Acuity Scheduling VS Appointy

One of the most common pieces of advice you’ll get from anyone on how to become more productive and reach your goals is: get organized. Great, wonderful, piece of advice, but what exactly does that mean? Where do you begin? However you answer these questions, you should definitely begin by taking a look at two booking applications that can serve as a fantastic, low-risk window into what booking software has to offer: Acuity Scheduling and Appointy (see our review).

I’m not a very organized person myself. (Correction: organization is an anathema to my very existence.) Were I an entity summoned from another realm of existence, you would invoke me with piles of loosely associated papers and clothing. And though I function fairly well within the paradigm, there’s no way I’d be able to remember all my tasks or appointments on my own. If you’re the same way, booking software has the potential to help with this immensely, but how much it can help is largely a matter of selecting a program that will give you the features you need without overwhelming you with (expensive) stuff you don’t need.

Both Acuity and Appointy offer a very scalable experience at very reasonable prices, but there are a few points of comparison that could push you to one side of the fence or the other.

Price

Winner: Acuity

Let’s face it, no matter how well-made a program is, price is always going to be an issue. Both programs offer a tremendous amount of value for your dollar and, even better, both offer free functionality to users with modest scheduling needs.

That said, price comparisons between the two programs are a little more difficult to make than you might expect. At a glance, Acuity looks like the cheaper program, but whether or not that holds true depends primarily on how many staff members you have. In the case of Acuity, the base price is lower, but you’ll have to pay a $10 surcharge for extra calendars. So if you have a large staff, you might actually end up spending less money on Appointy. Smaller businesses and individuals, however, will probably find Acuity to be the better bargain.

The advantage therefore goes to Acuity (however circumstantially).

Interface

Winner: Tie

Both Acuity and Appointy are extremely easy to get the hang of, even if you’ve never used a booking application before. In both cases, the interfaces are largely contextual: if you click on an element, you can usually interact with it. This is particularly relevant when you’re interacting with the primary feature: the calendar.

Acuity

Appointy

Otherwise, grading the interface largely depends on whether you prefer minimalism (Acuity) or a more cluttered, but visually polished presentation (Appointy). While I personally lean toward minimalism as a matter of personal preference, both products do an effective job of of teaching their users how to use them.

There was a time, recently, when Appointy’s documentation was a bit hard to read, but the company has gone out of their way to improve their text over the past year or so.

Feature Set

Winner: Appointy

While both programs offer very expansive feature sets for their price, there is a bit more contrast to be drawn between them here. In terms of sheer quantity of features, Appointy–a creation of a larger team–has more bells and whistles.

That’s not to say that Acuity is light on features. Both products will permit you to make appointments and process financial transactions, allow your customers to book appointments themselves, and work with multiple staff or locations. Appointy, however, offers a little bit more in terms of customer management and analytics. For those who like a customized mobile experience, Appointy also offers iOS and Android apps.

Acuity, by comparison, is more of a labor of love of a very small but dedicated team. This shouldn’t suggest that Acuity is unprofessional or merely a hobbiest project–and indeed, its own team has been growing–but Appointy does appear to have more resources at its disposable.

Customization

Winner: Appointy

Both Appointy and Acuity hide most of their customization options behind a pay wall, so free users won’t be able to evaluated customization options prior to buying.

Acuity’s options are, however, far more basic than Appointy’s and largely limited to modifications to color, headers, footers, and emails/confirmation etc. By comparison, Appointy offers an almost dizzying array of options, allowing you to change not just what you will be seeing, but almost every element that the customer will be interacting with.

Customer Service

Winner: Appointy

Sooner or later, you’re probably going to have questions about the programs you use, even well-designed ones. When that happens, it’s critical to have good systems in place to walk you through those tough times.

Both Acuity and Appointy provide excellent in-app and contextual support, but Appointy’s is, hands-down, more comprehensive thanks to a live chat feature that can help you reach a human being when you need to. To Acuity’s credit, they answer their emails incredibly quickly and provide excellent help, but time, as they say, is of the essence.

Conclusion

Winner: Tie

While this comparison may seem to advocate a strong preference for Appointy, the truth is both of these are exceptionally good programs which provide excellent value for your money. Appointy, however, is more likely to impress at a quick glance and provide novices with a broader perspective of what booking software has to offer. Acuity, on the other hand, is likely to be more of an acquired taste for users who appreciate its minimalistic, feature-rich style.