BLOG
Calendly Alternatives for Consultants Who Charge for Their Time (2026)
Five Calendly alternatives for consultants who charge for calls, compared with Calendly on price, payment, video, and what each remembers about a client.
Airtym · September 24, 2026
Read as markdownWhat is the best Calendly alternative for a consultant who charges for calls?
If your clients come back, pick the tool that keeps what was said on each client's record. Airtym does that on every plan, including the free one, because it hosts the call. Calendly does it only on Standard Plus, at $24 a month or $18 billed yearly, through a notetaker that joins your Zoom, Meet or Teams call. For one-off calls on no budget, Cal.com's free plan covers booking, payment and video.
Every tool below takes bookings and payments, at least on a paid plan. Fees differ: TidyCal adds 1% except on Pro (TidyCal), and Airtym takes 10% of paid calls on Starter and Lite (Airtym).
They differ most in what they know about a client who books again.
Definition
Client memory. What a scheduling tool can show you about a client when they book again. It ranges from nothing, through notes you type yourself, to a summary of every past call waiting on the client's record.
Why Do Repeat Clients Decide This?
David A. Fields, who advises boutique consulting firms, puts the healthy share of a firm's annual revenue from repeat clients at 40 to 80 percent, and treats anything under 40 as a problem (David A. Fields Consulting Group, 2018).
The relationship behind that revenue moves with the person who holds it. When financial advisers changed firms under the Broker Protocol, an industry agreement that let them take client contact details with them without being sued, about 40 percent of client assets went with them (Gurun, Stoffman and Yonker, Journal of Financial Economics 141(3), 2021).
Continuity starts with remembering what you agreed last time. In a lab study, people who could still see their work in the seconds before an interruption picked it back up faster (Altmann and Trafton, 2004). The study measured seconds, not the weeks between calls, so treat it as the mechanism only: a summary saved as the call ends is the cue you leave for next time.
How Do These Tools Compare With Calendly?
| Price for one person | Payment at booking | Where the call runs | What it keeps about each client | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airtym | Free (120 call minutes a month, 10% on paid calls); Pro $19.99 a month, or $16.66 a month billed yearly | Every plan; Starter and Lite take 10%, and Pro takes no commission | Built in | A summary and transcript of every booked call, on the client's record |
| Calendly | Free; Standard $12 a month, or $10 a month billed yearly | Standard and up, through Stripe or PayPal | Zoom, Meet, Teams, GoTo or Webex | Meeting history and your own notes on each contact, every plan; recaps on the contact with Standard Plus, $24 a month or $18 billed yearly |
| Acuity Scheduling | Starter $20 a month, or $16 a month billed yearly; no free plan | Every paid plan, through Stripe, Square or PayPal | Zoom, Google Meet or GoToMeeting | A client profile with appointment history and private notes you write |
| Cal.com | Free for one person | Free plan, through Stripe or PayPal | Cal Video, built in | Bookings, with Salesforce and HubSpot sync on the free plan; its AI summaries are waitlisted and will be paid-only |
| TidyCal | Free; $29 one-time; Pro $12 a month, or $99 a year | Every plan, with a 1% fee on Stripe payments except on Pro | Zoom, Meet or Teams links on paid plans | Bookings, with a CSV export of who booked on paid plans |
| SavvyCal | Basic $12 a month, or $10 a month billed yearly | Premium only, $20 a month or $17 a month billed yearly | Conferencing integrations | CRM integrations; no client record on its feature list |
Prices and features come from each company's own pricing page, checked 23 September 2026: Calendly, Acuity Scheduling, Cal.com, TidyCal, SavvyCal and Airtym.
The video column comes from Calendly's help centre (Calendly's pricing page lists Google Meet), Acuity Scheduling and Cal Video. The client-record column comes from Calendly Contacts, Calendly on recaps, Acuity's client list and Cal.com Notes. Airtym's fees are on its FAQ.
What Does Each One Do Best?
Airtym
Built for consultants whose clients return. The booking, the video room, the payment and the call all happen in one place, so each booked call's summary and transcript land on that client's record without anyone typing them up.
Starter is free for 120 call minutes a month and takes 10% of paid calls. Pro is $19.99 a month, or $16.66 a month billed yearly, with 1,800 call minutes and no commission (Airtym). More on how consultants use it is on the consultants page.
Calendly
The pick when scheduling itself is the job: round-robin, lead routing and CRM sync for teams (Calendly). For a paid consulting call it means Standard for payments, Standard Plus for recaps, and a separate video tool that the notetaker joins. The full Calendly comparison goes row by row.
Acuity Scheduling
A suite for appointment businesses: custom client forms on every plan, and packages and memberships from Standard at $34 a month, or $27 a month billed yearly (Acuity Scheduling). The call runs in Zoom, Google Meet or GoToMeeting (Acuity Scheduling), and the client notes are yours to write (Acuity Scheduling). The Acuity comparison covers the rest.
Cal.com
The strongest free plan. It covers booking, and Stripe and PayPal payments (Cal.com), and Cal.com says it takes no fee of its own on Stripe payments (Cal.com).
Cal Video, its own video room, is the default location for every Cal.com event (Cal.com). AI summaries are on a waitlist, will be paid-only, and save to the booking (Cal.com Notes). The Cal.com comparison has the detail.
TidyCal
The cheapest paid option. A one-time $29 plan adds Zoom, Meet and Teams links. Pro, at $12 a month or $99 a year, removes the 1% fee TidyCal charges on Stripe payments, on top of Stripe's own fees (TidyCal).
SavvyCal
Built to protect your calendar, with ranked availability, time blocking and frequency limits (SavvyCal). Paid bookings need Premium, and both plans connect to CRMs.
Example
A consultant with 15 retained clients on monthly one-hour calls runs 180 sessions a year. If each write-up takes 10 minutes (our assumption), that is 30 hours a year of unbilled typing, and every write-up lives wherever the consultant saved it.
Result
When the call happens where the record lives, the summary is written for you, and session eleven opens with the ten before it already on the client's record.
How Should a Consultant Choose?
- Your calls are mostly one-off and budget matters most: Cal.com's free plan.
- You run an appointment business with staff, intake forms and packages: Acuity Scheduling.
- Scheduling is the job and a team shares the calendar: Calendly.
- You want to pay once and never again: TidyCal's one-time plan.
- You mainly need to protect your calendar from over-booking: SavvyCal.
- Your clients come back, and what you agreed last time is what they pay you for: Airtym.
A quick test: open a client in the tool you are considering and look for what you agreed at the end of your last call. If it is there and you never typed it, the tool holds client memory.
What Is the Case for Staying With Calendly?
Calendly keeps each client's meeting history and your own notes on every plan (Calendly), and with Standard Plus the call recaps appear on the contact as well (Calendly). If you already run calls on Zoom, Meet or Teams and pay for Standard Plus, you have most of what this article describes.
That setup is Calendly plus a separate video tool, with Calendly's notetaker joining each call as a participant (Calendly). Standard Plus is $24 a month, or $18 billed yearly, against Airtym Pro at $19.99 a month, or $16.66 a month billed yearly, with the call and 1,800 call minutes a month included (Airtym).
Key takeaways
- All six take bookings and payments on some plan; TidyCal adds 1% except on Pro, and Airtym takes 10% on Starter and Lite.
- David A. Fields puts a healthy consulting firm's repeat-client share of annual revenue at 40 to 80 percent (David A. Fields Consulting Group, 2018).
- Only Cal.com and Airtym host the call; the others link to Zoom, Meet or similar tools.
- Airtym files a summary and transcript of every booked call to the client's record, on every plan.
- Cal.com's free plan is the cheapest complete option for one-off calls.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best free alternative to Calendly?
For one-off calls, Cal.com. Its free plan includes booking, and Stripe and PayPal payments (Cal.com), and Cal Video, its own video room, is the default location for every event (Cal.com). Airtym Starter is also free, with 120 call minutes a month, a summary of every booked call, and 10% on paid calls (Airtym).
Which Calendly alternatives have built-in video calls?
Cal.com, with Cal Video (Cal.com), and Airtym (Airtym). Calendly, Acuity Scheduling, TidyCal and SavvyCal create links into Zoom, Google Meet and similar tools, and the call runs there (Calendly, Acuity Scheduling, TidyCal, SavvyCal).
Can I take payment at booking without paying for Calendly?
Yes. Cal.com and TidyCal take payments on their free plans (Cal.com), TidyCal with a 1% fee of its own (TidyCal). Airtym Starter takes 10% of paid calls (Airtym). On Calendly, payments start on Standard at $12 a month, or $10 a month billed yearly (Calendly).
Which scheduling tools keep notes on each client?
Calendly keeps meeting history and your own notes on every plan (Calendly), and Notetaker recaps appear on the contact from Standard Plus (Calendly). Acuity Scheduling keeps a client profile with appointment history and private notes you write (Acuity Scheduling). Airtym files a summary and transcript of every booked call to the client's record, on every plan.
How much does Calendly cost for one person?
Calendly Standard is $12 a seat a month, or $10 a month billed yearly. Standard Plus, which adds Notetaker's recaps and transcripts, is $24 a seat a month, or $18 a month billed yearly (Calendly).
Related Articles
- Meeting Notes Apps for Client Calls: Two Questions Before You Pick One: how the major notetakers group calls by client, and who does the filing.
- The Calendly alternative with payments built in: Airtym and Calendly, row by row.
- The Acuity alternative that hosts the call too: Airtym and Acuity Scheduling, row by row.
- The Cal.com alternative built around the client, not the booking: Airtym and Cal.com, row by row.
- The Tool Tax Nobody Counts: Your Stack Forgets Your Clients: what an assembled booking, video and payment stack costs each month.
- Best Coaching Platforms and Calendly Alternatives for Coaches (2026): the same question asked of coaching software.
Written by
Airtym
Client calls, booked, paid, and on the record.