SimplyBook.me Pricing, Features, Reviews & Alternatives

Pros
I loved the features included with the base package and the ability to add extra features alacarte to keep costs low. Customers can self-cancel and outgoing emails can be customized. Zapier included!

Cons
The moment you need an extra feature after your first three alacarte ones, the price jumps up into the next alacarte tier. Also, you cannot create booking "buffers" or delays for different departments. For example, if you want customer service customers to wait at least 1 hour before booking a customer service call, but want coaching customers to wait 24 hours before booking a call, it cannot accommodate those different delays in different departments. The entire company must be either a 1 hour delay, or a 24 hour delay.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
I like that you can add on features and that it integrates with WordPress. Also, we took a pretty long break due to the pandemic, but when I logged in five months later, all of my data was there, waiting for me. We have multiple income streams from finished pottery and bisque ceramics, as well as from instruction and studio rental. We use Simply Book Me for booking studio sessions. It is nice because we can control how many sessions can be booked at the same time and the customer can choose to pay via the booking site or at the session. I am excited to see that we can promote related products as well.

Cons
One downside is paying a monthly or yearly fee for something you may only use intermittently. However, the price is affordable enough that it is painless to absorb the cost into product pricing and much cheaper for us and the customer than other scheduling and/or event services. The flow and feel of this platform, for both the administrator as well as the user, is a bit awkward. I would prefer a more modern polish to the interface, similar to other event and scheduling software. The user interface is styled similar to WordPress, but it is less intuitive. The same goes for making appointments. It takes a bit to really understand how to use it. I find that I have to do a little hand-holding with my customers. This fits with our brand, so it isn't a deal-breaker, but nonetheless worth noting.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
The customer support is amazing, some of the best I have ever had. It integrates with my website really well, and I love that you can customise it to match your brand.

Cons
A few things have been really frustrating for me: - There is no option to select that they have paid a deposit in person, only online payments. This means I have been unable to take deposits at all as there is no way of documenting quickly if they have been taken, other than writing a comment which may be missed by another practitioner. - Body charts would be very helpful for health care settings - The ability to attach a PDF/document would be very useful, at present I need to store these on my computer outside of the database - I need to be able to extract more data onto an excel spreadsheet. Data such as, number of appointments, amount spent would help to analyse most profitable clients - The ability to put in a discount code manually when creating a booking (when someone books over the phone). I have been unable to do this - To have a search function on the main calendar page would be very useful. Then, rather than searching for booking details/transactions etc it would be better if they were all in one place

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 7/10

Pros
Allows for a degree of automation to my business. I can show images and descriptions for my categories and services which a lot of other systems do not. Like the drag a slot function in calendar. Like the SMS and email reminder system (but could be better!) It adapts to most types of business which many others do not.

Cons
Very expensive for what it offers. It costs a lot of money to get a reasonably functional system by paying for all the add ons and extras. If the core was better then I would be happy to pay for my business specific add ons. Customer service is more of a cut and paste script routine. There is no place other than sending via customer service to place suggestions. It needs a dedicated place to post suggestions so that all other users can vote on them. The company just say that they look at all suggestions. The problem with that is no one else gets to see those suggestions and thing Oh thats a great idea. Plus it does not provide real life feedback doing it their way. I made these in the very first day of use Suggestions /Requirements for SimplyBook.me 1) Email templates should have a WYSIWYG editor 2) There should be a Block Out option when making a booking on the calendar (admin only) 3) Emails should be sent in HTML not plain text. At least an option should be available. 4) There needs to be a “Pending Booking” email template. 5) It should be possible to switch on and off any email or SMS rather than all on or all off. 6) This booking software really would benefit from and APP the website as it stands doe not even work/view properly on mobile. 7) There should be multi buy option. Customers may want to book 1 or 10 or 100 of the same service. It should be easy to add a figure for quantity required. 8) There should be a multi cart function

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 4/10

Pros
I love how user friendly this software is! I found the video tutorials very helpful and the customer service was prompt and friendly. I appreciate how they would always send article links to refer back to after the chat and would email me when we got disconnected. I also love the booking site themes to choose from, they are all very well designed.

Cons
If I had to give one improvement it would be to allow users to get more than three custom features with the first upgrade tier. I would have loved to get five to test it out, and would have definitely upgraded once my business bookings began. The jump from three to unlimited is a big jump, maybe offer a tier in between for new subscribers. Other than that the software itself is pretty amazing.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10