Systems for getting booked for your time

Every service business runs on one scarce resource: your time. So why give it away to people who book, confirm, then never show? Across small businesses, 20-25% of appointments become no-shows – quietly draining thousands of dollars a year from calendars just like yours.

In this practical, no-fluff session, we compare the 6 most popular booking systems – Calendly, Cal.com, HubSpot Meetings, Zoho Bookings, SimplyBook.me, and Microsoft Bookings – head to head. The focus: what each one's free tier can and can't do, and the feature that matters most – taking payment at the time of booking.

You'll walk away knowing:

• which 2 systems let you charge clients (or take a deposit) on a genuinely free plan – and which make you pay to get paid
• how a small deposit can cut no-shows by 40-60%
• the hidden limits inside every free plan (and which ceiling you'll hit first)
• a simple Monday-morning checklist to set your system up right.