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Calira Logo

Equipment booking for teams working with shared equipment

Table of Contents

Calira - 2026 Pricing, Features, Reviews & Alternatives

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Last updated: July 2026

Calira overview

What is Calira?

Calira is an equipment booking and management platform for shared R&D lab equipment. It replaces the shared spreadsheets, Outlook calendars, paper signup sheets, and other improvised systems that most labs use to manage access to shared instruments.

Labs use Calira to track instrument utilisation, improve asset visibility, reduce booking conflicts, prevent downtime, plan CapEx, and produce structured usage data.

More than 1,800 labs in 53 countries run on Calira, including teams at Moderna, Takeda, Eli Lilly, Bayer, Novo Nordisk, Stanford, and MIT.

Feature overview:

- Book equipment: Real-time booking calendar with booking rules, approval workflows, recurring bookings, and multi-equipment booking (up to 5 instruments per session)

- Manage equipment: Searchable directory of every instrument with location, metadata, purchase price, and QR code labels for walk-up mobile booking

- Report usage: Per-instrument utilisation reports, filterable by team, department, or site, with export to CSV, Excel, or BI tools

- Track maintenance: Planned calibration and servicing with task assignment, service contract tracking, and automatic booking blocks during downtime

- Manage users: Training-based access rules, role-based permissions, and approval workflows to prevent untrained users booking sensitive instruments

- Send notifications: Booking reminders, maintenance alerts, and lab-wide announcements

- LabTrack: Desktop application that captures real instrument usage and controls access at the PC

Starting price

Free

Alternatives

with better value for money


Pros & Cons

Equipment Management

Booking and Reservation

Lab Space Management

Calendar

Settings and Notifications

Calira’s user interface

Ease of use rating:

Calira review summaries overview

To determine these pros and cons insights, we analyzed responses from 

Overall rating

Reviews sentiment

 
 
 
1-2(2)
3-4(83)
5(98)

What do users say about Calira?

Reviewers appreciate Calira for its user-friendly interface, straightforward booking and scheduling of equipment, and efficient management of shared resources in labs. They find it easy to set up, quick to learn, and helpful for organizing reservations, tracking equipment usage, and generating reports. Many say customer support is responsive and helpful when issues arise. They value the flexibility to adapt the system to their needs and the ability to manage multiple users and permissions easily.

Users report some challenges with mobile compatibility, describing the mobile interface as clunky and wishing for a dedicated app. They mention occasional difficulties editing bookings, navigating the calendar, and managing group reservations. Some feel the approval process and user management could be streamlined, and note that certain features are less intuitive or require improvement.

Select to learn more


Who uses Calira?

Based on 183 verified user reviews.

Company size

Enterprises

Small Businesses

Midsize Businesses

Top industries

Research
Biotechnology
Higher Education
Chemicals
Others

Use cases

Laboratory Information Management System

Calira's key features

Most critical features, based on insights from Calira users:

Instrument management

All Calira features

Features rating:

Access controls/permissions
Activity dashboard
Activity tracking
Alerts/Notifications
API
Asset assignment
Asset tracking
Audit trail
Automated scheduling
Availability management
Barcoding/RFID
Booking management
Calendar management
Calendar sync
Contract/License management
Cost tracking
Customizable fields
Customizable reports
Data import/export
Document management
EDI
Equipment tracking
Funding source tracking
Historical reporting
Instrument management
Inventory management
Location tracking
Maintenance management
Maintenance scheduling
Mobile access
Monitoring
Multi-Location
Online booking
QR codes
Real-Time monitoring
Real-Time notifications
Real-Time reporting
Real-time scheduling
Reminders
Reporting/Analytics
Reporting & statistics
Reservations management
Resource management
Role-Based permissions
Rules-Based workflow
Search/Filter
Self service portal
Status tracking
Summary Reports
Tagging
Third-Party integrations
User management
Workflow management

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Calira pricing

Value for money rating:

Pricing plans

Pricing details:

Free plan
Free trial
Subscription

Core (Academia Only)

Empty state illustration for "No pricing info"

No pricing info

Features included:

  • Equipment booking calendar
  • Equipment inventory
  • Notification preference center
  • Desktop app LabTrack for access management and utilization data (paid add-on)
  • User role management
  • Access permissions
  • Document management (e.g. manuals, warranties, etc.)
  • Asset monitoring IoT integrations (paid add-on)
  • Calendar synchronization
  • Knowledge center, online guides and tutorials

Premium

Empty state illustration for "No pricing info"

No pricing info

Features included:

  • Equipment booking calendar
  • Equipment inventory
  • Notification preference center
  • Desktop app LabTrack for access management and utilization data (paid add-on)
  • User role management
  • Access permissions
  • Document management (e.g. manuals, warranties, etc.)
  • Asset monitoring IoT integrations (paid add-on)
  • Calendar synchronization
  • Knowledge center, online guides and tutorials
  • Equipment & incident announcements
  • Training management
  • Lab services & ordering
  • Equipment booking rules
  • Projects & funding feature
  • Maintenance activity scheduling
  • Maintenance audit trail
  • Maintenance contract management
  • Equipment QR code generator
  • Usage reports
  • Data export
  • Customized reportings
  • REST API access
  • Outlook calendar integration
  • Priority email support (24h)
  • Live-chat support

Enterprise

Empty state illustration for "No pricing info"

No pricing info

Features included:

  • Equipment booking calendar
  • Equipment inventory
  • Notification preference center
  • Desktop app LabTrack for access management and utilization data (paid add-on)
  • User role management
  • Access permissions
  • Document management (e.g. manuals, warranties, etc.)
  • Asset monitoring IoT integrations (paid add-on)
  • Calendar synchronization
  • Knowledge center, online guides and tutorials
  • Equipment & incident announcements
  • Training management
  • Lab services & ordering
  • Equipment booking rules
  • Projects & funding feature
  • Maintenance activity scheduling
  • Maintenance audit trail
  • Maintenance contract management
  • Equipment QR code generator
  • Usage reports
  • Data export
  • Customized reportings
  • REST API access
  • Outlook calendar integration
  • Priority email support (24h)
  • Live-chat support
  • Holistic enterprise account access (organization admin and structured accounts)
  • SAML 2.0 single sign-on (SSO)
  • Third party integrations (e.g. Benchling, eLabNext)
  • Tailored integrations (e.g. to finance/billing systems, asset management systems) (upon request)
  • White labeled solution (upon request)
  • Tailored feature development (upon request)
  • Resource upload & data transfer
  • Training & account setup

User opinions about Calira price and value

Value for money rating:

To see what individual users think of Calira's price and value, check out the review snippets below.

“This product is very useful for allocating timeslots, and allowing the users to book spaces and equipment in the lab building, the rooms/ equipment can be divided up on the software.”
OK

Owen K.

Post Grad Researcher

“This system works great in the research environment where more than one person will need a piece of equipment or room, and allows this to happen seamlessly.”
OK

Owen K.

Post Grad Researcher

Calira integrations (3)

Integrations rated by users

We looked at 183 user reviews to identify which products are mentioned as Calira integrations and how users feel about them.

Integration rating: 3.0 (1)

Smooth and effective integration! By far the most valuable function pairing on the eLab platform.

AB

Austin B.

Scientist / Team Lead

Other top integrations

Calira customer support

What do users say about Calira customer support?

Customer support rating:

We analyzed verified user reviews to identify positive and negative aspects of Calira customer support.

Widespread user sentiment highlights the customer support team’s quick response times and efficient issue resolution.

A significant portion of users appreciate the helpfulness and willingness of support to accommodate requests and listen to suggestions.

Support options

Chat
Faqs/forum
Email/help desk
Knowledge base

Training options

Live online
Webinars
Videos
Documentation

To see what individual users say about Calira's customer support, check out the review snippets below.

“Of particular note is how quickly the team have been to respond to any queries we've had, which has been excellent considering that the software is free to us academic users.”

JM

Joanne M.

Technical Manager

“We have found the technical support to be very impressive and helpful whenever we have needed assistance or guidance.”

AM

Andrew M.

Senior Chief Research Laboratory Technician - NMR

Calira FAQs

Q. Who are the typical users of Calira?

Calira has the following typical customers:
Large Enterprises, Small Business, Mid-size Business

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Q. What level of support does Calira offer?

Calira offers the following support options:
Chat, FAQs/Forum, Email/Help Desk, Knowledge Base

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