Acuity Scheduling

What it is

Acuity Scheduling is appointment booking software for businesses whose product is their time: salons, coaches, therapists, trainers, studios. Clients book themselves on a branded booking page that shows real availability around the clock, and the appointment lands on your calendar. Around that core, Acuity adds the business layer that appointment businesses actually run on: taking payment at booking through Stripe, Square, or PayPal, selling packages, memberships, and gift certificates, and managing multiple staff members and rooms or resources. It is part of Squarespace.

Who it's for (and who it isn't)

Acuity fits service businesses with recurring client appointments, especially where money changes hands per appointment. If you currently take bookings by phone or Instagram DM, chase no-shows manually, and track payments separately, Acuity replaces that whole stack with one flow: client books, pays, and gets reminded without you touching anything. All plans include unlimited services and appointments, and staff and resource management means it stretches from a solo practitioner to a multi-location team.

It's a weaker fit for office workers whose scheduling pain is meetings rather than client appointments. Booking sales calls or interviews from your inbox is a lighter job, and a tool like Calendly covers it with less setup, as described in scheduling calls from email. Acuity's extra weight only pays off when you use the business features.

Pricing

Acuity is paid software: plans start from $16 per month, billed annually. There is no free tier, but there is a 7-day free trial that doesn't ask for a credit card, which is enough to set up your services and take a real booking before deciding.

Set it up

Official guide: Getting started with Acuity Scheduling

1. Go to acuityscheduling.com and start the free trial. It lasts 7 days and needs no credit card, and plans start from $16/mo, billed annually, after it. You do not need a website to use Acuity. Log in at acuityscheduling.com/login.php. You now see your calendar.
2. Add your first service, which Acuity calls an appointment type. Open the "Appointment Types" panel and click "New Type of Service". Name the service, add a duration, and choose which calendars offer it. Leave the price blank if you do not charge. Click "Create". Your service now appears in the list.
3. Tell Acuity when you take appointments. Click "Availability". If you have more than one calendar, click "Edit Availability/Limits" on one of them. Leave "This service group has regular hours every week" checked, type your hours for each day, such as 8 AM - 5 PM, and click "Save regular hours". A small calendar now appears in the top-left corner.
4. Stop double bookings by linking your Google Calendar. Click "Sync with Other Calendars", then "Google", then "Connect to Google Calendar", and follow the prompts to log in. Pick the Google calendar to connect to your Acuity calendar, check the box so Acuity blocks off time for events in Google Calendar, and click "Save". Acuity now treats your Google Calendar events as busy time.
5. Find your booking link. Open the "Scheduling Page" panel, click "Link", and click "Copy" in the "General Scheduling Page" section. Open the link in a new browser tab. It shows the page your clients see.

To get paid when clients book, click "Payments", find your provider (Stripe, PayPal or Square) in "Payment Processors", click "Connect", and follow the instructions. That provider charges its own fees, billed separately from Acuity. Then edit your appointment type and add its price.

When this works, clients open your link, pick a service and a free time, and the booking appears on your calendar without any email back and forth. To use it for your own work, add one appointment type for each service you really sell, then paste your link into your Instagram bio, your website and your email signature.

Strengths and limitations

Acuity's strength is completeness for appointment businesses: booking, payments, packages, reminders, and staff scheduling in one system, at a flat monthly price rather than per-seat pricing that punishes growing teams.

The limitation is that there's no free plan, so unlike freemium booking tools you're paying from month one. And if your need is plain meeting scheduling without payments or client management, most of what you're paying for goes unused.