What is scheduling software, and how does online booking work?

Scheduling software, also called appointment scheduling or online booking software, replaces the "does Tuesday work?" back-and-forth with a booking page. You decide what can be booked and when; the booker chooses a time that suits them, in their own time zone.

Most tools add the jobs around the booking: a confirmation email, a calendar invite, a video meeting link, reminders before the meeting, and a way for the booker to reschedule or cancel without writing to you.

It reads your connected calendars. When your calendar is connected, events already on your calendar are treated as busy, so those times never appear on the booking page. A good tool also checks the slot again at the moment of booking, in case someone else took it a second earlier.

Without a connected calendar, the tool only knows about bookings made through it, which is the most common cause of double-booking.

Start with who takes the meetings. One person needs a good booking page, calendar sync and reminders. A team needs round-robin, collective scheduling and a shared view of bookings. A service business that charges per session needs payment at booking.

Then check the free plan's limits, which calendars and video tools it connects to, whether reminders go by email only or also by text, and how the price grows as you add people.