Switching from Calendly to Acuity Scheduling
Switching from Calendly to Acuity Scheduling usually means moving from lightweight meeting scheduling to a platform built for service businesses that need appointment packages, memberships, and intake forms.
Why teams switch from Calendly to Acuity Scheduling
Built for service-business bookings
Acuity supports appointment packages, gift certificates, memberships, and intake forms that Calendly, built mainly for meetings, doesn’t offer.
More granular calendar and payment control
Acuity’s per-appointment-type payment collection and multi-calendar support suit businesses with varied services and staff schedules.
SMS reminders and client management
Acuity’s Standard and Premium plans add SMS reminders and a fuller client history view than Calendly’s meeting-centric contact tools.
Switching Cost & Friction Estimator
Estimate the real hidden cost of moving from Calendly to Acuity Scheduling — not just the subscription price.
How to migrate your data
There’s no Calendly-specific import in Acuity — you’ll rely on Acuity’s generic CSV importer for client data only.
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Export Calendly contacts | Use Calendly’s limited-availability contacts export to pull client names and emails into a CSV file. |
| 2. Format the CSV for Acuity’s importer | Reformat the export to match Acuity’s required columns for client or appointment imports, keeping each file to 500 rows or fewer. |
| 3. Import clients into Acuity | Upload the CSV through Acuity’s client/appointment import tool, splitting larger lists into multiple 500-row files as needed. |
| 4. Recreate event types as Acuity appointment types | Manually rebuild each Calendly event type as an Acuity appointment type, since booking-page configurations don’t transfer between platforms. |
| 5. Rebuild availability and calendar connections | Reconnect Google/Outlook calendars and manually reset your availability windows and buffer times inside Acuity. |
| 6. Update booking links everywhere | Replace Calendly booking links in your website, email signatures, and CRM with your new Acuity scheduling page URL. |
Pricing during the transition
Both tools offer a genuinely free tier or trial, but their paid tiers serve different use cases.
| Plan | Calendly | Acuity Scheduling |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Free plan: $0/month (1 event type, 1 calendar) | No permanent free plan — 7-day free trial only |
| Entry paid tier | Standard: around $10/seat/month | Starter: around $20/month |
| Mid tier | Teams: around $16/seat/month | Standard: around $34/month |
Acuity has no permanently free plan, only a 7-day trial, while Calendly’s free tier remains usable indefinitely for very basic one-on-one scheduling.
Feature-parity checklist
Calendly focuses on flexible meeting scheduling; Acuity is purpose-built for appointment-based service businesses.
| Feature | Calendly | Acuity Scheduling equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Appointment packages & memberships | Not supported | Native support for packages, gift certificates, memberships |
| Round-robin / team routing | Strong on Teams plan | More limited team-routing features |
| SMS reminders | Not available | Included from Standard plan up |
| Intake forms | Basic booking-question fields | Detailed, service-specific intake forms |
| CRM/Salesforce integration | Native Salesforce integration on Teams plan | Available mainly via Zapier or the Squarespace ecosystem |
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I import my Calendly event types into Acuity?
No, there’s no automated way to bring over event-type configurations — you’ll need to manually recreate each appointment type in Acuity.
Will imported clients get a confirmation email in Acuity?
No, Acuity explicitly does not send confirmation emails for imported appointments, so plan a separate client communication if needed.
What’s the row limit for Acuity’s CSV import?
500 rows per file — larger client or appointment lists need to be split into multiple files.
Can I import gift certificates or membership packages?
No, Acuity’s import tool cannot bring in packages, gift certificates, or subscriptions; these have to be set up fresh.
How long does switching from Calendly to Acuity usually take?
For a single provider, a day or two to rebuild appointment types and availability; multi-staff businesses with packages and memberships should budget a week or more.
Canonical data for the tools on this page
Every pricing fact, rating, AI billing model and switching guide we hold on each tool, on one page — with the date each figure was last verified.