments, Services and Events

WordPress Appointment Booking Plugin Sugar Calendar Bookings is a lightweight yet powerful WordPress booking plugin that makes appointment scheduling simple for you and your customers. Set up your booking system in minutes, accept online bookings and payments, and manage all your appointments from a beautiful admin calendar. Whether you run a salon, consulting practice, healthcare office, or any service-based business, your clients get 24/7 access to book appointments while you stay in complete control of your schedule. No coding required. No bloated features you don’t need. Built by the team behind WPForms, WP Mail SMTP, and other top WordPress plugins trusted by over 25 million websites. Sugar Calendar Bookings Pro This plugin is the Lite version of Sugar Calendar Bookings Pro, which comes with multiple employee management, staff scheduling, per-service email templates, and more. Click here to purchase the best premium WordPress appointment booking plugin now! Booking Forms That Convert Add a professional booking form to any page on your WordPress site in seconds. Your customers choose a service, pick an available date and time from the booking calendar, enter their details, and complete payment. The entire booking process takes about 60 seconds from start to finish. The booking form is fully responsive, works on all devices, and is designed for maximum conversions. Embed it anywhere using the dedicated Gutenberg block, the [sugar_calendar_bookings_form] shortcode, or the native Elementor widget. You can customize the form appearance with light and dark modes, choose between 2-column and 3-column time slot layouts, and filter which services to display on each page. Service Management Create unlimited services with custom names, descriptions, feature images, colors, durations, and pricing. Organize your services with tags and assign them to specific locations and staff members. Each service can have its own working schedule, so you can offer different appointment types at different times. Support both in-person appointments and online meetings with flexible location options. Admin Calendar & Appointment Management Manage all your bookings from a clean, intuitive admin calendar built right into your WordPress dashboard. Switch between month, week, day, and agenda views to see your appointment schedule exactly how you want it. Appointments are color-coded by service for quick visual reference. View appointment details, reschedule bookings, process cancellations, and keep track of customer notes with the built-in activity log. Filter by service, status, or search by customer name, email, or phone number to find any appointment instantly. Availability & Scheduling Set your availability with weekly working hours and multiple time periods per day. Need to block off holidays or set special hours for a specific date? Use date overrides to manage your booking calendar with ease. Control how far in advance customers can book with minimum and maximum advance booking windows. The availability system automatically prevents double-booking and only shows open time slots on your booking form. Online Payments with Stripe Accept credit card payments directly through your booking form with the built-in Stripe integration. Customers pay when they book, reducing no-shows and saving you time. The plugin uses Stripe Connect for a quick, secure setup. You can also accept on-site payments for customers who prefer to pay in person. Manage all transactions, issue refunds, and track revenue from the payments dashboard in your WordPress admin. Email Notifications & Reminders Keep everyone informed with automated email notifications. Customers and staff receive instant emails when bookings are created, confirmed, updated, or cancelled. Customize every email template with smart tags that automatically fill in appointment details like customer name, service, date, time, and location. Set up appointment reminders to reduce no-shows. Customers receive a reminder email before their scheduled appointment so they never forget. Customer Management Build your customer database automatically as bookings come in. Every customer profile includes their contact information, complete booking history, and any notes you add. The system automatically detects returning customers by email or phone to avoid duplicate records. Who Is Sugar Calendar Bookings For? Sugar Calendar Bookings is the ideal appointment scheduling solution for any service-based business that needs a simple, reliable system to manage calendars and accept reservations on WordPress. Salons & Spas Hair stylists, beauty therapists, and wellness practitioners love this plugin because clients can schedule their own appointments 24/7. Set up services with different durations and prices, manage your availability, and accept payments online to reduce no-shows. Consultants & Coaches Business consultants, life coaches, and career advisors use our appointment scheduling plugin to let clients reserve one-on-one sessions directly. Your availability calendar syncs with your schedule so clients always see accurate openings. Healthcare Providers Doctors, therapists, dentists, and other healthcare professionals rely on Sugar Calendar Bookings to manage patient appointments efficiently. The clean scheduling form and automated confirmations save front-desk staff hours of manual work. Fitness & Personal Training Gym owners, personal trainers, and yoga instructors use the scheduling system to let clients reserve training sessions and classes. Set different services for different workout types and manage your weekly availability with ease. Education & Tutoring Tutors, music teachers, and academic advisors use our scheduling plugin to manage student appointments. Students pick available time slots from your calendars and receive automated reminders so no session gets missed. Professional Services Photographers, lawyers, accountants, and real estate agents use Sugar Calendar Bookings to manage client meetings and consultations. The professional scheduling form makes a great first impression. Easy Setup in Minutes The plugin comes with a guided setup wizard that walks you through the entire configuration. Create your first service, set your working hours, connect Stripe for payments, and you’re ready to accept appointments. The whole process takes less than 5 minutes. Switching from Another Plugin? Moving to Sugar Calendar Bookings from Amelia? Our built-in migration tool imports your services, locations, customers, and appointments automatically. No manual data entry required. Zoom Integration for Online Appointments Take your online appointments to the next level with the built-in Zoom integration. When a customer books an online service, a Zoom meeting is automatically created and the unique meeting link is included in the confirmation email and the booking confirmation tab. No copy-pasting links, no manual meeting setup. Connect your Zoom account in seconds with the one-click setup, and every online booking gets its own unique Zoom meeting. With the Pro version, each employee can connect their own Zoom account so meetings are created under the right host automatically. Employee Accounts & WordPress User Linking Connect employees to existing WordPress user accounts so each team member gets their own dedicated admin pages inside WordPress. Staff see only their own appointments, customers, and payments, while admins keep full oversight across the whole business. Full Sugar Calendar Bookings Feature List Online booking form – Multi-step booking flow with service selection, date/time picker, contact form, and payment. Stripe payments – Accept credit card payments via Stripe Connect. Free to set up. On-site payments – Accept in-person payments without online processing. Service management – Unlimited services with custom names, descriptions, images, colors, durations, and pricing. Multiple employees – Full staff management with individual profiles and working schedules. Smart employee assignment – Automatic best-available staff selection when customers choose “Any”. Availability management – Weekly schedules with multiple time periods and advance booking windows. Per-employee scheduling – Custom working hours and availability for each staff member. Date overrides – Holiday management and special hours for specific dates. Appointment calendar – Month, week, day, and agenda views with color-coded bookings. Employee calendar columns – Day view with separate columns for each team member. Email notifications – 11 notification types for customers and staff (booking confirmation, booking pending, update, cancellation, reminder, and payment refund). Appointment reminders – Automated email reminders before scheduled appointments. Service-level email templates – Custom notification content per service. Smart tags – Dynamic content in email templates (customer name, service, date, time, location). Location management – Support in-person and online appointment locations. Customer management – Customer profiles with booking history and contact details. Customer self-cancellation – Customers cancel bookings via unique confirmation code. Payment management – Track payments, process refunds, and monitor revenue. Service-level payment settings – Different payment gateways per service. Currency settings – Multiple currencies with custom symbol and format options. Employee real-time availability – Live availability status for staff members. Gutenberg block – Dedicated booking form block for the WordPress editor. Shortcode support – [sugar_calendar_bookings_form] for any editor or page builder. Elementor widget – Native Elementor integration for drag-and-drop booking form placement. Setup wizard – Guided configuration for quick first-time setup. Dashboard widget – Appointment and revenue overview on the WordPress admin dashboard. Tags system – Organize services and customers with custom tags. Activity log – Notes and audit trail on appointment detail pages. Translation ready. Integrations Stripe – Accept credit card payments directly through your booking form via Stripe Connect. Zoom – Automatic Zoom meeting creation for online appointments with one-click account setup. Elementor – Native booking form widget for the Elementor page builder. Gutenberg – Dedicated booking form block for the WordPress block editor.

WP BASE Booking of Appointments, Services and Events is a complete service and appointment booking e-commerce solution that allows business owners with or without service providers accept hourly or daily appointment reservations from front end and manage or manually create appointments from admin side. It is easily extendable with addons and highly customizable with settings, shortcodes and filter/action hooks. Various free and premium extensions, including addons for integration with WooCommerce, Google Calendar, PayPal, Stripe, Twilio, WPML, BuddyPress, Zoom, Jitsi, Agora are available. Visit our demo website for examples and learn more at WP BASE.com. Documentation Developer and user instructions can be found in our Knowledge Base Unique Features Your clients can pick service, provider, time slot, fill booking form, modify any selection and confirm booking on the same page. During the whole booking process, everything is in your client’s viewport. Loads its css and javascript files only to the pages it is used. It does not pollute whole website. WP BASE can be used in post content, inserted to templates, sidebar widgets and even to popups. Unprecedented working hour setting procedure allows even irregular work schedules easy to set. Extremely sound software and database design allows hundreds of locations, services, providers each having own complex schedules to be used without having significant effect on page load speed. With optional addons, it can be used as a Marketplace with GeoDirectory support, it can integrate with Woocommerce, Google Calendar, BuddyPress with BuddyBoss support, Easy Digital Downloads, Zoom and several other third party platforms. With addons it can use PayPal, Stripe, authorize.net AIM as payment gateways, send SMS notifications with Twilio. As far as we know, there is no similar product in the market which can achieve all the above. General Features Designed for maximum conversion rate: No steps, no page refreshes. Booking is as easy as 1 click. Also Flex Steps booking method is selectable for smaller footprint Uses ajax: Client stays on the same page even after changing service or date Intuitive: On page load, automatically shows your current availability for your popular service. Client can further browse through other dates and services. Responsive: Automatic adaption to different page and screen widths Mobile device support: Automatic detection of mobile phone connection and switching to appropriate display Easy Setup: With just one click and a single shortcode you can create a fully functional booking page and start accepting bookings immediately Flexible: Several booking methods (weekly, monthly, in table view) and themes to select from Multi site support: Automatic creation of database tables for existing and new subsites in Multi Site Installation Scalable: Can be extended to thousands of services and providers. Many addons to choose from. Services Unlimited number of services can be defined Service durations can be set from 5 minutes to 30 days Services can be custom sorted For each service description and featured image can be defined to be displayed in tooltip Services can be assigned to any unique member of the website Services can have any capacity with or without assigned providers allowing more than one booking/client per slot Working Hours Working hours are configured using a unique, simple, intuitive graphical interface Any combination of working hours for each week day up from 5 minutes intervals can be easily entered Even irregular schedules can be set in just seconds Services can have own working hours making them usable without service providers No need to define break hours: If not picked as a working time, a slot is automatically assigned as a break time Multiple working hour tables for services, service providers can be opened, displayed and saved at the same time Copy/paste of working hours from one service to another or to several services Listing of Bookings on the Front End Client can view own bookings, plus admin can view any other client’s or all bookings Display according to status, start and end dates Dynamic search, filtering and sorting of the booking list Selectable and custom sortable columns Different selectable columns for mobile devices to use screen efficiently Cancellation of bookings by the client using confirmation email or button on the website with adjustable limit time Booking and Editing on the Admin Side Manual Booking by admin on behalf of a client, e.g. appointments accepted over phone or email Manual booking can be selected to respect the same availability conditions as the front end Fast manual booking for repeat customers by Rebook button with selecting first available time Filtering of bookings by month, service and balance (negative/positive) Search over booking ids, user names, emails, booking note and any of the client fields Selecting and editing multiple bookings by a single or multiple admins Bulk status change of selected bookings possible Emails Automatic email sending with separate custom templates for confirmation, pending, cancellation, completion states Sending of test emails to check configuration Multiple email addresses can be defined for multiple admins Automatic and manual sending of notification emails for each appointment status Possibility to use all booking and user variables in the templates Possibility to use list of bookings shortcode in the email templates, i.e. inform user about their past, future or all bookings Look and Feel Configurable confirmation and pending message popup with HTML support Configurable Terms & Conditions popup on front end. If enabled, client cannot apply without confirming terms Booking in list/table view or weekly or monthly calendars, selectable within the shortcode and auto switching for mobile devices Selection from 12 included jQuery UI standard themes to match your WordPress theme Custom jQuery UI theme or css file can be created to override existing styles and saved against being overwritten by plugin updates Help System Setup Wizard with description of basic settings Inline settings help inside the plugin Further documentation available at WP BASE.com Localization Automatic adaptation to time and date formats, start day of the week settings of WordPress All front end messages and texts can be easily customized or translated on admin side without any additional tool Ready for translation for other (admin side) texts Support for RTL and calendars starting on Saturday, Sunday and Monday Performance Integrated Native Object Caching Lazy Load function for fast page loading Compatible to major caching plugins Free from PHP sessions. No front end cookie writing (cookies are set with ajax). Thus graceful to server side caching Scalable to virtually unlimited bookings, services and providers Developer Friendly Integrated Custom Functions tab which can be used to add own php codes without the need for modifying php files About 300 WordPress hooks for further customization (With addons more than 1200) Automatic recognition of shortcodes in page templates Functions to read/add/edit/delete bookings, services, providers Debug mode to help locate errors Other Features Automatic removal of unconfirmed (pending) bookings after a preset time Client can cancel own bookings using link in email, or their account, if allowed so Client can confirm own booking using link in email, e.g. to verify their email address Admin side schedules display bookings in weekly and monthly views. Free slots are clickable to add a new booking Clients can be automatically registered as WordPress users upon submission and notified about their registration Account page that displays user submitted values and booking list is automatically created for clients Admin toolbar submenu to access plugin created pages JavaScript and css files are only loaded on plugin related pages both on front end and admin side, to reduce conflicts Compatible with major page builders and caching plugins Admin side graphical reports for bookings and revenue With Advanced Features Premium Addon Advanced Features Addon is a must use for professional websites. It extends functionality and display of your website in several ways. Additional booking View “Flex View” which combines advantages of all other views into one Classic sidebar widgets can be used for booking GDPR compliance from WP 4.9.6 (Erase and export user data upon user request) Timezone support: Automatically dedect client timezone to let them display available time slots in their own timezones Possibility to define Trial Services for which clients can make booking for limited number of times With Service Providers Premium Addon Service Providers Addon allows assigning members of your website as staff who will provide your services. Unlimited number of service providers can be defined Providers can be assigned to one or more services Providers can view their assignments on their account page Providers can be randomly assigned to an appointment if client does not have a preference Providers can create/edit/delete own services, confirm/edit own bookings, manage own working hours and holidays if set so Client can select first provider, then service among services provided by the provider on the front end Free Addons incorporated into the core from V4.0 Easy Digital Downloads Integration: WP BASE services can be sold as digital products (downloads) of EDD alone, with other services or with other downloads. Export & Import: Allows export and import of WP BASE settings and database tables to/from another site/subsite. Includes import option from Appointments by WPMU DEV. Extended Service Features & Categories Addon allows several website settings to be applied per service. It also adds category support to services. Front End Booking Management: Allows admin or any user with selected capability add and edit all bookings and submitted user fields on the front end. Limited Availability: Availability of each service can be easily set on a full calendar making them suitable for event or Airbnb type rental bookings. Manual Payments: Allows adding and editing records for offline (bank transfer, cheque, cash) payments. Shopping Cart: Allows clients book multiple appointments in a single checkout. Minimum and maximum number of appointments per booking is selectable. Can be used to book on different pages and make a single checkout on any page. Quotas: Different quotas (maximum number of future or completed bookings) can be set per service. Different quotas can be defined per week days, weekend days and holidays, per week and per month. Test Bookings: Given number of partly or fully random test bookings can be created for test purposes. Premium Addons BuddyPress: Adds settings, list of bookings and calendars on BuddyPress/BuddyBoss front end user pages. Integrates with notifications and groups. Coupons: Applies discount over total payable amount upon submission of coupon code. Start and end dates, maximum usage, applicable services and/or providers can be selected. Custom Pricing: Payment and down payment amounts can be formulated depending on any variable, for example to apply special price for happy hours Digital Wallet: Adds a deposit system to your website that allows your clients to purchase credit points or service packages and then redeem it at a later point for your services. Extras: Allows adding unlimited number of “extras” which can be used to offer selectable additional service options to the client. Extras can be applied to locations, services and service providers. Event Bookings: Any post/page/custom post can be easily configured to be bookable as event Google Calendar: Integrates Google Calendar with WP BASE. Any new booking can be added to GCal as a new event and any new event entered in GCal can be added as a new booking in WP BASE. Updates in case of editing and cancellation are automatic. Group Bookings: Allows client book for more than one person with a single booking. Client can provide a list of participants who can also receive emails. Person Types are supported Locations: Services can be assigned to one or more location. This feature can also be used to group services and limit their availability depending on capacity, e.g. multiple doctors using a single examination room Marketplace: Users can register to the website, sell their services and manage their bookings. They can establish and manage their team of providers Multi Language: Allows booking selections and variables to be displayed in preferred language of the visitor Online Meetings (Zoom & Jitsi & Agora): Allows integration with Zoom, Jitsi and Agora video/audio conferencing system Service Bundles: Allows admin combine two or more services as jobs of a bundle and sell them as a single service. Time delays between service jobs can be set. Payment Gateways: 2checkout, authorize.net AIM, Paypal, Stripe support available. PDF Attachments: Allows dynamically creating PDF files with booking details and attach them to emails Recurring Appointments: Allows clients select recurring appointments on the front end with selectable recurring frequencies daily, every other day, weekly, biweekly and monthly. Reminder & Follow-up emails: Sends automatic reminder emails to clients before appointment time and to clients whose bookings have negative balance and below a set amount Seasonal Working Hours: Allows weekly “alternative” schedules to be defined and assigned to services and service providers, making it possible to create working hour settings changing every week within the year, e.g. for shift work SMS: Sends SMS messages as confirmation, pending, cancellation, completion and reminder using Twilio service. Different message templates for different groups (client, provider, admin) can be used. User Defined Fields: Allows admin add unlimited number of fields in the confirmation form. Text, textarea, option/select and checkbox fields are supported. User defined select/option functions can be added. Variable Durations: Allows service durations to be variable based on date, time and/or provider. Also allows clients pick desired duration for configured services within set limits Waiting List: Allows clients to apply for a waiting list when desired time slot is full. When there is an opening in the service, clients in the waiting list are informed by email. Woocommerce Integration: Integrates WP BASE with WooCommerce and allows selling of services as Woocommerce products WP BASE Developer Package: includes all current and future addons usable in multiple client websites