Are you looking for a good WordPress booking plugin free on the official wordpress.org resource? We are here to help you choose the best WordPress scheduler plugin for hourly appointments out of free options.
Such WordPress appointment plugins are essential for service-based businesses, both solopreneurs and companies with multiple employees.
The most common niches are:
- Education (schools, colleges, tutoring centers);
- Coaching & psychology;
- Medicine (hospitals, clinics, dental offices);
- Beauty & Wellness (spa centers, beauty studios);
- Sports (gyms, dance studios, individual coaching);
- Equipment rental.
Read more: Roundup of 10+ Best Booking Plugins for WordPress
How to Identify a Good WordPress Scheduling Plugin?
Oftentimes, free booking systems are inferior in functionality to premium analogs. They might lack convenient features like payment or have limitations on the number of employees, services, etc.
On the other hand, not everybody needs a payment feature or the ability to support large teams of specialists. So any free WordPress appointment plugin can be good or not, and it all depends on your personal needs.
But some parameters identify a free reservation software as a good one:
- Fully-responsive UI (for mobile booking);
- Built-in calendar view;
- Regular updates (every 1-3 month/s);
- Detailed documentation;
- Available on wordpress.org;
8 Free Appointment Scheduling Plugins for WordPress
Below you will find 8 free WordPress appointment plugins, which you can easily integrate into any service-based business.
MotoPress Appointment Booking Lite
Of course, we’ll start with the MotoPress plugin, namely a LITE version of our WordPress appointment scheduling plugin. With the given software, users can create a free booking website and test most of the premium plugin features. In some cases, the functionality of our free WordPress booking plugin will be enough to run and accept online reservations.
The plugin’s scope of application is wide. Even the free version supports an unlimited number of services, employees, and locations. It can be one specialist working solo or a large company with more than one office.
Some of the Plugin’s Key Features are:
- Custom time slots;
- Buffer time before & after each appointment;
- 3-step booking process;
- Group bookings;
- Automatic OR manual bookings confirmation;
- Elementor, Divi & Gutenberg support.
The plugin looks awesome on the backend. You can take a quick view of current bookings, and edit other information in a visual mode. The booking calendar stores data about the service, and employee, and displays its status (confirmed/pending). You can confirm bookings manually or set the automation confirmation mode.
Explore the plugin on the backend:
Each of your team members can have access to their profiles and schedules. They can edit their schedule individually: set time for lunch & breaks, including days off and vacations, etc.
The main difference between the PRO appointment plugin for WordPress is the ability to accept payments. In the premium version, you can use the next payment methods: PayPal, Stripe, direct bank transfer, and pay on arrival.
P.S. Along with the premium & free booking service for appointments, we created a dedicated Hotel Booking Scheduler. The plugin works as an all-in-one system of accommodation booking & management.
Amelia – Events & Appointments Booking Calendar
Amelia is always on the list of best free booking plugins for WordPress. The Amelia system covers events & appointment booking services built with the latest technology. The plugin provides a user-friendly design with a convenient booking calendar on the backend.
The Amelia free reservation system covers scheduling events, appointment reservations, and services management. It’s worth noting that you can add only one employee, which means the plugin’s LITE version is suitable for solopreneurs only.
Amelia comes with a handy backend calendar view, which provides full control over all appointments and their statuses. To add the Booking Wizard to your website, copy and paste Amelia’s shortcode into an existing post or page.
Other key features of the Amelia free booking plugin WordPress:
- Booking forms are embedded via one shortcode;
- Calendar admin view;
- Elementor, Divi & Gutenberg support.
Appointment Hour Booking – WordPress Booking Plugin
Appointment Hour Booking is another free appointment plugin WordPress can offer. You can use it to create booking forms for appointments with specific start times and durations.
The plugin defines the start time automatically based on the filled information about open hours and the service duration. The other attractive feature is the automatic price calculator, which sums up the cost of all purchased services.
Similar to other plugins, this plugin provides visual configuration on the backend. You can visually create multiple booking forms with multiple services, and they may have different duration, capacities, and prices.
The plugin’s free version does not support any payments gateways or integrations with software like Zoom, WooCommerce, or Google Calendar. It does not include a visual form builder and addons for cancellation and SMS notifications.
Other notable features:
- Default, maximum, and minimum dates
- Email notifications
- Manual and automatic CSV reports
- Printable appointments list
Bookly – WordPress Online Booking & Scheduling Plugin
Bookly is a popular scheduling plugin for WordPress in both free and premium versions. The plugin comes with an elegant and user-friendly cPanel. Even a free version offers top-notch management features and easily-customizable booking forms.
On the convenient backend admin panel, admins can view events by month, week and day. Besides, they can make changes to the customer list and appointment calendar, in particular:
- manually add new customers to the Customer list;
- add days off & holidays to employees’ profiles;
- filter, search, and sort the booking list;
- automatically approve & cancel appointments;
- Customize the styling of the booking engine
Finally, the plugin lets you notify customers about their booking status via email or SMS.
Like most free online reservation systems, Bookly LITE has no payment functionality. Also, it has limitations on the number of services and employees.
Webba Booking Lite
If you want to get a comprehensive booking WordPress plugin free in terms of styling, go for Webba Booking. It offers over 80+ options and 79 presets for styling customization of the plugin’s booking form. What’s more, the engine suits not only services with hourly appointments but also online event & restaurant bookings.
With Webba Booking, your calendar will not only look great but remain fully responsive for all screens. The free version supports variable booking duration, cancellation of appointments at specific times, buffer timing, and unlimited scheduling.
More features available for the Webba WordPress booking plugin free are:
- Custom fields;
- Email notifications to clients and employees when bookings are approved or canceled;
- Group services & appointments;
- Multiple bookings in one session.
- The free version does not support any payment methods, coupons, export to CVS, WooCommerce & Google Calendar integration, iCal, and SMS notifications.
Pinpoint Booking System
Pinpoint covers the booking needs for a variety of businesses: from accommodation rental to appointment-based services and events. Everyone can use this online reservation system free of cost for the clean interface and universality.
The plugin features a unique and exclusive AJAX booking calendar. The administration area is intuitive, powerful, flexible, and easy to manage, making the Pinpoint system equally well suited for large and small businesses. Additionally, you can enhance the functionality of the Pinpoint booking system with other add-ons.
In Pinpoint Lite, you are restricted to 1 calendar, and 1 location. Also, the WordPress appointment plugin free offers the next features:
- WooCommerce support;
- Multi-currency support;
- Sync with Google Calendar, iCalendar, or Airbnb;
- Email & SMS notifications;
- Payment methods.
The free version does not support search availability through all calendars, multi-site support, and custom post types.
Simply Schedule Appointments
Simply Schedule Appointments offers a built-in double-booking prevention feature. So once a time slot is reserved for a service, it cannot be re-booked for other services.
The basic edition lets you create a free booking site for businesses with an appointment-based model. It covers unlimited appointments and integration with the Events Calendar. In the plugin’s appointment calendar WordPress, you can add custom colors, fonts, and padding, and use custom CSS. You can add calendar rules, blackout dates, custom email notifications, and translate a calendar to other languages.
The plugin’s free version does not include Google Calendar integration, group bookings, custom fields, payment gateways, email and SMS notifications, analytics, top-notch developer support, etc.
Booking Calendar | Appointment Booking | BookIt
And we are ending up with one more WordPress appointment booking plugin free of cost. BookIt provides a powerful booking calendar, and in many cases, it outcomes more popular scheduling plugins on our list. You can set up a website with any booking calendar, whether for hotels, equipment rental, or appointment-based services.
BookIt opens up a convenient calendar management system on the backend. You can manage the staff, add new members, control the working hours, and edit custom fields. On top of that, you can write down custom email notifications for the bookings’ approval/cancelation.
The free version does not support payments, multi-site licenses, Google Calendar synchronization, and WooCommerce integration.
Final Word on How to Create an Online Booking System Free
Now you know the answer. Create free booking websites effortlessly using one of the plugins on our list.
As you can see, most booking plugins released a simplified version of their reservation software free of cost. In many cases, even free plugins can help you manage online bookings for multiple services & employees via a convenient calendar.
More posts on WordPress booking solutions:
- 11 Elementor Appointment Booking Plugins In 2022
- Roundup of WordPress Plugins for Spa Scheduling
- Free WordPress booking plugins for hotels, vacation rentals, and B&Bs
The post 8 WordPress Booking Plugins Free For Appointment Booking appeared first on MotoPress.