How to choose and connect a website scheduling program
A calendar scheduling program is an add-on product that lets you offer people online booking of individual appointments or group events. Clients can also pay online if you set up the program that way and you can send them automatic reminders to reduce no-shows.
You connect a scheduling program to your website by adding an embedded form, button, or text link that communicates from the website page to the scheduling program.
Do you schedule individual or group appointments?
Appointment scheduling programs offer either individual appointments or both individual appointments and group appointments for events and classes.
I have researched several different appointment scheduling programs for single-owner businesses including Square, Acuity Scheduling, Calendly, and Schedulicity. Here are my recommendations.
I like Square Appointments for individual appointments
With cost, customization, and ease-of-use in mind, I recommend Square Appointments, which has a free plan if you only need to schedule individual appointments. You are charged a small fee for each paid transaction if you also collect payments online.
Tip: Square also has an option for scheduling group events, but you’ll need to pay for the Appointments Plus plan to get that premium feature. That plan is more expensive than Acuity Scheduling.
Using Square for your website
If you don’t already have a website, you can create a basic website for free on Square with no website hosting fee. If you want appointments or class reservations and also sell products, use Square Online.
I like Acuity Scheduling for individual and group appointments
I prefer Acuity Scheduling to Square if you need both individual and group appointments. Acuity Scheduling doesn’t have a free account, but its lowest-price plan is less expensive than the Square Appointments Plus plan. Two other features I like that Square Appointments Plus doesn’t have are syncing with Google Calendar and integrating with a Zoom account to generate Zoom meeting links automatically.
Using Acuity Scheduling with Squarespace
Acuity Scheduling was purchased by Squarespace a few years ago. As a Squarespace product, you can purchase an add-on for your Squarespace website to have access to built-in Acuity Scheduling.
Using Acuity Scheduling with other website platforms
You can sign up for an Acuity Scheduling account and then connect.
You’ll need a payment processor connected to Acuity Scheduling to accept payments
To accept payments for appointments and group events, you’ll need to have an account with Stripe, Square, or PayPal. Any payments received will be subject to the per-transaction charges issued by the payment processor.
Components of your scheduling program
1. Your availability
You decide which days and times of the week you will be available for your appointments. You can also block off time for personal appointments to prevent people from booking an appointment at a time when you know you won't be free. If you are going to be away or unavailable, you can block off larger blocks of time. If you use a personal calendar, such as Google, it's also convenient to synchronize your appointment scheduling calendar and your personal calendar to make sure that any times you have available for appointment times fit in with your full life schedule.
2. The kinds of appointments you offer
You set up the kinds of appointments you offer. For one-on-one appointments, you give the appointment a name, a description, a duration, and, if applicable, a price. For Acuity group appointments such as classes and events, you set up the type of group appointment with a name, description, duration, and, if applicable, a price. Then you must also set aside specific dates and times when that group appointment will be available.
3. How you accept payments
A payment processor is a program that provides a secure payment method for taking credit card payments online. Your appointment scheduling program has the ability to accept certain types of processors, with PayPal, Square, and Stripe being the most common.
After you set up the payment processor with the scheduling program, you connect the payment processor to a bank account to have collected funds transferred to your bank account. Payment processors usually charge a percentage and a transaction fee each time someone makes a payment.
Square is a payment processor as well as an appointment scheduler, so if clients only schedule appointments with you as the sole owner, you are only charged the transaction fees. Acuity Scheduling connects to separate payment processors, so you will be charged monthly for the use of the scheduling program and then will pay the transaction fees associated with the payment processor you connect to Acuity.
4. Communications and reminders
Your scheduling program lets you send email and (possibly) text messages to people who have set up appointments. You can customize these messages to determine how and when people are reminded of upcoming appointments and whether there are any penalties for no-shows or late cancellations.
Ways to add booking to your website
Showing a scheduling form
You can embed a scheduling form on a website page so people stay on your website to schedule an appointment. If you’re using Acuity Scheduling in Squarespace, you add a Scheduling block. If you use Acuity Scheduling on another website platform or are using Square with any other website platform, you copy the code from the scheduling program and add it to a Code element on a website page.
You can either copy code that shows a form with all the appointments you have or a specific appointment. You can use this technique to embed your scheduling page if you don't have that many appointments or classes to show. Using Acuity Scheduling, if you want to show a form with just one class or type of appointment or a group of similar appointments or classes, you can also copy code that focuses on a smaller number of appointments.
Copying code to add a Squarespace website scheduling form in Square or Acuity
Embedding code to show a button
Acuity Scheduling also has the option of copying code that creates a button. You embed the code on your website. When people click the button, it brings up a pop-up form. This technique works best for directing people to scheduling a specific appointment. You need a Squarespace Business plan or greater to be able to add code in this way.
Copying code from Acuity to create a website button
Linking to your scheduling program
You can also copy the URL link that your scheduling program assigns to your full scheduling page or to specific appointments or classes or categories of appointments or classes. A link can be used on your website through a text link, an image link, or a button link.
Linking to your scheduling program from your website
A website button can be created with copied code or a button link
Make life easier for you and your clients
I set up scheduling for free consultations and client meetings a few years ago. It’s made scheduling much more convenient for me and my clients. Many of my wellness practice clients use Acuity scheduling and are happy with the many options they have for scheduling individual sessions and group gatherings, such as classes and events.
More to read
Best appointment scheduling apps - Includes some good descriptions of Acuity Scheduling and Square and some other scheduling programs.
