Item: Bookafy
Rating: 7
Author: Juan R. Arroyo Yap

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Bookafy to manage appointment setup with current and future clients. A lot of time can be wasted trading emails, texts, and checking calendars to set up a meeting. Bookafy helps save time by allowing the client to pick a convenient time for them at any point during their day without having to wait for our answer. Bookafy also helps me control when I can meet with clients and when I focus on work by limiting availability. Since it allows me to synchronize with multiple calendars at once, I don't have to worry about overlapping with personal meetings or medical appointments. Bookafy also lets me assign meetings to a specific user, which allows me to delegate better.

Pros and Cons

Calendar synchronization
Payment collection
Booking page is intuitive
Covers core scheduling needs of a business

Embedding specific meetings on a website is not clearly visible and limited in customization options. Someone with HTML knowledge could handle it all but most business owners don't have that knowledge. Also, when it embeds, it's not as responsive and it seems very crowded
It doesn't have the ability to have private meetings accessible to customers. This means that I can't have a hidden meeting scheduler that I sent only to my VIP clients as a special bonus. I have to make the meeting public for it to allow someone to book. All competitors of Bookafy have this feature
Personally, I don't understand why the meeting types and setup are inside the "Account Settings" area. To me, the creation of meetings and their setup should be a front and center menu
I find the user interface outdated and clunky. Feels like a collection of embedded tables rather than sections and rows. Somehow the look affects how intuitive I perceive the back-office of the platform. It reminds me of 1990s website designs... Not visually appealing and crowded screens

Most Important Features

Calendar sync
Zoom integration
Straight forward booking process

Return on Investment

I ended up trying Bookafy thanks to a lifetime deal so the savings on subscription payments is great
It has saved me countless hours of back and forth trying to setup a meeting with someone
Automatic time blocking on my calendar and spacing of meetings have saved me from tardiness and not having time to eat.

Alternatives Considered

Calendly, Acuity Scheduling, a Squarespace company and MeetFox

The main decision for Bookafy was influenced by the lifetime deal and Zoom integration. Bookafy doesn't embed as well as Calendly. It also doesn't have the ability to set up hidden meetings. MeetFox is all through a browser which is convenient for that not tech savvy but it lacked security features. Calendly feels more intuitive and easier to set up. I didn't want to keep paying monthly.

Key Insights

Do you think Bookafy delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Bookafy's feature set?

Did Bookafy live up to sales and marketing promises?

Did implementation of Bookafy go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Bookafy again?

Other Software Used

Evernote, Trello, Systeme.io

Likelihood to Recommend

In my experience, Bookafy has pretty much the same features as the other well-known scheduling apps. In terms of functionality, the two obstacles I experience were setting up a hidden (not shown on the main booking page) meeting for special bonus calls you don't want anyone to have access to. Yes, you can set up a paid meeting and give someone a coupon to access it free but that seems like an extra unnecessary step. The other limitation was how ugly it looks to embed meetings on a website. The scheduler looks fine inside Bookafy, but when embedded, it doesn't flow as well. For everything else, it works well. If you want to sync the scheduler with email marketing systems, most of the integrations work through Zapier so that can be an additional cost. Bookafy focuses on the meeting schedules.

Good Value if You Dont Want the Bells and Whistles

Overall Satisfaction with Bookafy