Coordinator vs Acuity Scheduling
Acuity handles the appointment. Coordinator handles the appointment and the business around it — the client's history, the room it needs, the invoice it becomes — free, in any country.
Free. No card. About two minutes to set up.
Acuity, side by side
Squarespace's appointment platform — a favorite of salons, studios and clinics, from ~$16/mo.
| What you're paying for | Coordinator | Acuity |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 — everything | ~$16–$49/mo by tier |
| Staff calendars | Unlimited, free | Tier-limited |
| Intake forms at booking | Included — conditional, validated, filed on the client | Included |
| SMS reminders | Included — on your own Twilio or provider | From the ~$34 tier |
| Gift certificates & memberships | Included | Included — long its edge |
| Packages & group classes | Included, with waitlist claim-blasts | Included — a strong suit |
| Paid bookings | Your own Stripe, PayPal or Wise | Stripe/Square/PayPal |
| Rooms & equipment on the calendar | Included — booked with the session, clash-proof | |
| Staff shifts & time off | Included | Availability only |
| Projects, tasks & job costing | Included | |
| Real invoicing & accounting attached | Included — bookings land in your books | |
| Clients collaborate from their own workspace | Included (the network) |
Acuity pricing and plan limits are approximate, from their published plans as of August 2026 — check their site for current figures. Coordinator's column doesn't change: $0.
The Acuity line on your P&L
Acuity runs ~$16–$49 a month depending on calendars and locations — roughly $190–$590 a year, on top of whatever you use for books, projects and team chat.
Users: Priced by plan tier (calendars/staff), not free.
What you get that Acuity doesn't give you
Acuity knows the appointment. Coordinator knows the client — every visit, invoice, form answer and conversation on one page.
Treatment rooms, chairs and machines are bookable resources with their own lanes — double-booking the space is impossible, not just awkward.
Every settled booking is a categorized, reconciled entry. Revenue by service line is a glance, not a month-end export.
What Acuity users complain about — answered
Recurring themes from public reviews and forums (G2, Capterra, Reddit), paired with what changes here. We only list complaints Coordinator actually solves.
“Squarespace froze it — no meaningful new features in years”
Scheduling here is one organ of a living product — the same team ships the books, the projects and the network it connects to.
“Email-only support with bot-driven answers”
A real support address, no bot in front of it.
“No free tier — the trial is seven days”
The free tier is the product. All of it, forever.
“Calendar-count ceilings force the next tier”
Unlimited staff calendars — and rooms and equipment get calendars too, free.
“The booking page is scheduling-only; everything else lives elsewhere”
The booking is attached to the client, the invoice and the books the moment it lands — because they're one system.
What they love about Acuity — kept
Kept: intake at booking, prepayment, session packages with per-session revenue recognition, group classes with waitlists.
Kept: a clean page, real availability, no client accounts ever.
Kept: collective and shift-pooled round-robin, capacity-managed group events.
Where Acuity may still fit
No tool wins everything, and we'd rather you pick with open eyes.
If your site runs on Squarespace, Acuity's embed and ecosystem integration is seamless.
Rebuild your appointment types and intake questions (they map one-to-one), point your site's booking button at your new page, and let existing appointments run out on Acuity.
Free. No card. About two minutes to set up.
The free Acuity Scheduling alternative, summarized
If you're searching for a Acuity Scheduling alternative, the short version: Coordinator is free for unlimited users — no tiers, no usage meters, no renewal-day surprises — and it covers what Acuity does for scheduling & booking alongside the rest of a small business's operations: real accounting, projects with job costing, booking pages and staff scheduling, client records and forms, team chat, and a cross-company network where your invoice lands in your client's books. Acuity still fits some buyers — see the fair print above — but if the complaints on this page sound familiar, switching is usually an afternoon.
Explore the scheduling & booking side of Coordinator on free-scheduling-software, see everything it does, or read why it's free.
Keep the Acuity money
Set up free in minutes, import what you have, and put the subscription line to better use.
Free. No card. About two minutes to set up.