Calendly vs. Doodle

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Calendly
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Calendly helps organizations globally automate the meeting lifecycle by removing the scheduling back and forth, with the goal of enabling companies to close deals, hire candidates faster, and build relationships.
$10
per month (billed annually) per seat
Doodle
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Doodle is appointment scheduling software from the Swiss company of the same name.
$0
1 user
Pricing
CalendlyDoodle
Editions & Modules
Standard
$10
per month (billed annually) per seat
Teams
$16
per month (billed annually) per seat
Enterprise
Starts at $15k
per year
Free
$0
1 user
Pro
$15
per month per user
Team
$19.95
per month per user
Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CalendlyDoodle
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMonthly billing also available.Discount available for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CalendlyDoodle
Considered Both Products
Calendly
Chose Calendly
I used You Can Book Me to set up meetings, but there were a number of things I didn't like about it. When using the free version of You Can Book Me, I could only make my meeting times available in one-hour increments. With Calendly, I can select the length of meetings that I …
Chose Calendly
Calendly has a much more specific purpose geared toward business meetings or any kind of meetings where as google makes more sense in an internal meeting or a school project or something like that. Calendly is really good at getting a smooth schedule down between client and …
Chose Calendly
Calendly seems the most easy to use and has all or most of the functionality that we need. We were looking to use other tools that we already pay for that have meeting functionality, but they didn’t have automated text and email reminders or some can’t allow clients to cancel …
Chose Calendly
I haven’t explored many other options, but I am a sold-out believer in this product and have used it at multiple organizations.
Chose Calendly
I didn’t use HubSpot meeting schedules in the same capacity because I wasn’t a sales rep so it’s hard to compare but I think Calendly is my preferred option.
Chose Calendly
Calendly allows you to define different types of appointments (with different time durations), and this is amazing.
Chose Calendly
Everything I've said previously. It takes me entirely out of the loop of coordinating people's schedules, sending invites, booking time, ensuring they get a Zoom invite, etc. It does everything while I do next to nothing, which is as it should be. As a team of one, my time …
Chose Calendly
Calendly is superior to both scheduling tools - it is easier to use, allows for a lot of customization and options for reminders, and allows the users to adjust their settings as they see fit. Other tools are more expensive and quite complex that don't allow modifications as …
Chose Calendly
Bookings is ok - but the game changer or I guess the deal breaker was bookings wasn't offering reminders or notifications to clients. This is important so our users are not wasting their time once again with emails that could be automated. With Calendly not only are you set …
Chose Calendly
Initially I used only Zoom to set up meetings. Had no clue how to make the best scheduling process in place. And them, Calendly came in. This was a game changer.

Zoom allows to just create meetings, but Calendly is absolute convenience! There's zero requirement to follow up …
Chose Calendly
Acuity’s interface was difficult and clunky to navigate. It was not intuitive and overpriced for its level of outdated design. Calendly is way more efficient and their customer service is top-notch and actually available.
Chose Calendly
Before making the switch to Calendly, we used Doodle polls a ton for big meetings to avoid the constant back and forth and long email chain messages between external partners, stakeholders, donors, funders, and other clients. Doodle poll is fairly informal compared to the …
Chose Calendly
I have not used any other products other than Calendly. Calendly was actually chosen by the broker-dealer company my boss works for so we did not have an option to shop and explore other products that work similar to Calendly.
Chose Calendly
When I started using it, there were not many competitors in this space. I've seen some like Mixmax that seem to work well for solopreneurs or where free version might be better than Calendly's free version. I use the paid version of Calendly and it's just kept serving us well …
Chose Calendly
Square Appointments I like it as well it just doesn't have the robust ability that Calendly does. Personally, if there were an ability to do that, Square Appointments could give Calendly a run for their money for their own customers. I don't see how they could move the compete …
Chose Calendly
I have never used or evaluated anything besides Calendly.
Chose Calendly
More recently, I have started using Meetingbird by Front. They are essentially the same product, but Meetingbird has a decidedly better design and user experience. It's just easier to use. Also - the product is free because Front is just using it to generate leads for its …
Chose Calendly
We didn't really have any competition for Calendly. We have used them previously and thought it was so easy that it made sense to implement Calendly right away. It made sense and created an easy solution to our problems.
Chose Calendly
Calendly is not meant to be a full featured CRM. Better if you're comfortable adding a scheduling software to your overall CRM and calendar stack.
Doodle
Chose Doodle
Doodle is the quickest platform for selecting options and copying a link over to share with a team! The user journey is also very simple and even in haste, it is easy to pull up options without being concerned about making errors. Previewing the Doodle is just a click away.
Chose Doodle
For me, it is about usability. Doodle continues to be the easiest for me to maneuver and make my own. I have experienced Doodle as more customizable for me. It meets my needs and I can usually ask someone a question and they are already familiar with how to manipulate Doodle as …
Chose Doodle
Doodle is more customizable and I love the animation aspect. It is missing the engagement piece, but again I am new to it so there may be features in Doodle that I haven't discovered yet.
Chose Doodle
Doodle is far superior to Calendly. It's more intuitive, easier to log in and understand the interface, and has a dynamic dashboard where you can do everything yourself and see history. I selected Doodle because it isn't just a chrome extension. It has so much more to it than …
Chose Doodle
I have not used another scheduling tool outside of Doodle.
Chose Doodle
In comparison to the other tools that are used within our organization, Doodle stacks up to be more user friendly, convenient, faster, easily shareable, you do not need to be in IT in order to use Doodle, and results come right to your email. I will continue to use Doodle to …
Chose Doodle
What we would do before was to create chats with multiple participants, where we would set an agenda and announce there would be a meeting planned, and then proposing time options for that meeting, which would then be confirmed or replaced by other people. Doodle simplifies …
Chose Doodle
SurveyMonkey has many more tools available and works great for advanced sign-ups with an element of information collection.
Doodle, however, is much better when you're trying to quickly find a common time slot for a meeting, and virtually takes 1 minute to set up and send out to …
Chose Doodle
Outlook calendar availability is tricky because there can be blocked-off calendar times during which a person may still be available. Doodle allows the user to make the determination of whether they are available to meet.
Chose Doodle
Doodle works better than Microsoft scheduler because you can send to individuals outside of your organization. You do not need an account to respond.
Chose Doodle
Doodle is more efficient for getting a quick look at timelines and better identifying days/times to host a meeting or event. However, Outlook is more efficient for a wider range of tasks, such as sending calendar invites and visualizing personal/business dates.
Chose Doodle
We use typeform for more complex uses but Doodle is used internally for submitting meal choices, voting, etc. Typeform is way overkill for that use case. Doodle is integrated into Slack so it makes this super streamlined!
Chose Doodle
I think Doodle is like Calendly on steroids. I have used Calendly for a pretty long time and I really like it but I feel Doodle's added functionality definitely makes it the more attractive option. Also, their pricing isn't that different so you just get more bang for your buck …
Chose Doodle
It is just more user-friendly and it took us less time to onboard each and every one of our employees. It is also light and not really advanced as for usage, very intuitive even for those who never used this kind of software before. And it looks much nicer than the competition!
Chose Doodle
Microsoft Scheduling Assistant - works well if users have Microsoft calendars, but also presumes the user has put every event into their calendar - does not give the person a preference in scheduling meetings
Chose Doodle
Doodle allows you to view more options simultaneously than Calendly, but Calendly offers more private interaction. Calendly is helpful for scheduling one on one meetings, but Doodle is much more effective with groups.
Chose Doodle
For the same reasons noted previously, Doodle allows for the organizer to ultimately select/accept the time that works for them. Many competitors only allow you to show available times and the appointment goes directly into the organizer's calendar. I typically prefer to have a …
Chose Doodle
I use Sign-Up Genius to list my open appointments and let students sign up for individual spots; I use the anonymous option so that only I can see the name and to others it simply appears as "already filled".
Doodle is simpler in some ways that Sign-Up Genius, but Doodle's …
Chose Doodle
Doodle is a platform that allows you to see others' availability, while Calendly and YCBM require respondents to actually make a booking at one of the times you offer. Doodle allows more flexibility in that you can see if there are multiple times when multiple people are …
Best Alternatives
CalendlyDoodle
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
LeanData
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Score 8.8 out of 10
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Score 8.8 out of 10
Enterprises
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All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CalendlyDoodle
Likelihood to Recommend
9.5
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.7
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
CalendlyDoodle
Likelihood to Recommend
It's well suited for music students' lessons. It's well suited for online coaching, primarily through places like Zoom and more. It helps simplify things for your clients, lets you program your schedule, and allows it all to go automatically! If you are working with a senior population, it may be a little tricky for them to sign up and then really hard for them to cancel lessons. There isn't a way to go to the site and cancel. You have to pull up the confirmed email and cancel from there, but people can lose emails.
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Doodle is great when you need to coordinate dates among a group and don't want to send a bunch of group emails or texts. It allows a number of dates to be proposed and the group can easily see those dates that are most preferred. If you need to do something more complex than that it may not be your tool.
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Pros
  • Sales. Easy for people to book so less back and forth.
  • Managed access. Easy for me to offer people the "right kind" of slot - I have like 5 hidden event-types I share only with certain people so they can access different availability.
  • Collaborative events! Some of us frequently meet in pairs or groups, e.g., one of our regional leaders and I have a shared link we can send out to people to find a time that works for all of us. LOVE this.
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  • Doodle approaches this problem different than most other scheduling platforms I've looked at (and I've looked at most of them). Doodle allows the person who is making their calendar available for scheduling to make the final decision on the meeting in contrast to other platforms that typically do it the other way around. Both can be beneficial depending on preference
  • I love that Doodle allows for proposing multiple times, which is a feature I've yet to find on other scheduling platforms (and I've looked at/tried a lot of them)
  • Doodle makes the scheduling process very simple even for someone who's never used it before
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Cons
  • If you have more than one company, you cannot use one account. This is the most difficult hurdle to me but still one I am willing to jump over considering all the benefits of Calendly.
  • Adding custom color ability on event types. Example: One of my companies doesn't use any of the color choices. I would like to be able to color code those to my brand.
  • Brand/Asset kit would be a wonderful addition. In profile settings, have a place to upload brand logo, assets, and brand color codes.
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  • I would appreciate a more intuitive add-on within Google Calendar so we can schedule meetings directly in there.
  • I think missing functionality might be adding sliders, photos, and colors to the polls to make it look really beautiful.
  • I find the options on the poll settings are a bit confusing. It could be elaborated on more or have tooltips to explain the options better.
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Likelihood to Renew
For all reasons like workflows, UI, and the way Calendly keeps all of us engaged through the Collective forum. It's indeed undeniable that no other product covers all business needs like Calendly does. On the other side, this has also reduced the workload by enabling us to focus more on other tasks for the day
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Easy to use and basically free.
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Usability
Calendly is extremely easy to use for selecting times and days for meetings. From my end, it's very easy to indicate the days and times that I am available for meetings. I have used other scheduling products, but Calendly has the smoothest way of operating. I highly recommend it for scheduling meetings
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Very simple journey with the few important questions/fields
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Support Rating
There is a lot of support for Calendly. Whenever I have had issues navigating through it, especially as a new user, I found multiple support on the web addressing my questions or concerns. There is a lot of in app informative notes accessible to users to navigate through Calendly when needed.
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Doodle has customer service support available as needed, but honestly, it is so easy to use that I have rarely had to seek support. They are always a click away and responsive to resolving any need or to clarify the next best step to using Doodle to meet my needs.
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Alternatives Considered
Everything I've said previously. It takes me entirely out of the loop of coordinating people's schedules, sending invites, booking time, ensuring they get a Zoom invite, etc. It does everything while I do next to nothing, which is as it should be. As a team of one, my time should be spent doing what I do best and getting paid to do: coaching, teaching, consulting, speaking, writing, and creating training content and workshops.
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Doodle is more customizable and I love the animation aspect. It is missing the engagement piece, but again I am new to it so there may be features in Doodle that I haven't discovered yet.
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Return on Investment
  • Over 300% as of last year. We had done a case study which was phenomenal because even I didn't know the numbers were that huge until we finally put pen to paper.
  • Time!! I'm in the money business and you know Time is Money if you're in the same industry.
  • Affordability. It doesn't break the bank for anyone - having an affordable product along with it being user friendly is a no brainer.
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  • Doodle saves so much time. Time is valuable, and it cuts the time involved with scheduling in half.
  • Doodle connects our team across campus. Even if we don't see each other, we can still check in and plan a meeting.
  • Doodle doesn't always work well with our campus network, which can be annoying.
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ScreenShots

Calendly Screenshots

Screenshot of how to share a scheduling linkScreenshot of automated workflowsScreenshot of browser extensionsScreenshot of routing formsScreenshot of round robin & collective eventsScreenshot of admin management